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 PMAndris Nelsons, conductor
Lisa Batiashvili, violinOlly WILSON Lumina
SZYMANOWSKI Violin Concerto No. 1
COPLAND Symphony No. 3Encore 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.
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