BSO/Classical New England — 2021/04/03

 This evening WCRB gives us the concert of November 5, 2016, which consists of two fairly unfamiliar works and one that is quite recent. Here's their description:

Saturday at 8pm, in a 2016 concert, Artistic Partner Thomas Adès leads the Boston Symphony Orchestra in "Totentanz," his 2013 meditation on the indiscriminate nature of Death, with mezzo-soprano Christianne Stotijn and baritone Mark Stone, as well as works by Britten and Sibelius.

Saturday, April 3, 2021
8:00 PM

Thomas Adès, conductor
Christianne Stotijn, mezzo-soprano
Mark Stone, baritone

BRITTEN Sinfonia da Requiem
SIBELIUS Tapiola
ADÈS Totentanz

This concert is not available on-demand.

Thomas Adès previews the program with WCRB's Brian McCreath (transcript below):

I recommend listening to or reading the transcript of the interview with Maestro Ades for the background info on all three pieces, especially since the BSO performance detail page and program notes are no longer available.

My post from the time of the concert follows, edited to remove now inapplicable content:

This week the Boston Symphony gives us an early work of Benjamin Britten, a late one of Jean Sibelius, and a recent one of Thomas Adès, who also did the conducting. The BSO performance detail pageprovides these specifics:

British composer/conductor/pianist Thomas Adès joins the BSO family in the role of "Artistic Partner" this season, collaborating with the orchestra and its musicians in a variety of capacities. In these concerts he conducts his own 2013 Totentanz ("Dance of Death") for mezzo-soprano, baritone, and orchestra. Set to a text accompanying a 15th-century German frieze depicting Death (represented by the baritone) dancing with individuals from all strata of humanity (represented by the mezzo-soprano), the work is both macabre and funny-the Dance of Death is the one dance none of us may refuse. Opening the program is Britten's dramatic early orchestral work, Sinfonia da Requiem, premiered by the New York Philharmonic in 1941 during Britten's time in the U.S. as a conscientious objector. (Its performance soon afterward by Serge Koussevitzky and the BSO led directly to Koussevitzky's commissioning Britten's opera Peter Grimes.) Also on the program is the great Finnish composer Jean Sibelius's late tone poem Tapiola, which atmospherically depicts the realm of the forest spirit Tapio from the Finnish epic Kalevala.

[…]

The reviews in the Globe and the Boston Musical Intelligencer are limited to descriptions of the music, with almost no comments on how well it had been performed. That is natural enough, since none of the pieces is familiar. When you don't know a piece, it's hard to say whether it is being done well.

I was in the audience on Thursday and I found it all interesting. "Tapiola" was the most accessible: Sibelius composed in a "late Romantic" style. The "Sinfonia da Requiem" had clear contrasts of mood between the three parts, and while the middle section was fairly harsh, the outer parts weren't bad. All of them seemed to fit the mood of the texts that supplied their titles. "Totentanz" was difficult to appreciate simply as music, but it was interesting to get some sense of the different types of music for the different individuals. Still, it may require several hearings to be able to really "get" the music and maybe even enjoy it.

You can hear it all via WCRB on Saturday, [April 3} at 8:00 p.m. Boston Time[…]You might also want to check out the remaining concert schedule for this season and poke around the website for other things they do.

I'd listen, but the Easter Vigil at church starts at 8:00, so I'll have to miss it, but don't let that stop you.