Saturday, October 3, 2020

BSO/Classical New England — 2020/10/03

This evening WCRB presents the Boston Symphony concert of February 22, 2020. Here's what I posted back then:
And we're back live from Symphony Hall this evening. Here's the description on the orchestra's performance detail page (where you can also find links to background material, as well as a listing of the order in which the works are actually to be performed):
The eminent violinist Pinchas Zukerman conducts this beautifully balanced program, which also features him as soloist in Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 3, one of the composer’s earliest masterpieces, written when he was 19. Richard Strauss’ surprisingly deft, precocious Serenade for 13 winds dates from 1881, when he was only 17. The Bruckner Adagio, played here by string orchestra, is the second movement of his String Quintet, his most substantial piece of chamber music. Concluding these concerts is Haydn’s Symphony No. 49, from 1768, which may be derived from music he wrote for the theater (the nickname was not the composer’s). The BSO’s only previous performances of this piece were in 1979 at Symphony Hall and 1988 at Tanglewood.
(Emphasis added.)

The program was given, without the Bruckner, on Friday evening; and there is a favorable review in the Boston Musical Intelligencer. There is nothing yet in the Globe, and I wasn't there last night.

I don't think I've ever heard the pieces by Strauss and Bruckner, but I'm looking forward to hearing them this evening, and of course the Haydn and Mozart are very good. So tune your computer or your radio to WCRB at 8:00 p.m, Boston Time for some good music. ….
Subsequently, a review appeared in the Globe in which the reviewer found the whole concert (on Friday, which omitted the Bruckner) plodding, lacking in the panache, verve, joie de vivre, élan vital, and the certain je ne sais quoi which should characterize BSO performances. Hopefully they were more with it in the Saturday performance which we'll hear.

My memory of the original performance is hazy, but I seem to remember it was good, so I still suggest listening in.

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