BSO — 2025/01/25

 The BSO's Beethoven and Romanticism" Festival brings his Eighth and Ninth Symphonies this evening. WCRB tells us a bit more:

Saturday, January 25th, 2025
8:00 PM

The Boston Symphony’s Beethoven cycle, led by Music Director Andris Nelsons, culminates with the playful Symphony No. 8 and the Symphony No. 9, featuring the Tanglewood Festival Chorus and a stellar cast of soloists in its iconic final movement, the “Ode to Joy.”

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Sara Jakubiak, soprano
Tamara Mumford, mezzo-soprano
David Butt Philip, tenor
Andrè Schuen, baritone
Tanglewood Festival Chorus
 James Burton, conductor

ALL-BEETHOVEN program
Symphony No. 8
Symphony No. 9

Learn more about the BSO's "Beethoven and Romanticism" festival.

For more about the symphonies and the performers go to the links on the BSO's performance detail page, which also gives this comment:

Boston Symphony Orchestra

Symphony Hall, Boston, MA 

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Sara Jakubiak, soprano
Tamara Mumford, mezzo-soprano
David Butt Philip, tenor 
Andrè Schuen, baritone
Tanglewood Festival Chorus,
 James Burton, conductor

ALL-BEETHOVEN program
Symphony No. 8
-Intermission-
Symphony No. 9

For all his reputation as a prickly artistic genius whose music crackles with heaven-storming power, Beethoven shared with his teacher Haydn a delightful musical wit, nowhere so clearly demonstrated as in his Eighth Symphony. The cycle concludes with his hugely ambitious and all-embracing Ninth, a revolution in and of itself; it was the first symphony to include chorus, transforming Friedrich Schiller’s “Ode to Joy” into a hymn for humanity.

The review in the Intelligencer is descriptive of the proceedings, with no apparent fault  to find. I don't find a review in the Globe.

I attended the Friday performance. Unlike the Intelligencer's reviewer, I didn't see the resemblance to Haydn in the 8th. I guess I was in a bad mood: most of the music struck me a "gruff Beethoven," which I don't much care for. The third movement of the 9th was lovely, and I liked the playing, especially the horns and the basses. The soloists sang their parts, and the chorus was powerful.

Well, I still like aymphonies 1, 2, 3, 5, & 6.   Despite my feelings, I definitely recommend listening. Maybe even I'll like it better this time around.       

BSO — 2025/01/17-18

 This week we get two concerts, one on Friday and one on Saturday. The BSO is in the midst of a series in which they are performing all nine Beethoven symphonies in three weeks. Last Saturday it was the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. I neglected to post about that in advance, but the replay should be available on Monday evening, January 20. We can hear Nos. 4 and 5 on Friday evening. WCRB's blurb follows:

Friday, January 17th, 2025
8:00 PM

The Boston Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons continue their journey through all nine Beethoven Symphonies in a special Friday night broadcast of a program that includes the lyric and joyful Symphony No. 4 and the iconic Symphony No. 5.

Andris Nelsons, conductor

ALL-BEETHOVEN program
Symphony No. 4
Symphony No. 5

Learn more about the cultural impact of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony from Matthew Guerrieri, author of The First Four Notes: Beethoven's Fifth and the Human Imagination, in a conversation with WCRB's Brian McCreath.

Learn more about the BSO's "Beethoven and Romanticism" festival.

See the BSO performance detail page for links to the program notes, etc.:

Boston Symphony Orchestra

Symphony Hall, Boston, MA 

Andris Nelsons, conductor

ALL-BEETHOVEN program
Symphony No.4
-Intermission-
Symphony No. 5

Beethoven composed his Fourth and Fifth symphonies almost concurrently, but they’re very different in their expressive impact. The Fourth is one of Beethoven’s warmest, most congenial works, sharing that mood with the Violin Concerto completed just after the symphony. The Fifth Symphony, by contrast, creates wonderful intensity through the famous four-note “fate” motif—perhaps the most famous musical fragment of all time—and resolves that tension in a triumphant finale.

 

At the regular time on Saturday, they'll play Nos. 6 and 7, as WCRB informs us:

Saturday, January 18th, 2025
8:00 PM

Andris Nelsons leads the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the third part of an epic survey of all nine of Beethoven’s symphonies, including the Symphony No. 6, the Pastoral Symphony, and the Symphony No. 7, a work infused with dynamic rhythmic energy.

Andris Nelsons, conductor

ALL-BEETHOVEN program
Symphony No. 6, Pastoral
Symphony No. 7

Learn more about the BSO's "Beethoven and Romanticism" festival.

Similarly, the performance detail page has a description and the usual links:

Boston Symphony Orchestra

Symphony Hall, Boston, MA 

Andris Nelsons, conductor

ALL-BEETHOVEN program
Symphony No. 6, Pastoral
-Intermission-
Symphony No. 7

Beethoven conceived his Pastoral Symphony, No. 6, as an illustration of a lovely day spent in the countryside, where we encounter babbling brooks, birds of various sorts, friendly country dwellers, and a brief, tumultuous storm. His Seventh Symphony has long been one of his most popular works—especially its solemn Allegretto, which had such an effect at its premiere that it was immediately encored.

So it should be a great couple of evenings.