BSO — 2018/10/27

This week's concert begins with Lux Æterna, by Maija Einfelde, conducted by James Burton, the conductor of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. That brief work is followed by Mahler's massive Symphony No. 2, "Resurrection," conducted by Music Director Andris Nelsons. The BSO's program detail page has the usual links to further information. It also has this blurb about the concert:

BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons conducts Mahler's all-embracing ninety-minute Symphony No. 2, Resurrection, featuring the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, along with Chinese soprano Ying Fang and Argentine-born mezzo-soprano Bernarda Fink. The fourth movement is a setting of "Urlicht," a poem from Des Knaben Wunderhorn, a source of texts for many of Mahler's songs, and the vast finale includes a setting for chorus and soprano of verses from Klopstock's poem "Resurrection." James Burton will conduct Maija's Einfelde's Lux aeterna, for mixed chorus, the first of two Latvian works performed this year to mark the centenary of the country's independence.

Reviews are in. The reviewer in the Globe gave a decidedly critical review of the performance of both works, but the reviewer for the Boston Musical Intelligencer was happy with the result. It wasn't part of my subscriptions, so I can't settle the disagreement.

You can hear the show beginning at 8:00 p.m., EDST, on air or on line via WCRB. If you have to listen to the Red Sox in Game 4 of the World Series at that time, you can catch the rebroadcast/stream on Monday, Nov. 5, also at 8:00 p.m.

BSO — 2018/10/20

This week we get a curtain-raiser by John Harbison, followed by two works by early 20th Century Russian composers. Here's the blurb from the orchestra's performance detail page:

BSO Associate Conductor Ken-David Masur is joined by outstanding American pianist Garrick Ohlsson for a work heard relatively rarely despite the popularity of its composer, Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 1. The early First Concerto exhibits the same spirit of Russian lyricism and virtuosity found in his perennially popular Second and Third concertos. Opening the program is John Harbison's Jazz Age-flavored foxtrot Remembering Gatsby, an orchestral work foreshadowing his acclaimed opera based on F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. This is one of several Harbison works this season celebrating the Pulitzer Prize-winning Boston-based composer's 80th birthday year. Closing the program are excerpts from Prokofiev's ballet score Romeo and Juliet, which includes some of the composer's best-known music.

(Some emphasis added.)

I stayed home with a cold on Thursday evening, so I can't tell you anything about how they did. I have vague memories of a prior performance of "Remembering Gatsby," and it was okay. The Globe review praised Garrick Ohlsson's playing as "relaxed and almost contemplative no matter the tempo," and had no fault to find with any of the concert. The review in the Boston Musical Intelligencer seems to agree with the Globe about the playing of the Rachmaninoff — but with fancier vocabulary, The reviewer also finds little fault with anything else, giving a nice synopsis of the Harbison.

Well, the Harbison may not be to everyone's liking, but it's short; and it seems the rest is definitely worth hearing. You can listen in at 8:00 p.m., Boston Time over WCRB FM and on line. If you miss it this evening, there is the customary rebroadcast/stream on Monday, October 29 at 8:00, p.m. (Last Saturday's concert is similarly available this Monday, Oct. 22, at 8:00.)

Enjoy.

BSO — 2018/10/13

This week the Boston Symphony opens its/open their for my British readers 2018-2019 Symphony Hall season, so we will be able to hear a live concert from Symphony Hall. The orchestra's program detail page has links to their Media Center, audio previews of the concert, program notes from the program booklet, and a bio of the conductor (available by clicking on the thumbnail picture. It also gives this description of the concert (annoyingly listing the works out of the order in which they will be performed):

Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra-a work commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky and premiered by the BSO in 1944-anchors this season-opening program highlighting the virtuosity of the orchestra's string, woodwind, brass, and percussion sections. Acclaimed Finnish conductor Hannu Lintu, making his BSO debut, conducts that work, as well as Stravinsky's piquant Symphonies of Wind Instruments and Tchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings.

(Emphasis added.)

The synopsis is inaccurate in one detail. The strings played the Tchaikovsky without a conductor on Thursday, and the program booklet indicates that it was planned to be without conductor on Friday and Saturday, as well.

I have seen three reviews of the Thursday performance: one in the Boston Classical Review, one in the Boston Globe, and one in the Boston Musical Intelligencer. The Classical Review liked the playing of the Stravinsky and Bartók, but the Tchaikovsky not so much. For the Globe, it was all good. The reviewer in the Intelligencer found the Tchaikovsky transformed into a "stone sculpture," was unhappy with how they did the Stravinsky, and was scathing about the performance of the Bartók. If you're familiar with the music, you can decide whose take agrees with yours.

I was there on Thursday and thought the Stravinsky (new to me) was unpleasant, the Tchaikovsky unremarkable, and the Bartók tolerable apart from the brass screams. I'm not enough of a musician to judge the reviewers' takes on how the music was performed. As far as I could tell, they were doing it competently.  But to my tastes, none of it was "must listening," and I'll probably pass up the chance to hear it again so I can listen to the Red Sox game. OTOH, if you're not a Sox fan, you'll probably enjoy the Tchaikovsky and some of the gentler parts of the Bartók.

As always, the show begins at 8:00 p.m., Boston Time (EDST) and can be heard on air or on line via WCRB. You might want to check out other pages on their website and see what else they offer.

BSO/Classical New England — 2018/10/06

This evening's concert is unusual in that it was originally performed on the afternoon of May 4, 2018, which was a Friday, but not at any other time that week. There was an all-Brahms program on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. So this concert wasn't broadcast when it was given, and I haven't heard it in person either., meaning that I haven't previously posted about it. Here's the description from the BSO's performance detail page:

BSO Assistant Conductor Moritz Gnann leads this single Friday-afternoon program, which features principal oboe John Ferrillo in the Oboe Concerto of Alessandro Marcello, a slightly older contemporary of his fellow Venetian Antonio Vivaldi. Opening the program is a group of canzonas by the earlier Venetian composer Giovanni Gabrieli, who was active in the late 1500s and early 1600s. Completing the first half of this program is a wind-ensemble arrangement of numbers from Rossini's delightful and familiar 19th-century comic opera The Barber of Seville. Mozart's G minor symphony, No. 40, is among the most enduringly popular of all thecomposer's works.

(Some emphasis added.)

The Globe seems not to have reviewed it, but the Boston Musical Intelligencer has this review by its publisher. Basically, he enjoyed the first half, but was disappointed in the second. (So I won't mind too much when my brother's weekly call from Japan interrupts my listening.)

Hear it all over WCRB at 8:00 p.m., Boston Time (i.e., EDST).