BSO/Classical New England — 2019/12/28

Next week, the BSO resumes their season at Symphony Hall. This week's "encore broadcast," while the Holiday Pops conclude, is the concert performed on January 26, 2019 — about 11 months ago. I think it's worth tuning in for the repeat. I wrote about it at the time, and you can go there for links to reviews as well as for my thoughts about it. Just to expand a bit: I thought "Ciel d'hiver" actually did  evoke a winter sky.

In case you don't feel like tracking down my post from last January, here's the synopsis from the performance detail page.

Making his BSO subscription series debut, conductor John Storgårds leads pianist Martin Helmchen in Mozart's gregarious, large-scale Piano Concerto in E-flat, K.482, composed in late 1785 when Mozart was also working on his comic opera The Marriage of Figaro. The Finnish Storgårds also brings three Finnish works to Symphony Hall, beginning with Kaija Saariaho's gorgeous study of orchestral color Ciel d'hiver ("Winter Sky"), an arrangement of a movement from her earlier, symphony-like Orion. Jean Sibelius's final two symphonies, nos. 6 and 7, are two of the greatest works in the symphonic literature. Though very different from one another, both demonstrate the composer's distinctively rich orchestration and organic, fluid transformations of material.

(Some emphasis added.)

As always, you can hear it all on air or over the web on WCRB at 8:00 p.m. EST. They also have links to features about this concert and other broadcasts they offer.

BSO/Classical New England — 2019/12/14

Sorry I didn't have a chance to past about last week's "encore broadcast" concert.

Now that Holiday Pops has taken over Symphony Hall, WCRB takes us for a meander down our musical memory lane. This week we can hear the concert of November 10, 2018. It starts with the American premiere of a work co-commissioned by the BSO — Māra, by Andris Dzenītis. That is followed by Symphony No. 1 by Shostakovich. After intermission they play the music for the second act of Tchaikovsky's ever popular ballet, The Nutcracker, which may help encourage people to attend a performance of the full ballet, which Boston Ballet gives every December.

You can find a bit more information as well as the usual links at the performance detail page. My post at the time (with links to reviews) recommends listening, and I have no reason to change that recommendation. As always, you can hear it at 8:00 p.m., Boston Time, over WCRB online or on air.

I neglected to hit the "Publish" button on Saturday. I'm doing it now, Monday morning, for posterity and on the off chance that they'll retransmit the concert a week from today.