BSO — 2020/01/25

The Dvořák is a familiar "warhorse." The stuff before the intermission could be interesting. Performance detail says:

Continuing the BSO’s cycle of music by Dmitri Shostakovich, Music Director Andris Nelsons conducts Rudolf Barshai’s string-orchestra arrangement of the composer’s Eighth String Quartet, Op. 110 (1960), which the composer suggested was his most autobiographical work. (Barshai was an important conductor and champion of Shostakovich’s music; Op. 110a was the first and most important of several arrangements of Shostakovich’s string quartets.) Completing the program are Samuel Barber’s Medea’s Mediation and Dance of Vengeance, a 15-minute concert work excerpted from a 1946 ballet score for the choreographer Martha Graham, and Czech composer Antonín Dvořák’s New World Symphony, the most important piece he composed during his years in the U.S., when he was director of the National Conservatory of Music in New York City. The beloved four-movement symphony uses musical elements shared by both North American and Czech folk music

(Some emphasis added.)

It's too late for me to find and link reviews. It's on WCRB this evening and Monday week as usual.

BSO — 2020/01/18

There is new music (pretty good, IMO), familiar Mozart music, and unfamiliar Tchaikovsky music in this week's Boston Symphony concert. The performance detail page (for once listing the pieces in the order they will be performed — now that wasn't so hard, was it?) tells us:

Making his subscription series debut with these concerts, BSO Assistant Conductor Yu-An Chang, who is from Taiwan, leads the world premiere of a new BSO-commissioned work by the prominent Taiwanese-American composer Chihchun Chi-sun Lee. Austrian pianist Till Fellner makes his second appearances with the BSO as soloist in Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 25, the biggest, most symphonic, and most contrapuntally intricate of his concertos. Compared to his five other symphonies, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 3 (the nickname “Polish” was not the composer’s own) is rarely performed; the BSO last played it in Symphony Hall in 1995. The symphony is, unusually, in five movements, three of which are strongly dance-oriented.

(All emphasis added.)

The title of the new piece is "Formosan Triptych," and there is plenty of descriptive material available via links from the performance detail page, WCRB, and the Boston Musical Intelligencer.

I couldn't be there on Thursday, but I exchanged my ticket and attended the Friday afternoon performance, which I enjoyed. The "Formosan Triptych" was never unpleasant to listen to. I caught some of what the program notes mention ( e.g., horn player Jason Snider and tuba player Mike Roylance blowing through their instruments), but other things I could only guess at. Even if the criticisms in the Intelligencer are fair, I wasn't at all unhappy with what I heard in the Mozart and Tchaikovsky. BTW, the conductor was very animated, using big, fluid gestures to direct the orchestra.

The review in the Globe expresses dissatisfaction with how the Tchaikovsky was performed, but likes the Mozart. Of course, with a world premiere, a critic is in no position to say they got it wrong, and the reviews are mainly descriptive. As hinted earlier, the Intelligencer's reviewer was dissatisfied with how both the Mozart and Tchaikovsky were performed. On the Intelligencer's front page, you can also find interview articles with Ms. Lee and Mr. Fellner.

I think you'll like this concert, so I recommend listening over WCRB at 8:00, Boston Time, this evening, and again (same time) on Monday, January 27.

BSO — 2020/01/11

This evening the BSO gives us a Francophile's delight (unless your taste in French music runs more to Marc-Antoine Charpentier or Hector Berlioz): a French conductor, a French organist, and three French composers. Details and links are to be found, appropriately, on the orchestra's performance detail page, where we read:

French conductor Alain Altinoglu, who first conducted the BSO in spring 2017, returns with an all-French program featuring the debut of the outstanding French organist Thierry Escaich in two works showcasing the Symphony Hall organ. Francis Poulenc described his ambitious 1938 Organ Concerto as being close in intent to his religious music. The concerto was given its American premiere by Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops with organist E. Power Biggs in 1941 in Symphony Hall. Closing the program is Camille Saint-Saëns’ popular, exuberant Symphony No. 3, which features the organ as a solo and orchestral instrument. Altinoglu also leads his own orchestral suite of music from Claude Debussy’s uniquely gorgeous and probing operatic masterpiece Pelléas et Mélisande.

(Some emphasis added.)

The Thursday concert was part of my subscription, but it was a cold night at the end of a cold snap, and Debussy and Poulenc aren't my favorite composers, and I've heard  the Saint-Saëns several times,so I decided to stay home. The rave reviews in the Globe and the Intelligencer tell me that I made a big mistake and that we should all be listening when WCRB broadcasts and streams it live this evening at 8:00 EST. This week they are promising the usual encore broadcast/webstream, on January 20. Check out their website for links to more about the concert, as well as other programming.

BSO — 2020/01/04

The BSO returns to Symphony Hall with a couple of familiar pieces and a pleasant enough curtain raiser to precede them. The performance detail page has the usual links and this description:

Former BSO assistant conductor Marcelo Lehninger, who last led the BSO in 2014, is joined by distinguished pianist Javier Perianes for Beethoven’s heaven-storming Piano Concerto No. 5. Completed in 1811, it was the composer’s final concerto, a work perfectly balancing virtuosity with substance and depth and epitomizing the composer’s “heroic” period. (Perianes last performed with the BSO in March 2016.) Beethoven’s bright, five-minute overture to The Creatures of Prometheus, composed in 1801, was part of his complete ballet score, the first music he ever wrote for the theater. Closing the program is Tchaikovsky’s 1888 Symphony No. 5, a work as intensely lyrical as it is powerful, which uses a recurring “fate theme” to unify all four movements.

(Some emphasis added.)

The piano concerto, nicknamed "Emperor" only in the English-speaking world, is one of my favorite pieces of music, so I really enjoyed the first half of the concert. While Tchaikovsky isn't that high on my list of favorites, his music isn't bad. All in all, it was a fine evening on Thursday when I attended the performance, likely my favorite concert of the season.

The reviewers weren't as happy as I was. The Globe found plenty to dislike about the playing of the Beethoven; the Intelligencer found fault with both halves of the concert, although also some good things as well, mostly with the Tchaikovsky. Maybe this is a case where you're happier if you're not too sophisticated. The only criticism I had was that the pianist seemed to be playing the left hand part too softly.

So I recommend it unreservedly. Listen in over WCRB at 8:00 p.m., Boston Time this evening. They don't seem to be promising a rebroadcast on Monday, the 13th. We'll have to wait and see. Meanwhile, listen this evening to be sure you catch it.

Enjoy.