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.