BSO — 2022/01/29

 As I have long imagined, WCRB records the BSO Thursday concerts as a backup in case something untoward happens to prevent a live broadcast of the same program on Saturday. Today it happened. The frightful weather we're having in the Boston area has occasioned the cancellatioon of this evening' performance, but we will be able to hear the same music, as recorded on Thursday evening. Good going, WCRB!

Here's how they synopsize it on their BSO page:

Saturday, January 29, and Monday, February 7, 2021
8:00 PM

Tonight at 8pm, BSO Artistic Partner Thomas Adès conducts an evening of modern pieces, including Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand and his own Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, both with soloist Kirill Gerstein.

Thomas Adès, conductor
Kirill Gerstein, piano

BERG Three Pieces for Orchestra
RAVEL Piano Concerto in D for the left hand
Thomas ADÈS Concerto for Piano and Orchestra
RAVEL La Valse

To hear Thomas Adès describe the connections among the different works on this program, the continually fascinating performances of Kirill Gerstein, and a look ahead to his BSO program at Tanglewood, click on the player above.

Transcript:

Brian McCreath I'm Brian McCreath at Symphony Hall with Thomas Adès, who's back in Boston here for a really fascinating

As I often do, I've also included the first words of an interview with Maestro Adès. You can read the whole thing or listen to it at the WCRB page.

I wasn't there on Thursday  (not part of my subscription) but there are reviews in both the Globe and the Intelligencer. Both note some problems with balance between sections, but are overall favorable. In the BMInt, Mark DeVoto writes like the musicologist that he is, with lots of specifics. The Globe's reviewer, Jeremy Eichler, writing at the layman's level, was enthusiastic for the selection of pieces and very happy with the performance — almost a rave review. There are some interesting comments on the article, as well.

The BSO itself has this description of the program:

BSO Artistic Partner Thomas Adès is joined by pianist Kirill Gerstein in reprise performances of Adès’s own Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, a BSO-commissioned work written for Gerstein and premiered at Symphony Hall in 2019. Gerstein and Adès have since performed the concerto worldwide to great acclaim, and the BSO’s recording of it was nominated for a Grammy Award. Gerstein also performs Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, which Ravel completed in 1930 for the pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm due to an injury in World War I. Ravel’s fascination with jazz shows up in the concerto’s syncopated rhythms and energy. Exhibiting stark differences as well as fascinating similarities, both Ravel’s La Valse and Berg’s Three Pieces for Orchestra—written a few years apart during and after World War I—seem to be modern commentaries, both admiring and critical, of the music and society of a bygone 19th century Europe.

As of this writing, they're still letting us see their program notes here,

So, if "modern music" doesn't send you screaming from the room, this should be worth hearing. In fact, the Ravel pieces are at least semi-tame. So why not give it a listen this evening and/or February 7 at 8:00 EST.

P.S. Don't forget the rebroadcast of last week's concert of music by Brahms, Nabors, and Tchaikovsky on January 31 at 8:00 p.m.

Ricardo Muti at Rome Opera House

 Maestro Muti was conducting a performance of Nabucco in 2011when the following happened.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPANwyaSlX4

The Italian government had announced massive cuts in the budget for culture, which would have devastated Italian opera houses,  among other things. Alex Ross wrote about it at the time:

https://www.therestisnoise.com/2010/10/the-italian-opera-situation.html

He explains the situation and the aftermath of this event. The video he embedded shows how long the applause was before the shout of "Viva l'Italia" and Maestro Muti's speech.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_gmtO6JnRs&t=1s

The first one I gave has French and English translations of the chorus as well as a French translation of the speech.

BSO — 2022/01/15

 Here's WCRB's synopsis of this evening's BSO concert:

Saturday, January 15, and Monday, January 24, 2022
8:00 PM

Saturday at 8pm, French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet is the soloist in Liszt's acrobatic Piano Concerto No. 2, plus Andris Nelsons conducts an American premiere by Augusta Read Thomas and Beethoven's Symphony No. 4.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano

Augusta READ THOMAS Dance Foldings (American premiere)
LISZT Piano Concerto No. 2
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 4

The BSO program detail page puts it thus:

Music Director Andris Nelsons leads the BSO and a frequent collaborator, the French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, in a passionate and virtuosic Piano Concerto No. 2 by Franz Liszt — who himself was considered the most brilliant performer of the 19th century Romantic era. These concerts open with the American premiere of Augusta Read Thomas' Dance Foldings, which Thomas describes as “like jazz big band with Stravinsky ballets.” Closing the program is Ludwig van Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony, one of the composer’s sunniest and most congenial works.

I was there on Thursday and found the "Dance Foldings" unexciting but not hard to listen to except for occasional high-pitched screeches from the trumpets. Maybe they won't be so bad filtered through the raio system. It helped that Ms Thomas described her music as influenced by Duke Ellington & Ella Fitzgerald and by Stravinsky's early ballets (apparently meaning Petrouchka and Firebird). You may also want to rwad the program note for the piece (and even the others).

The Globe's review is mainly off topic of the music itself, but it's favorable. The review in the Intelligencer is more to the point and quite favorable.

At 8:00 this evening and/or on the 24th you can see what you think.

BSO — 2022/01/08

The BSO is back live this week. I didn't go to the concert on Thursday, and I'm sorry I missed it. I'm looking forward to hearing the broadcast this evening. WCRB says:

Saturday, January 8, and Monday, January 17, 2022
8:00 PM

Tonight at 8pm, the American violinist returns to the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5, with Andris Nelsons also conducting Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5 and a world premiere by HK Gruber.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Hilary Hahn, violin

HK GRUBER Short Stories from the Vienna Woods (world premiere; BSO co-commission)
MOZART Violin Concerto No. 5
PROKOFIEV Symphony No. 5

Since we're back to live concerts, there's also a performance detail page at the BSO website. It tells us:

Andris Nelsons leads a world premiere originally scheduled for spring 2020, the Viennese composer HK Gruber’s Short Stories from the Vienna Woods, a BSO co-commission with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. This orchestral score is a suite of music from the composer’s opera Tales from the Vienna Wood, based on the socially critical play by the same name by Ödön von Horváth. The title’s reference to the famous Strauss waltz mirrors the wide- ranging popular and classical variety of Gruber’s music.
Though he would later be the embodiment of the Viennese Classical composer, Wolfgang Mozart was still living in Salzburg when he wrote all five of his violin concertos. Beloved American violinist Hilary Hahn plays Mozart’s Concerto No. 5, from 1775, which in addition to its energy and elegance is notable for its unusual finale, which features the surprising “Turkish” episode that gives the concerto its nickname.
The BSO under Serge Koussevitzky gave the American premiere of Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 5 in 1945. Written in 1944, the symphony looks beyond the turmoil of World War II to celebrate the nobility of the human spirit.

THere is also a link to the program notes, which give at least some idea of how the Gruber piece will be. Thus far there is no review in the Boston Musical Intelligencer, but the one in the Globe is enthusiastic. It makes the Gruber seem interesting. That review is what has me looking forward to hearing the concert (until my brother calls).

You can listen this evening at 8:00 Boston Time, and there will be the usual rebroadcast in nine days, on January 17, also at 8:00.

Enjoy.

BSO/Classical New England — 2022/01/01

 Sorry to be posting at the last minute. I almost forgot. It doesn't seem to be an acrual concert this evening, but several recordings from way back when.

Saturday, January 1, 2022
8:00 PM

Saturday at 8pm, ring in the new year with CRB and the Boston Symphony Orchestra with timeless waltzes by Lanner and Strauss and Wagner's "Siegfried Idyll," capped off with Beethoven's eternal Symphony No. 9 — all conducted by Erich Leinsdorf.

Boston Symphony Orchestra
Erich Leinsdorf, conductor

Jane Marsh, soprano
Josephine Veasey, mezzo-soprano
Placido Domingo, tenor
Sherrill Milnes, baritone

Joseph LANNER "Die Mozartisten" Waltzes
WAGNER Siegfried Idyll
MOZART Flute Quartet in D, K. 285: III. Rondo (Boston Symphony Chamber Players)
BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 9, Choral
STRAUSS II, arr. SCHOENBERG Roses from the South (Boston Symphony Chamber Players)