BSO/Classical New England — 2025/12/20

 This week's encore broadcast is an interesting program: Haydn and Stravinsky. The conductor makes a case both for playing Haydn and for putting Stravinsky on the same program. I recommend reading the interview on WCRB's page: https://www.classicalwcrb.org/show/the-boston-symphony-orchestra/2024-10-31/isabelle-faust-and-alan-gilbert-join-the-bso-for-haydn-and-stravinsky

Saturday, December 20, 2025
8:00 PM

In an encore broadcast, Isabelle Faust and Alan Gilbert return to Symphony Hall for Stravinsky’s bracing, wry Violin Concerto. Bracketing Stravinsky’s concerto are two Joseph Haydn works from early and late in his symphonic career.

Alan Gilbert, conductor
Isabelle Faust, violin

Joseph HAYDN Symphony No. 48, Marie Therese
Igor STRAVINSKY Violin Concerto
HAYDN Symphony No. 99

This concert was originally broadcast on February 22, 2025, and is no longer available on demand.

To hear a preview of the program with Alan Gilbert, use the player above, and read the transcript below.

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

Brian McCreath I'm Brian McCreath at Symphony Hall with Alan Gilbert, back for a concert with the BSO that I think is just a really interesting program and one that doesn't sort of organically fall off a tree, I feel like.

Here's a similar description from the BSO's performance detail page: https://www.bso.org/events/alan-gilbert-conducts-haydn-stravinsky?performance=2025-02-22-20:00

Alan Gilbert, conductor Isabelle Faust, Violin 

Alan Gilbert, conductor
Isabelle Faust, violin

HAYDN Symphony No. 48, Maria Theresia
STRAVINSKY Violin Concerto
-Intermission-
HAYDN Symphony No. 99

Isabelle Faust and Alan Gilbert return for Stravinsky’s bracing, wry Violin Concerto, a work at the core of his sparkling and witty neoclassical period. Bracketing Stravinsky’s concerto are two Joseph Haydn works from early and late in his symphonic career, during which he largely created the foundations for the 18th-century Viennese Classical era.

If you go to the actual page, the arrows are links to performer bios. I don't know why they won't provide links to the program notes as well, but there you have it.

There is an enthusiastic review https://www.classical-scene.com/2025/02/21/done-to-perfection/ in the Intelligencer.

I think this concert is worth listening to.

BSO/Classical New England — 2025/12/13

We get "encore broadcasts" while the BSO is on hiatus and Holiday Pops takes over Symphony Hall. Return with us now to last February to hear music of Schubert and Brahms conducted by Herbert Blomstedt. WCRB informs us: https://www.classicalwcrb.org/show/the-boston-symphony-orchestra/2024-10-31/blomstedt-conducts-the-bso

Saturday, December 13, 2025
8:00 PM

In an encore broadcast, one of the masters of the art of conducting for over seven decades returns to lead the BSO in Franz Schubert's light-hearted, cheerful Symphony No. 6, as well as the First Symphony by Johannes Brahms.

Herbert Blomstedt, conductor

Franz SCHUBERT Symphony No. 6
Johannes BRAHMS Symphony No. 1

This broadcast was originally broadcast on February 15, 2025, and is no longer available on demand.

To hear Herbert Blomstedt in a conversation with GBH's Arun Rath, use the player above, and read the transcript below.

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT: 

Arun Rath This is GBH is All Things Considered. I'm Arun Rath.

The BSO performance detail page https://www.bso.org/events/schubert-brahams?performance=2025-02-15-20:00 seems to have a link to MaestroBlomstedt's bio, when you go to the page itself, but none to the program notes for the pieces played:

Herbert Blomstedt, conductor 

Herbert Blomstedt, conductor

SCHUBERT Symphony No. 6
-Intermission-
BRAHMS Symphony No. 1

Herbert Blomstedt, celebrating a seven-decade conducting career, returns to lead the BSO in Franz Schubert's light-hearted, cheerful Symphony No. 6, composed when he was 20 and notable as a satisfyingly classical work preceding his more searching later symphonies. Brahms was strongly influenced by Schubert but more so still by Beethoven, whose symphonic shadow apparently kept Brahms from completing his First Symphony until he was 43 years old. A prominent theme in its finale is a direct nod to Beethoven’s Ninth.

I posted about it at the time (with a number of embarrassing typos). You might be interested in my observations from the previous day's performance as well as the "enthusiastic review" in the Intelligencer, which I'm linking here again. https://www.classical-scene.com/2025/02/14/blomstedt-balm/

I definitely recommend listening this evening.