BSO/Classical New England — 2020/05/30

This week's "encore broadcast" and webstream on WCRB is the concert of October 19, 2019.
Here's what I posted about it at the time:

This week it's "the four B's," extending Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms with some Bartók. The performance detail page describes it like this:

The eminent Hungarian-born pianist András Schiff made his BSO debut in 1983 and last appeared with the orchestra in 2008. In his first appearances with the BSO as a conductor, he leads Bach’s F minor concerto and Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 1 from the keyboard. After intermission, he takes the podium to conduct Brahms’s Haydn Variations and Bartók’s pungent folk-influenced Dance Suite. The Haydn Variations are based on the “Chorale St. Antoni,” a well-known melody once attributed to Haydn. Composed in 1873, this was Brahms’ biggest foray into purely orchestral music prior to completing his first symphony three years later. Based on a variety of traditional dance melodies, Bartók’s Dance Suite was immensely successful at the time of its 1923 premiere.

(Some emphasis added.)

The page has the usual links to program notes and related media. WCRB has a page with a link to an interview with Maestro Schiff.

I was still away on Thursday, so I didn't hear the performance, but the reviewer in the Globe was deeply impressed with Maestro Schiff's performance. The review in the Intelligencer is equally favorable, if less extensive.

So, by all means give a listen over WCRB this evening at 8:00, Boston Time. 

At this point, I have nothing to add, so I'll just repeat the suggestion to listen in.

BSO/Classical New England — 2020/05/23

This week WCRB gives us a repeat of the concert originally performed on October 12, 2019. Unfortunately, I was away at the time and didn't post anything about it. But here's the description on the orchestra's performance detail page:

The Russian-born conductor Dima Slobodeniouk makes his BSO subscription series debut in these concerts, collaborating with cellist Truls Mørk in Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto, the composer’s last masterpiece and one of the central works of the cello repertoire. Completing the program are works by two Nordic contemporaries. Jean Sibelius’ Pohjola’s Daughter is one of the composer’s many orchestral tone poems inspired by the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic. Denmark’s greatest symphonist, Carl Nielsen, composed his two-movement Symphony No. 5 in the early 1920s. Last played by the BSO in 1993, the Fifth moves from a dramatic, multipart opening movement to an affirmative, fugue-dominated finale.

(Some emphasis added.)
Of course, the performance detail page has the usual links to program notes, performer bios, and other material.

The reviewer in the Boston Globe was very pleased. The Boston Musical Intelligencer's review was mostly a description of what happens during the pieces, but the reviewer was also happy with how they were performed.

Based on those reviews, I'd say it should be an interesting concert, maybe not the best thing since sliced hard-boiled eggs, but definitely okay. Those who heard it seemed to like it.

So set your radio dial or your computer to WCRB at 8:00 p.m., Boston Time, and see how you feel about it.

Bonus: Sunday at 3:00, Yo-Yo Ma will give a performance of the Bach suites for cello. Details at the WCRB website.

BSO/Classical New England — 2020/05/16

This evening WCRB gives us a replay of the concert of September 18, 2019. I'll quote what I wrote then, making any needed corrections in brackets, and supplementing, if there's anything I want to add, after the quoting's over.

One great piece and one okay one (my opinion) are on the program this evening. Fortunately, the great one comes before my brother calls from Tokyo, so I get to hear it and only have to miss the okay one. Here's the description from the performance detail page (which also has the usual links to program notes etc.):

The outstanding Italian-born violinist Augustin Hadelich returns to Symphony Hall to perform Beethoven’s Violin Concerto, a pinnacle of the violin repertoire. It is also one of the most challenging violin concertos, demanding the utmost sensitivity and sense of line in its many lyrical passages, as well as pinpoint intensity in its faster episodes. Richard Strauss wrote a series of tone poems in the 1890s depicting larger-than-life concepts via such characters as Don Juan, Don Quixote, and—in the somewhat tongue-in-cheek Ein Heldenleben (“A Heroic Life”)—himself. By contrast, in his 1903 tone poem Symphonia domestica he turns his unsurpassed orchestral imagination to “a day in my family life,” depicting the ordinary interactions of himself, his wife Pauline, and their young son. These performances are part of Andris Nelsons’ and the BSO’s ongoing focus on Strauss’ works.

(Some emphasis added.)

[The Boston Globe gave a lukewarm review, finding the playing in the Beethoven too "Apollonian" and the Strauss tedious, although she had no complaints about how it was played.] The reviewer in the Boston Musical Intelligencer is ravished by the violin concerto and chuckles with amusement at the well played symphony.

[…]

[With these encore broadcasts, we don't get an "Encore! Encore!" on the Monday a week later. So if you want to hear it, "It's now or never."]

Here's WCRB's home page,  if you just want to begin listening at 8:00 p.m., EDST; and here's the one with more info and links about the concert.

BSO/Classical New England — 2020/05/09

This week WCRB gives us the concert that opened the 2019-2020 season. Here's what I wrote about it for the September 21 broadcast:

This evening we get the first Saturday concert of the new season. Here's the orchestra's synopsis from their program detail page:

BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons leads the opening concerts of the orchestra’s 2019–20 season, which feature the world premiere of the second BSO commission by the young American composer Eric Nathan, his Concerto for Orchestra, which highlights the virtuosity of the BSO’s various instrumental sections. Two Poulenc works of diverse character frame the program: his exciting, neo-Baroque Concerto in D minor for two pianos—here featuring the Dutch duo-pianist brothers Lucas and Arthur Jussen in their BSO debuts—and one of the most significant works first premiered by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the French composer’s optimistic and lyrical Gloria, here with soprano Nicole Cabell and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. In addition, the TFC, six recent Vocal Fellows of the Tanglewood Music Center, and piano soloist Arthur Jussen join the BSO for Beethoven’s majestic Choral Fantasy.

(Some emphasis added.)

I couldn't find a review in the Boston Globe. The one in the Boston Musical Intelligencer is detailed and generally quite favorable.

I was there live on Thursday evening. The Poulenc concerto was enjoyable to listen to. Unfortunately over the radio you probably won't be able to tell which one is playing — which was a good part of the enjoyment — but it should be okay as a strictly aural experience. The Beethoven Choral Fantasy is basically a cheerful work, and I really looked forward to being able to hear it in the hall. The best part is at the end when the singing takes place, and I wish Beethoven found a way to extend that and maybe not spend quite so long building up to it. But all is well at the end. After intermission, the Nathan concerto seemed to be musical at points, and rarely just plain cacophonous — not nearly so bad as a quick glance at the program notes had led me to believe. That was a pleasant surprise. Finally, the Poulenc "Gloria" had some very nice singing from the soprano.

So I think it'll be mostly good listening over WCRB beginning at 8:00 p.m., Boston Time. I can't get their home page to come up on my computer so I can link their url, but you can find it in previous posts.

It turns out there was also a review in the Globe — quite favorable.

The WCRB home page is here, and the concert page, with links, is here.

So enjoy, especially the first half.

BSO/Classical New England — 2020/05/02

This week's encore broadcast (and webstream) of the BSO takes us back to yesteryear (i.e., 2019) to the concert of February 9 of that year. Can I do better than copy and paste what I wrote back then? I'm not going to try. Here it is.

"It's all 20th Century music this week, but it could be worse. Some of it is very good and some of the rest isn't tough to take (at least for me). I'll let the BSO's [performance] detail page give the introduction:

The Georgian violinist Lisa Batiashvili joins Andris Nelsons and the BSO as soloist in the important Polish composer Karol Szymanowski's Violin Concerto No. 1, a brilliant piece colored by both French Impressionism and German late Romanticism. American orchestral works open and close the concert. The St. Louis-born Olly Wilson, who died in March 2018 (and whose Sinfonia was commissioned by the BSO for its centennial), was a longtime faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley. His well-traveled orchestral work Lumina is a scintillating, single-movement orchestral landscape. Aaron Copland's Symphony No. 3, premiered by the BSO under Serge Koussevitzky in 1946, is a substantial, expressively rich work incorporating the composer's familiar Fanfare for the Common Man as the theme of its final movement.

(Some emphasis added.)
Don't forget the links to performer bios and other info on the performance detail page.

I attended the performance on Thursday. The opening piece struck me as unmelodious and disjointed. I thought of Elliot Carter and Milton Babbitt, but this wasn't quite as cacophonous as their stuff. Anyway, I wouldn't blame anybody for skipping it. (The problem is knowing when to come back for the next piece. You should be safe if you're tuned in by [8:14].) Or, you might want to listen and see if it's better than I think it is. In the past Szymanowski's music has also struck me as unpleasant, but this is better than the things of his I had previously heard, so it was a pleasant surprise — lush is a word that comes to mind for the overall impression. After intermission Copland did not disappoint.

The reviews are in, and while both the Globe and the more extensive Intelligencer found minor details to criticize, both were generally satisfied. An interesting sidelight: when the reviewer in the Intelligencer, Mark DeVoto, was a college student, Aaron Copland autographed DeVoto's copy of the score of this evening's symphony.

As always, you can go to the WCRB website for information about their programs as well as the link to their live stream, where you can listen this evening at 8:00, [EDST] if you're outside their broadcast range."

WCRB's detail page for the concert also has links to interviews with the violinist and the conductor.