BSO — 2024/10/26

 Last week I was a bit busy and didn't get around to making a regular post, but you can hear the concert on Monday evening at 8:00. It's worth hearing. Here's what's in store for this evening, as told to us by WCRB:

Saturday, October 26, 2024
8:00 PM

Pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet brings dazzling elegance to Franz Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 2, and Antonio Pappano conducts two works that ask deep questions of humanity. Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra, with its immediately recognizable opening “sunrise,” is a musical response to Friedrich Nietzsche’s metaphysical novel of the same name. Hannah Kendall uses unusual orchestral techniques and music boxes in her recent O flower of fire, inspired by the work of Guyanese-British poet Martin Carter.

Sir Antonio Pappano, conductor
Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano

Hannah KENDALL O flower of fire (American premiere)
Franz LISZT Piano Concerto No. 2
Richard STRAUSS Also sprach Zarathustra

Sir Antonio Pappano describes the unique qualities of Hannah Kendall's music, and previews the works by Liszt and Strauss on this program, in an interview you can hear using the player above, with the transcript below.

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT (lightly edited for clarity):

Brian McCreath I'm Brian McCreath at Symphony Hall with Sir Antonio Pappano, back here with the Boston Symphony for a really amazing program

WCRB's description is lifted from the BSO performance detail page, where you can also find links to performer bios and program notes, which may be of some interest.

I can't find a review in the Globe but the Intelligencer has one that is generally favorable.

I was there on Friday afternoon and found the Kendall piece quite tolerable, alternating loud and soft passages. I could hear the harmonicas when I saw musicians playing them, and I think I even heard a music box in some very soft passages. But if I never hear it again after this evening and maybe in the rebroadcast on November 4, it will be no great loss. I wish the BSO gave us more of the old curtain raisers such as 19th Century overtures and fewer of these new pieces that they'll probably never want to play again.

The Liszt concerto was fun to listen to, and the Strauss was good as well. Of course, I think the philosophy of Nietzsche which inspired Strauss is balderdash, but the music doesn't depend on it and makes for interesting listening. Until I read thee program note I hadn't realized that the piece had sections corresponding to sections of the book. It may be a bit more interesting to try to follow that program. OTOH it may not be easy to hear the trnsitions from one section to another.

Anyway, this should be a pretty good evening.