BSO/Classical New England — 2019/05/25

The encore broadcast this week is from the third week of last season at Symphony Hall — October 27, 2018. My post at the time includes the synopsis from the orchestra's performance detail page

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. 

Please note there will be no intermission for these performances.

as well as links to the usual reviews.
(Emphasis in original.)

Mahler's symphonies from this time are pretty easy to take, so I recommend listening to this one. I don't have a clear recollection of the Einfelde piece that opened the concert, but I vaguely recall it as not bad. As always, tune in to WCRB at 8:00 p.m. this evening and/or Monday, June 3.

BSO/Classical New England — 2019/05/18

This week's encore broadcast is the second concert of last year's Symphony Hall season, originally broadcast October 20, 2018. I posted about it back then, and here's a link to the orchestra's program detail page. There is music of John Harbison, Rachmaninoff, and Prokofiev.

It should be worth hearing, this evening at 8:00 and again on Monday, May 27, over WCRB.

BSO/Classical New England — 2019/05/11

In the first of the "encore broadcasts" which will fill the 8:00 p.m. time slots between now and the BSO opening of the Tanglewood Season, this evening WCRB will retransmit the concert which opened the Symphony Hall season last October. I heard it on October 11 and posted about it at the time, with links to reviews and the BSO's performance detail page.

As you can see, neither the reviewers nor I thought it was the greatest thing since sliced bread, but the Red Sox played this afternoon, so I'll listen until my kid brother calls from Tokyo.

Here's the link to WCRB, where you can hear it, and also learn about lots of other programs they offer.

Let your conscience be your guide, and enjoy as much as you can.

BSO — 2019/05/03

The final concerts of the BSO Symphony Hall season include the world premiere performances of a violin concerto and two familiar works from over a century ago. The orchestra's program detail page has the usual links to background information. Here's how it synopsizes the program:

The Latvian violinist Baiba Skride joins her compatriot Andris Nelsons and the BSO for the world premiere of Grawemeyer Award-winning composer Sebastian Currier's Aether for violin and orchestra, a work co-commissioned by the BSO and the Gewandhaus Orchestra of Leipzig. Two unpredictable musical rogues bookend the new work: Till Eulenspiegel, who in Strauss's tone poem thumbs his nose at the establishment, rides his horse through a market, and comes to no good end; and Stravinsky's puppet-come-to-life Petrushka, whose attempts to win the admiration of a ballerina come to naught. In his second full ballet score for the Ballets Russes, two years before The Rite of Spring, Stravinsky's astonishing musical depictions of a Russian Shrovetide fair further cemented the reputation of the young composer of The Firebird.

(Some emphasis added.)

I was there on Thursday and overall I'd say the concert was okay. The bombast of the Strauss and Stravinsky made the Currier concerto seem tame. Actually, I'd say it was tame, except during the second movement. I was very pleased to hear a brand new piece that was so pleasant, and I'm looking forward to hearing it on the radio. I've thought of "Petrushka" as more musical and easier to take than "Rite of Spring," and I still think so. But listening to it on Thursday, I realized that it definitely sounds like the work of the same man who composed "Rite of Spring" — jagged and cacophonous amid the melodies. "Till Eulenspiegel" also felt more gruff and harsh than merry. In summary, I'd rather hear "Aether" than "Till" or "Petrushka."

The reviews were favorable for all pieces. The one in the Globe hoped "Aether" would be programmed again, and the one in the Musical Intelligencer called for it to be recorded.

I recommend listening to the concert on WCRB at 8:00 p.m on Saturday, May 3, and a repeat broadcast/webstream Monday, May 13, also at 8:00. If you click on the headline about the world premiere, you can hear an interview with Sebastian Currier.

The BSO will open their Tanglewood season on Friday, July 5, and close it on Sunday, August 25. During that period, there will be three concerts broadcast and streamed every weekend, as in past years. On the remaining weekends of May and during June, WCRB will fill the Saturday evening time slot with "encore performances" from the season just ending (and possibly a Pops concert — I haven't found the complete schedule for these weekends).

Enjoy!