BSO — 2018/11/24

This week's concert is all Beethoven. I'll let the program detail page provide details.

Beethoven often composed several major works at the same time, each a distinctly different expressive outlet. He began sketching his Fifth Symphony in 1804 but didn't complete it until four years later. The innovative construction of that piece and its unprecedented intensity are embodied in the opening four notes, the most famous theme in classical music. In the interim between the Fifth's first sketches and its completion, Beethoven wrote some of his most lyrical music-for the opera Leonore (which would become Fidelio) and the Fourth Symphony. The latter's consistent high spirits contrast starkly with the struggle against fate embodied in the Fifth.

(Some emphasis added.)

Music Director Andris Nelsons will be at the podium, and the order of performance will be the 4th followed, after intermission by the 5th. (Why is it such a seeming requirement for the writers of the blurbs to treat the pieces in a different order from the performance?) Of course the usual links are available at the page.

At this point, there are no reviews available. Since Thursday was Thanksgiving, the first performance was Friday afternoon. But after all, it's Beethoven and this is the BSO, so what could go wrong. Maybe some nuance will be brought out, or maybe someone will do a bit exceptionally well or flub something; but you know that basically it'll be worth listening to. Unfortunately for me, I think the 4th is the worst symphony Beethoven ever wrote. The first movement is okay, and the second is lovely, but the last two are coarse and unappealing to me. And I'll have to miss the 5th, because my brother will be making his weekly call from Japan when they're playing it. Fortunately, there is the rebroadcast on December 3. I can hear it then.

Anyway, you'll want to have your ears figuratively glued to your radio or computer this evening at 8:00 Boston Time, when WCRB will transmit it for your listening pleasure.

BSO — 2018/11/17

This has been a very busy couple of days. I'll post the link to the BSO's program detail page and copy their blurb about this week's concert. I don't have time for the usual other rigmarole. Enjoy!

Swedish trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger, a longtime collaborator of Andris Nelsons, returns to Symphony Hall as soloist in a concerto composed for him, the Viennese composer HK Gruber's Aerial. Featuring piccolo trumpet and cow's horn as well as standard trumpet, the concerto makes full use of Hardenberger's considerable virtuosity and expressive range. Mahler composed his Fifth Symphony in 1901-02. His first completely instrumental symphony since No. 1, it marked a new, highly individual, and influential approach to writing for orchestra that would carry through the remainder of Mahler's symphonies. The Fifth includes the famous and moving Adagietto movement for strings and harp.

(Some emphasis added.)

BSO — 2018/11/10

The premieres just keep on coming. This week it's the American premiere of a work written to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of Latvian independence (which, coincidentally is the 100th for Lithuania, Estonia, and Finland). At the orchestra's program detail page, you can follow the links to sonic and written background on that piece — including a note from the composer — and the rest of the program. There we also find this synopsis:

The BSO and Andris Nelsons give the American premiere of Latvian composer Andris Dzenītis's orchestral work Māra, a BSO co-commission with the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig. This is one of two works being performed by the BSO this season to mark the 100th anniversary of Latvian independence (declared November 18, 1918). Dzenītis calls his new work, which is dedicated to Andris Nelsons and takes its title from a goddess in Latvian mythology, "the musical encoding of my personal understanding of what it means to be Latvian." Opening the program is Shostakovich's Symphony No. 1, to be recorded live as part of Andris Nelsons and the BSO's multi-season exploration of the composer's symphonies. Shostakovich wrote this symphony while he was still a student, and it immediately established him as one of Russia's leading artistic figures. Completing the program is Act II of Tchaikovsky's vibrant, beloved ballet score The Nutcracker, which includes the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy and the famous series of exotic national dances well-known from the popular Nutcracker Suite.

(Some emphasis added.)
Although the detail page says the Shostakovich comes first, but both the program notes and the reviews make it clear that the Dzenītis opens the concert, followed by the Shostakovich.

I had a ticket as part of my subscription, but I forwent the opportunity to attend  because I was experiencing some soreness/tenderness in my lower abdomen, rising to the level of discomfort or pain when I'd get up from a chair. So I thought that all the moving about would be inadvisable. (The symptoms may be very gradually diminishing as the days drag on or fly by, as the case may be.)

The reviews are in and they tell me I wish I had felt up to going on Thursday, and that I want to hear it this evening.  As always, the Globe doesn't have much space, but finds no fault with anything. In the Intelligencer, the reviews of the Dzenītis and Shostakovich were extensive enough to double as program notes, and the reviewer found no fault. But after intermission, he was a bit less pleased with the "Nutcracker," to a considerable extent because he felt that as the BSO played it, it would be difficult to dance to. He grudgingly admitted that as just music it was good.

So here's another concert I can recommend listening to over the facilities of WCRB at 8:00 p.m., EST, this evening and/or the rebroadcast at 8:00 on Monday, November 19.

BSO — 2018/11/03

This evening a couple of "golden oldies" surround a piece which the BSO is giving its American premiere this week. On the orchestra's program detail page we read:

In this London-oriented program, Andris Nelsons leads the BSO in the American premiere of the first of several BSO co-commissions this season, English composer Mark-Anthony Turnage's Remembering: In Memoriam Evan Scofield. Evan, son of the great jazz guitarist and Turnage collaborator John Scofield, died of cancer at age twenty-five. The piece was co-commissioned by the BSO with the Berlin Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestra. Opening the program is Haydn's Symphony No. 93, one of the first of the group of bold, innovative symphonies he wrote for performance in London during his visits there in the early 1790s. The English composer Edward Elgar's tour-de-force of orchestral and expressive imagination, the Enigma Variations, is a series of widely varied portraits of his friends via transformations of a common musical theme.

(Some emphasis added.)
The page also has the usual links to background material.

I was there for the first performance of the program on Thursday. I didn't notice anything spectacular in the playing of the Haydn or the Elgar, but they are enjoyable to listen to. At the end of the Turnage piece, the composer joined the conductor on stage after the initial bows, and I was part of the warm ovation for him. I like to applaud composers who produce listenable works. As the program notes point out, the work is in four parts. The first part struck me as jazzy. The second seemed noisy and cacophonous. If that had been the whole thing, I wouldn't have been so inclined to applaud the composer. The third part had both jazzy and noisy elements. In the last part, which was the first composed, we finally got calm and elegiac music such as one would expect in a piece expressing sorrow.

The review in the Globe is favorable (but not a rave) and gives an insight into the meaning of the first three parts of "Remembering." The Boston Musical Intelligencer's review, less encumbered than the Globe's by space limitations, is also favorable, with more detail.

So I definitely recommend listening over WCRB at 8:00 p.m. EDST this evening, November 3, and/or at 8:00 EST on Monday, Nov. 12. A second page on the station's website gives links to a conversation with composer Turnage and another, about the program, with Andris Nelsons.

Enjoy.