BSO/Classical New England — 2022/03/26

 WCRB presents the closing concert of last summer's season at Tanglewood. They tell us:

Saturday, March 26, 2022, and Monday, April 4, 2022

Tonight at 8, in an encore broadcast of the closing concert of the 2021 Boston Symphony Orchestra season at Tanglewood, it’s an all-Brahms concert with Leonidas Kavakos as the soloist in the Violin Concerto and Herbert Blomstedt conducting the Symphony No. 4.

Herbert Blomstedt, conductor
Leonidas Kavakos, violin

ALL-BRAHMS PROGRAM
Violin Concerto
Symphony No. 4

This concert was originally performed on August 15, 2021.

Learn more about this concert and listen to interviews at the Tanglewood Learning Institute online.

If you go to their web page, you'll find that the last line of their blurb is a link to the material at the Tanglewood Learning Institute. I tried it and can't find my way to anything about this concert. I made a short post about it at the time, but didn't say much about the music, and the link to the BSO performance detail page doesn't work anymore. I guess the BSO doesn't want to let us find out about past events.

Fortunately, the Boston Musical Intelligencer doesn't hide it's archives. There we find a brief but quite favorable review of the concert. The Globe's reviewer was unhappy with the choice of the Brahms symphony to end the season, and gave rather short shrift to the whole concert in a review which covered the whole weekend.

Again, WCRB will follow the custom of airing and streaming the concert both this evening at 8:00 and again on Monday (April 4) at 8:00. 

BSO/Classical New England — 2022/03/19

The BSO went "on tour " to New York and will be away today and next week. As usual, WCRB is filling the time with "Encore broadcasts. This evening it's the concert given at Tanglewood on July 18, 2021. Here's the scoop from WCRB:

Saturday, March 19, and Monday, March 28, 2022
8:00 PM

Tonight at 8pm, in an encore broadcast from the 2021 Tanglewood season, 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 the storied musical sibling pair Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Gil Shaham, violin

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

This concert was originally performed on July 18, 2021.

Learn more about this concert and listen to interviews at the Tanglewood Learning Institute online.

All good listening. They'll also give us the rebroadcast Monday week, as it says.

I can't find the program notes from the concert on the BSO page. I posted about it in advance of the concert, and didn't have anything worth trying to track down now.

The Intelligencer didn't have a review. In the Globe, there is a review covering both July 17 and July 18. It focuses on the former. When it gets around to this concert, it is unenthusiastic, mildly critical on a few points. I don't think it should induce you to avoid the show.

So I give it my "thumbs up." Enjoy!

BSO — 2022/03/12

 Opera night at the BSO, as WCRB tells us:

Saturday, March 12, and Monday, March 21, 2022
8:00 PM

Tonight at 8pm, Andris Nelsons conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the Austrian composer’s 1925 opera "Wozzeck," starring soprano Christine Goerke as Marie and baritone Bo Skovhus as the title character.

Andris Nelsons, conductor

Cast to include
Bo Skovhus, baritone (Wozzeck)
Christine Goerke, soprano (Marie)
Sasha Cooke, mezzo-soprano (Margret)
Christopher Ventris, tenor (Drum Major)
Mauro Peter, tenor (Andres)
Franz Hawlata, bass (Doctor)

BERG Wozzeck

See a translation of the Wozzeck libretto.

For a synopsis and notes, visit the BSO.

Click on the player above to hear Christine Goerke talk with CRB's Ron Della Chiesa about singing the role of Marie in Wozzeck, how film music opened up the emotion of the opera for her, and the camaraderie she shares with her colleagues. She begins by describing her debut with the Boston Symphony, singing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, and an unexpected encounter backstage.

Interview transcript:

On WCRB's page, "visit the BSO" has a link to the BSO's own program detail. which I definitely recommend having with you if you listen.

The Intelligencer has a mixed review, on balance favorable though. The Globe's review finds no fault.

Alban Berg's music is "difficult" to mmy ears. I heard this opera when the Metropolitan Opera broadcast a performance 60 or more years ago, and I didn't like it. I'm not sure if I'll listen this evening, but I'll probably leave the radio on.

BSO — 2022/03/05

 This evening we get an unfamiliar piece, a new piece, and a warhorse which is a "signature piece" of the BSO, Here'a the WCRB synopsis:

Saturday, March 5, and Monday, March 14, 2022
8:00 PM

Tonight at 8pm, the Greek violinist joins the Boston Symphony as the soloist in the American premiere of Unsuk Chin’s "Shards of Silence" Violin Concerto, and Andris Nelsons conducts Ives and Berlioz’s otherworldly "Symphonie fantastique."

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Leonidas Kavakos, violin

IVES The Unanswered Question
Unsuk CHIN Violin Concerto No. 2, Scherben der Stille (Shards of Silence) (American premiere; BSO co-commission)
BERLIOZ Symphonie fantastique

Hear a preview of Unsuk Chin's Violin Concerto No. 2 with Leonidas Kavakos using the player above (transcript below).

Brian McCreath I'm Brian McCreath at Symphony Hall with Leonidas Kavakos, who's back in Boston for an American premiere, a concerto that was written just for you. Leonidas, thank you for spending a little bit of time with me today. I appreciate it.

As usual, you can read or listen to the interview at the WCRB page.

The BSO's program page has links to the program notes as well as the following summary:

Music Director Andris Nelsons is joined by one of his frequent collaborators, violinist Leonidas Kavakos, for the American premiere of celebrated Korean-German composer Unsuk Chin’s Violin Concerto No. 2, Scherben der Stille(“Shards of Silence”). Co-commissioned for Mr. Kavakos by the BSO, Gewandhaus Orchester Leipzig, and the London Symphony Orchestra, the concerto receives its U.S. premiere in March 2022 at Symphony Hall. Chin won the prestigious Grawemeyer Award in 2004 for her first violin concerto. A staple of the BSO’s repertoire for generations, Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique virtually defined the emotional intensity of musical Romanticism while also vastly expanding orchestral virtuosity. Opening the program is the American composer Charles Ives’s mysterious, innovative tone poem The Unanswered Question (1908), which features a striking solo trumpet part.

There is a tepid review in the Intelligencer. I can't find a review in the Globe.

I always like to give new pieces a chance. My brother will call from Tokyo at 8:00 this evening, so I'll miss the live broadcast this evening, but I'll listen to the rebroadcast on March 14. I'm also looking forward to hearing "The Unanswered Question." Ives is definitely idiosyncratic. I'm confident almost everybody will like the Berlioz after intermission.

8:00 p.m., Boston Time, this evening and March 24.