Tanglewood Season is over and the Symphony Hall Season doesn't resume until later this month so, as usual, WCRB will fill the Saturday evening time slot with rebroadcasts of past concerts. This evening's is worth hearing, IMO. WCRB tells us:
Saturday, September 3, 2022
8:00 PMTonight at 8, German pianist Martin Helmchen returns to Symphony Hall as the soloist in Mozart’s effervescent Piano Concerto No. 17, and Herbert Blomstedt leads the BSO in Bruckner’s colossal "Romantic" Symphony.
Herbert Blomstedt, conductor
Martin Helmchen, pianoMOZART Piano Concerto No. 17 in G, K.453
BRUCKNER Symphony No. 4, RomanticThis concert is no longer available on demand.
Concert originally broadcast live from Symphony Hall on Saturday, February 19, 2022.
Hear a preview of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 17 with Martin Helmchen with the audio player above, and read the transcript below:
Brian McCreath I'm Brian McCreath at Symphony Hall with Martin Helmchen, who is happily back in Boston. And on his first trip to the United States since the pandemic began. Martin, thanks so much for your time today.
Martin Helmchen Yes, thank you. It's great to be back. Wonderful.
My post last February was very brief, and I never gave the promised additional material. I've finally figured out how to access the archive, which is on the BSO database HENRY, which my brother helped create. Here's a link to the program booklet for the February 19 concert, so you can read about the pieces. The descriptions run from p. 17/18 to p. 27/28 (depending on whether you're looking at the page numbers in the pdf ssidebar or the numbers on the full page images). It seems that there is also an encore after the Mozart, — a piece by Bach — but of course it's not listed in the booklet.
The Boston Musical Intelligencer has a rave review from early music master Joel Cohen. The review in the Globe is also highly favorable (but the encore on Thursday — Mozart — was different from the one on Saturday —Bach). You can also listen to or read the interview with Martin Helmchen from the WCRB page linked at the beginning of this post.
As what I wrote back then suggests, I was at the Thursday performance, and marvelled at Maestro Blomstedt's ability to conduct that massive symphony without opening the score. But more importantly, it was a performance that held my attention, which isn't always the case with Bruckner's lengthy works. So I unreservedly recommend this concert.
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