Tanglewood — 2021/07/31

 Tonight we have two symphonies by Haydn. WCRB says:

Saturday night at 8pm, BSO Artistic Partner Thomas Adès leads the Boston Symphony Orchestra in two symphonies by Haydn plus his own O Albion, and Kirill Gerstein is the soloist in Stravinsky’s Concerto for Piano and Winds.

Thomas Adès, conductor
Kirill Gerstein, piano

HAYDN Symphony No. 64, Tempora mutantur
STRAVINSKY Concerto for Piano and Winds
Thomas ADÈS O Albion
HAYDN Symphony No. 45, Farewell

The BSO performance detail page has the usual links, including those to the program notes.

I'll be interested to hear the Adès piece, and th e Haydn should be good. I'm looking forward to the "surprise" ending of the "Farewell" Symphony.

Tanglewood — 2021/07/24-25

This weekend the BSO is giving us a lot of new music. I recommend reading the program notes if you want an idea of what to expect — or you can just let it be unexpected as it is performed.

Saturday, July 24, 2021.  We get two new pieces, one from 80 years ago that is not often heard, and one from 100 years ago that can still be jarring. WCRB tells us:

Saturday, July 24, 2021
8:00 PM

Saturday at 8pm, the superstar violinist [Anne-Sophie Mutter] is the soloist in the world premiere of John Williams’s Violin concerto No. 2, led by the composer, and Andris Nelsons conducts the BSO in 20^th- and 21^st-century pieces by Copland, Stravinsky, and Jessie Montgomery.

Andris Nelsons and John Williams, conductors
Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin
Robert Sheena, English horn
Thomas Rolfs, trumpet

Jessie MONTGOMERY Starburst
John WILLIAMS Violin Concerto No. 2 (world premiere)
COPLAND Quiet City
STRAVINSKY Suite from The Firebird (1919 version)

(Some emphasis added.)

Yes, that John Williams. You will be able to hear the world premiere of his concerto. Before that comes another piece that the BSO is giving for the first time in a live concert. I can't vouch for either of them, but after reading the program notes via the links on the orchestra's performance detail page, I think the Williams concerto should be okay, and I'm hoping the Montgomery will be tolerable.

Copland's "Quiet City" is quiet and pleasant. I don't think I had heard it until a couple of years ago. Then WCRB began playing it fairly frequently just before midnight. I like it, and I'm looking forward to hearing it live. As for "The Firebird," it's not as wild as "The Rite of Spring." I may switch stations and listen to the Red Sox. But I'll definitely be listening to WCRB at 8:00, Lenox/Stockbridge Time.

Sunday, July 25, 2021.  There will be two "warhorses" of the repertoire on Sunday after we sit through a new piece. Here's WCRB's synopsis:

Sunday, July 25, 2021
7:00 PM

Yefim Bronfman returns to the Berkshires as the soloist in Beethoven’s impassioned Piano Concerto No. 3, and Andris Nelsons conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra in a rhapsodic work by Iman Habibi, Sunday at 7pm.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Yefim Bronfman, piano

Iman HABIBI Jeder Baum spricht
BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 3
SCHUMANN Symphony No. 4

(Some emphasis added.)

You can't go wrong with Beethoven piano concertos and Schumann symphonies. The program note for "Jeder Baum spricht" — which you can find via the link on the performance detail page — doesn't give me great hope. When a contemporary composer is inspired by one of the classical masters, it's never as good as the original. Sometimes it turns out to be something I'd like to hear one more time or even become familiar with, but more often once is enough or too much (which is also true of new pieces in general). The thing is, you never know until you've listened to it that first time. So I'll have WCRB on at 7:00.

Tanglewood — 2021/07/17-18

It seems that we won't be getting much preview material from the BSO or WCRB for these Tanglewood concerts, and of course there are no reviews of concerts if the program hasn't been given earlier in the week. At Symphony Hall, the Saturday evening concert has already been played on Thursday and often on Friday afternoon, but each Tanglewood concert is only given once. The BSO performance detail pages aren't giving us a short introduction, and sometimes even the program notes aren't available. Similarly, WCRB just gives a bare-bones note. 

So I'll give you what those two supply and throw in any ideas I have, if I have something to say.

Saturday, July 17, 2021.  WCRB tells us:

Saturday, July 17, 2021
8:00 PM

[A] Russian pianist takes center stage for Brahms’s monumental Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Andris Nelsons conducts Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony, Saturday night at 8pm.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Daniil Trifonov, piano

PROKOFIEV Symphony No. 1, Classical
BRAHMS

(Some emphasis added.) 

I'm glad the Prokofiev comes first, since I like it better than Brahms, so it'll be okay if my brother's call interrupts the concerto. But lots of people like Brahms, so don't let me scare you off.

The BSO performance detail page has links to the program notes and performer bios (click the thumbnail photos).You can listen in at 8:00 this evening via WCRB.

Sunday, July 18, 2021.   Again we get a bit from WCRB:

Sunday, July 18, 2021
7:00 PM

Gil Shaham returns to the Berkshires as the soloist in Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 3, and Andris Nelsons conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra in pieces by a musical sibling pair: Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn, Sunday night at 7pm.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Gil Shaham, violin

MENDELSSOHN-HENSEL Overture in C
MOZART Violin Concerto No. 3
MENDELSSOHN Symphony No. 5, Reformation

(Some emphasis added.) 

The BSO performance detail page doesn't have much more detail, except in the program notes (not all of which are there via the links). Strangely, the annotator for the Mendelssohn symphony doesn't seem to have noticed that the second movement uses the tune for "Away in a Manger" but with a different rhythm (if I remember correctly).

I don't recall the Overture, but I'm confident people will like this concert, to be broadcast and streamed on Sunday at 7:00.

Tanglewood — 2021/07/10-11

 The Boston Symphony is back, giving live concerts at Tanglewood. WCRB is broadcasting the Saturday concerts live at 8:00 p.m. and the Sunday matinees at 7:00 p.m. Of course, there are no reviews to link for the Tanglewood concerts, since the same programs aren't already performed earlier in the week, as happens at Symphony Hall.

Saturday, July 10, 2021.  For Opening Night we get to enjoy an all-Beethoven concert. The BSO's performance detail page gives some links and summarizes:

Boston Symphony Orchestra
Andris Nelsons, conductor
Emanuel Ax, piano

ALL-BEETHOVEN PROGRAM
Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus
Piano Concerto No. 5, Emperor
Symphony No. 5

(Some emphasis added.)
It's surprising that they don't have the sort of overview we got in pre-Covid days. Maybe there have been staff reductions, and nobody has time to produce the write up. As always, you can click on the link to progrsm notes for a description of each piece. But what's not to like in this program? I'm especially looking forward to the "Emperor" Concerto. Listen on line or on the air at 8:00 p.m. Boston Time to enjoy.

Sunday, July 11, 2021.   The performance detail page   lists the works being given only toward the end.

Carlos SIMON - Fate Now Conquers (2020)
SIBELIUS - Violin Concerto (32 min)
DVOŘÁK - Symphony No. 6

Andris Nelsons conducts and Baiba Skride is the violin soloist. I have no idea what the first piece will be like, but the program note promises that it will be short. The others should be pretty good. Don't forget, the Sunday broadcast is an hour earlier than the one on Saturday — 7:00 p.m.

BBSO/Classical New England — 2021/07/03

 Once more we get an encore broadcast of the BSO from WCRB. NextSaturday live concert broadcasts resume from Tanglewood. This evening's "encore broadcast" features some infrequently heard music that could be interesting. Here's what WCRB says on their website:

In an encore broadcast, Lisa Batiashvili is the soloist in Szymanowski's Violin Concerto No. 1, and Andris Nelsons leads the BSO in Copland's majestic Third Symphony.

Saturday, July 3, 2021
8:00 PM

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Lisa Batiashvili, violin

Olly WILSON Lumina
SZYMANOWSKI Violin Concerto No. 1
COPLAND Symphony No. 3

Encore broadcast from Saturday, February 9, 2019

Hear a preview of Szymanowski's Violin Concerto No. 1 with Lisa Batiashvili in the player above.

Interview transcript:

Brian McCreath [00:00:00] I'm Brian McCreath at Symphony Hall with Lisa Batiashvili, and Lisa, it's so good to see you here back in Boston. It's been quite a while. I do remember your Tanglewood performance from a few years ago, which was fantastic. But thanks for taking a few minutes with me right now to talk about Szymanowski.

As you can see from what I wrote at the time, I didn't like the Wilson piece, but found the remainder okay.

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'sViolin 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'sSymphony 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 8:17.) 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, EST if you're outside their broadcast range.[…]

I wonder if they chose this concert for this weekend because it includes Copland's "Fanfare for the Common Man." Anyway, there it is.