Classical music — orchestral and opera — has been one of my major interests for most of my life. I'll use this blog to tell about some of the concerts I'm attending and the opportunities to listen to some of them and other good programs on the web.
Legendary violinist Itzhak Perlman is the soloist in Max Bruch’s Violin Concerto, and Dima Slobodeniouk conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Brahms’s Symphony No. 1 and Unsuk Chin’s “subito con forza.”
Another "blast from the past." WCRB has the basics on their page:
Saturday, June 17, 2023 8:00 PM
Yo-Yo Ma returns to the Boston Symphony’s summer home as the soloist in Elgar’s Cello Concerto, and Cristian Măcelaru conducts works by Debussy and Ensecu, as well as Anna Clyne’s “Masquerade.”
Cristian Măcelaru, conductor Yo-Yo Ma, cello
Anna CLYNE Masquerade Edward ELGAR Cello Concerto Claude DEBUSSY La Mer George ENESCU Romanian Rhapsody No. 1
This concert was originally broadcast on August 14, 2022 and is no longer available on demand.
Romanian conductor Cristian Măcelaru, a 2010 Tanglewood Music Center Fellow, makes his BSO debut. Masquerade, by the U.S.-based English composer Anna Clyne, evokes the unique milieu of mid-18th-century London promenade concerts; this is the BSO’s first performance of Clyne’s music. Tanglewood favorite Yo-Yo Ma joins for Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto, one of the English composer’s final works, in part a profoundly lyrical meditation on a world in turmoil after the devastation of World War I. Claude Debussy’s La Mer—a work given its American premiere by the BSO in 1907—is virtually a three-movement symphony miraculously depicting in music the changing states of the sea and sun over the course of a day. Closing the concert is Romanian composer Georges Enescu, one of the 20th-century’s greatest musicians. His familiar Romanian Rhapsody No. 1, based on his country’s folk music, is a delightful and finely wrought staple of Pops orchestras.
It's all fairly familiar except for the first piece. You can read about it in the program notes. The Globe review of the weekend has almost nothing to say about the Clyne piece, but is quite favorable to the concert.
Dima Slobodeniouk leads the Boston Symphony Orchestra in music by Dutilleux and Debussy, as well as Ravel’s “Mother Goose,” and Leonidas Kavakos is the soloist in Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto.
Conductor Dima Slobodeniouk returns to Tanglewood and is joined by violinist Leonidas Kavakos in Felix Mendelssohn’s buoyant Violin Concerto, one of the most popular works in the genre. Henri Dutilleux’s 1964 Métabolesfeatures the French composer’s intricately imaginative scoring and his innovative, organic approach to form. Claude Debussy’s revolutionary Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun, a contemplation of a poem by Stéphane Mallarmé, is one of the clearest sources of 20th-century musical modernism. Maurice Ravel composed his Mother Goose for a friend’s children to play on piano, but its incisive character sketches and the brilliant orchestral canvas he later created make it a satisfying piece for any listener.
This week's encore broadcast isn't a symphony concert but an an evening of chamber music from last summer at Tanglewood. Here's the description from WCRB:
Saturday, June 3, 2023 8:00 PM
Pianist Emanuel Ax anchors a celebration of Czech composers, including Dvorák, Janácek, and Kaprálová, with Yo-Yo Ma, Leonidas Kavakos, and Antoine Tamsetit, at Tanglewood.
Emanuel Ax, piano Leonidas Kavakos, violin Antoine Tamestit, viola Yo-Yo Ma, cello
Antonín DVOŘÁK Romantic Pieces for violin and piano, Op. 75 DVOŘÁK Gypsy Songs, Op. 55, Nos. 3-5, for viola and piano Vítězslava KAPRÁLOVÁ Ritournelle, for cello and piano, Op. 25 Leoš JANÁČEK Fairy Tale, for cello and piano DVOŘÁK Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-flat, Op. 87
This concert was originally broadcast on August 12, 2022 and is no longer available on demand.
It was given on a Friday evening, which is usually a time for an orchestral concert, but management has apparently decided they need to shake things up a bit. The performance detail page is still available with its link to full program note after this general description:
Pathways from Prague, Program 3
DVOŘÁK Romantic Pieces for violin and piano, Op. 75 DVOŘÁK Gypsy Songs, Op. 55, Nos. 3-5, for viola and piano KAPRÁLOVÁ Ritournelle, for cello and piano, Op. 25 JANÁČEK Fairy Tale, for cello and piano DVOŘÁK Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-flat, Op. 87
Featuring three Tanglewood favorites and the Tanglewood debut of French violist Antoine Tamestit, this final concert of the Emanuel Ax-curated Pathways from Prague series explores chamber music by three Czech composers. Opening with rarely heard works for violin and piano and viola and piano by Antonín Dvořák, the concert closes with the composer’s Piano Quartet in E-flat, Op. 87, from 1889—one of his supreme achievements in chamber music. Emanuel Ax and Yo-Yo Ma play works for cello and piano by Leoš Janáček — his rhapsodic, three-movement Fairy Tale — and Vitěslava Kaprálová, who, though she died in 1940 at age 25, had an outsized impact on Czech music. Her brief, energetic Ritournelle, Op. 25, was among her last completed works.
Pamela Frank has regrettably withdrawn from this concert due to health concerns. The program has been adjusted to accommodate a smaller ensemble.
The Intelligencer apparently didn't review the concert. As usual the Globe published a review of all three major weekend concerts, and the reviewer was very happy with this one.
I didn't write anything about it back then, but based on the description and the review, it sounds like a nice "chang of pace."
This is the site for schedules, online ticket purchases, notes about works to be performed, information about various events including the Pops and Tanglewood seasons, online purchases of Symphony recordings and other merchandise, information about Symphony Hall, and more.
they broadcast and stream Boston Symphony Orchestra concerts, live performances in their studios, and concerts that they have recorded elsewhere, as well as commercial recordings
they broadcast and stream the Metropolitan Opera Saturday matinees and their own "Sunday Night at the Opera," recorded concerts by orchestras in other cities, as well as commercial recordings
located in Colorado Springs, CO — they broadcast and stream locally produced programming, including recordings of concerts by the Colorado Springs Philharmonic, as well as other orchestras around the country, the Met and commercial recordings
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ABC Classic FM — www.abc.net.au/classic/
all classical
Australian broadcaster — also streams their programs
