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.