BSO — 2022/10/01

 We get some unfamiliar music, including a very recent composition and two piano concertos, and then some good old Haydn. As always we turn to WCRB for the basics, plus an interview available on their page:

Saturday, October 1, 2022
8:00 PM

Andris Nelsons leads the BSO in Haydn’s 100th Symphony, and electrifying soloist Yuja Wang takes the stage at Symphony Hall for not one, but both of Shostakovich’s piano concertos.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Yuja Wang, piano
Thomas Rolfs, trumpet

Julia ADOLPHE Makeshift Castle
Dmitri SHOSTAKOVICH Piano Concerto No. 1
SHOSTAKOVICH Piano Concerto No. 2
Joseph HAYDN Symphony No. 100, "Military"

To hear a preview of Shostakovich's piano concertos with Yuja Wang, click on the player above, and read the transcript below:

Brian McCreath I'm Brian McCreath at Symphony Hall with Yuja Wang, who has returned to the Boston Symphony with Shostakovich, both piano concertos this time, unlike last time 

I had  a ticket for the Thursday performance but didn't feel like trekking in to Boston, so I can't tell you much except that the Haydn is good stuff. For the rest, there's the interview — which suggests that the second piano concerto may be easier to tak than the first — and the BSO performance detail page, with its link to program notes and this blurb:

Dynamic Chinese pianist Yuja Wang plays not one but both of Dmitri Shostakovich’s piano concertos, written 24 years apart, part of the BSO and Andris Nelsons’ multi-season exploration of the composer’s major works with orchestra. The concert closes with Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 100, whose nickname comes from the surprising appearance of percussion in the slow movement. The American composer Julia Adolphe, who has earned praised for the sonic and narrative inventiveness of her music, says of her new work, “Makeshift Castlecaptures contrasting states of permanence and ephemerality, of perseverance and disintegration, of determination and surrender.”

The program notes give hope that "Makeshift Castles" will be okay and that even the Shostakovich won't be too jarring. So far, there is no review in the Intelligencer. The Globe is generally favorable.

Bottom line: I'm not exactly recommending the first half, nor saying not to listen, but I definitely encourage listening to the Haydn.