BSO/Classical New England — 2018/09/22

This week's rebroadcast on WCRB is the concert of February 25, 2017: a triple concerto by Sofia Gubaidulina which was receiving its premiere performances and Shostakovich's Eighth Symphony. I wrote about it at the time and, as you can see, thought it was good. The synopsis on the orchestra's performance detail page is as follows:

The Russian-born Sofia Gubaidulina, acclaimed as one of the most significant composers in the world today, was encouraged in her career early on by Dmitri Shostakovich. She wrote her Triple Concerto (a BSO co-commission receiving its world premiere at these concerts) for the unusual combination of violin, cello, and bayan, a type of accordion often employed by Gubaidulina and a mainstay of Russian folk music. Joining Latvian violinist Baiba Skride are Dutch cellist Harriet Krijgh and Swiss bayanist Elsbeth Moser, both making their BSO debuts. Shostakovich wrote his Seventh Symphony, Leningrad, as a tribute to the peoples' fortitude in the face of the German Army's long and destructive siege of that city during World War II. Serge Koussevitzky led the first U.S. concert performances of the piece with the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra in August 1942, following the NBC Symphony's radio broadcast premiere under Toscanini the previous month. The present performances continue Andris Nelsons' and the BSO's survey of the complete Shostakovich symphonies, which are being recorded for Deutsche Grammophon.

(Some emphasis added.)

I'll be in Boston this evening attending Odyssey Opera's performance of "La reine de Saba" by Gounod. If you can't be there, I think this concert will be worth (re)hearing this evening at 8:00 EDST.