BSO — 2012/03/21-24 — Updated March 24

This week, the BSO is performing music by Kodály, Dvořák, and Mendelssohn. Here's what their website says. You can also find links to further information on the program there.

The phenomenal German violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann returns for the too rarely heard Dvořák's Violin Concerto, a powerful and beautiful Czech-flavored piece here conducted by the young Slovakian conductor Juraj Valcuha in his BSO debut. Opening the concert is the Hungarian Zoltán Kodály's Dances of Galánta, a 1933 orchestral masterpiece steeped in Central European folk music. Mendelssohn's always fresh Symphony No. 3,Scottish, was one of the fruits of the young genius's long trip to the British Isles in his early twenties.

It's part of my subscription, but I had another event to go to this evening (an interfaith seder), so I exchanged my ticket for Friday afternoon. Time permitting, I'll post my own thoughts and link the Boston Globe review sometime between now and the broadcast/webstream on Saturday evening over Classical New England.

Update: I found the Friday performance quite enjoyable, and I'm looking forward to rehearing it on Classical New England. The reviewer for the Boston Globe also found much to enjoy and nothing to criticize in the performance.

BSO — 2012/03/6-17

The Boston Symphony is on a hiatus from its subscription series of concerts. Last week they were performing in Carnegie Hall in New York City. This week they are giving youth concerts and family concerts in Symphony Hall.

I don't know what Classical New England will be doing to fill the time slots in which they usually present the BSO concerts. You can listen and find out, I suppose. That's what I plan to do. Maybe the website will tell. I haven't checked it out.

Next week we should be back to live concerts on Saturdays and rebroadcasts on Sundays.

John Harbison on Bach's St. Matthew Passion

On February 29, I attended a lecture by the composer John Harbison on the "St. Matthew Passion." He acknowledged that there were many ways of viewing the work, but he chose to look at it under the aspect of abandonment — that the text suggests that the Christian feels abandoned by Jesus. Of course, on the Cross Jesus quoted the Psalm verse which asks, "My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?" But traditionally we have been invited to sympathize with Jesus' sufferings, and feel sorrow for our responsibility for them, but until now I don't think I've ever heard that we are invited to feel as he felt, especially in that precise moment. (The "Stabat Mater" asks that we feel as Mary felt.)

Harbison played several examples. He started with the opening chorus, with its call to lament (klagen). There are lines such as "Jesus takes leave of us," (Jesus von uns Abschied nimmt) "So is my Jesus captured now," (So ist mein Jesus nun gefangen.) "Give me back my Jesus," (Gebt mir meinen Jesum wieder!) and the address to the faithful as "you forsaken chickens." (Ihe verlaßnen Küchlein) Finally, there is the closing recitative and chorus where the faithful bid good night to Jesus and sit weeping by the tomb.

I find it a startling take on the work as a whole. As Harbison himself pointed out, this is a Passion and therefore it does not include Easter. Furthermore, if it represents the feelings of loss those present at the actual events would have felt, it also includes notions of clinging to Jesus and being rescued by him. Certainly, it seems unlikely that Bach and his librettist Picander would have intended that the hearers should take away from the performance of the Passion an idea that they had been abandoned by Jesus. But it gave an aspect to think about, and as someone who has conducted the work on occasion, Harbison is certainly able to see aspects which are not immediately apparent.

During the question period at the end, a college-age girl asked Harbison what his name was. He responded with name and a very abbreviated bit of background. I wonder how the questioner learned of the lecture and decided to attend without knowing who the lecturer was.

BSO — 2012/03/1-3

This week we get Berlioz and Ravel. On the BSO website (which contains the usual links to program notes and audio previews) we read:

French pianist Cédric Tiberghien makes his BSO debut with Ravel's scintillating Piano Concerto in G. German conductor Christoph Eschenbach leads these concerts, which begin and end with Berlioz. Opening the program is the fantastical overture to the composer's picaresque Italian Renaissance opera Benvenuto Cellini. Closing the program is Berlioz's most famous work, the Symphonie fantastique, which traces the evolution of an artist's feverish romantic obsession with a woman who does not respond in kind.

I wasn't there on Thursday — not part of my subscription — so I can't say anything about it, but the Globe reviewer was quite pleased.

As usual, you can listen to the live broadcast/stream, the Sunday rebroadcast/stream, and then on demand for two weeks over Classical New England.

BSO — 2012/02/23-25 (and March 6 in New York) Info and Reviews

Sorry to be late with this, although you still have a chance to hear the rebroadcast/stream or listen "on demand" over Classical New England, as well as to see some background material on the website. What with Ash Wednesday services, attendance at concerts and the Met live in HD, and wakes and funerals, I neglected posting about this week's BSO.

Anyway, there is a single work on the program, the Missa Solemnis by Beethoven. Kurt Masur was to have conducted, but after three rehearsals, he realized that he was not physically capable of cubducting the whole thing in live performance. So he bowed out, and John Oliver, the conductor of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus stepped in.

As usual, here's something from the orchestra's website, with links available there for notes and discussion.

Beethoven's Missa Solemnis is one of the most significant works by one of the greatest of all composers. This monolithic late work stands with the Ninth Symphony, the late string quartets, and the late piano sonatas as the culmination of Beethoven's transformation of music. Beethoven intended the Missa Solemnis celebration of the election of his patron Archduke Rudolph as Archbishop of Olmütz in 1820, but didn't complete it until 1822. 

At the Thursday performance, I wasn't overly impressed. There were some good moments (notably the violin solo during the "Benedictus"), and none that I thought were actually bad, but overall, and especially in retrospect, nothing really grabbed me, and the performance as a whole was not inspiring and exalting, as I had expected and hoped it would be. The Globe reviewer liked it better. I should add that listening to the broadcast during dinner this evening, I found it more impressive. It seemed livelier somehow.

BSO — 2012/02/16-21 Info and Reviews

This week we have Ravel, Stravinsky, and Shostakovich. In advance, it was completely unappealing to me, but I went because I had a ticket as part of my subscription. I was very pleasantly surprised: I really liked it all! And I credit the conductor for making it as outstanding as it was. Okay, here's the BSO website description (with notes and audio previews available at the link).

French conductor Stéphane Denève, who made his BSO debut in April 2011, shares this program with BSO assistant conductor Marcelo Lehninger. Stéphane Denève will conduct the February 16-18 performances, while Marcelo Lehninger will conduct the February 21st performance. They will be joined by a BSO audience favorite, the American pianist Peter Serkin, who performs Stravinsky's angular, Baroque- and jazz-influenced Concerto for Piano and Winds. Ravel's Mother Goose Suite makes musical magic from the old folk tales. The concert closes with the powerful Fifth Symphony of Dmitri Shostakovich, which elevated the composer from brilliant wunderkind to the position of mature master.

What struck me most was the way Maestro Denève controlled the dynamics. The "Mother Goose" never seemed to rise above a mf, which gave it the proper fairy tale feeling. We had heard it just a few years ago, and I hadn't been looking forward to another performance, but this one was so much more attractive than the earlier that I'm glad I heard it.  Stravinsky had, as usual, written a lot of "wrong notes" into the concerto to keep it from being pretty, but Mr. Serkin played vigorously and Denève led the orchestra capably. Finally the Shostakovich. From previous encounters, I expected loud and louder, with thumping rhythms. They were on display, but there were also soft, lyrical sections which I hadn't recalled. Again, a piece I hadn't expected to enjoy which turned out to be worth hearing. I credit Maestro Denève for giving me a truly memorable evening when I had expected nothing special. The Globe's reviewer was less enthusiastic.

There are the usual opportunities to hear the program this evening, Sunday afternoon, and on demand from Classical New England.

BSO — 2012/02/8-11 Info and Reviews

This week we have a couple of seconds, as the website tells us.

Dutch conductor Jaap van Zweden, music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and chief conductor of the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, makes his BSO debut with the beloved American pianist Emanuel Ax in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 2. This work shows Beethoven putting his own personal stamp on the style he learned from the music of Haydn and Mozart. Van Zweden also conducts Rachmaninoff's gorgeous, highly individual, 20th-century-romantic Symphony No. 2.

There was nothing really wrong with the Thursday performance, IMO, except that Emanuel Ax played the slow movement of the Beethoven a bit too loud for my personal taste. But the whole thing never really excited me. Perhaps the Beethoven concerto deserves its comparative neglect among the five he wrote for piano. And the Rachmaninoff was easy enough to take, but it never goes anywhere. The Boston Globe reviewer liked the performances more than I did.

You can decide for yourself this evening, Sunday afternoon, or for two weeks "on demand" at Classical New England, which, in addition to the usual broadcasts/webstreams, offers background links, as does the BSO website.

BSO — 2012/02/2-4

Sorry, I'm running late and have no time to add my own thoughts, but here's the info from the BSO website.

Swiss conductor Charles Dutoit leads this colorful Francophile program that begins with Strauss's charming quasi-ersatz 17th-century music to accompany a new version of Molière's play Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme. Joining Dutoit and the orchestra is French cellist Gautier Capuçon in his BSO debut, performing Henri Dutilleux's Tout un monde lointain…. The great French composer Dutilleux (b.1916), completed this shimmering concerto-like work in 1970 for the great Mstislav Rostropovich. Closing the program is Debussy's symphony-like La Mer, three musical pictures of the sea.

The Thursday concert wasn't part of my subscriptions, so I haven't heard it yet. I assume it's available for listening over Classical New England as usual. (See links from past weeks.)

BSO — 2012/01/26-31 Info and Reviews

This week we have just one piece on the Boston Symphony program, Lobgesang, or "Song of Praise," by Felix Mendelssohn.


Here's a bit from the BSO website, with more available at the link.

Conductor Bramwell Tovey will lead the orchestra January 26-31 in Mendelssohn's Lobgesang (Hymn of Praise), for soloists, chorus, and orchestra, with sopranos Carolyn Sampson and Camilla Tilling, tenor John Tessier, and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus.

Mendelssohn wrote this big work in 1840 for a three-day festival in Leipzig celebrating the 400th anniversary of Gutenberg's movable-type printing method. This will be only the second time the BSO has performed the complete work at Symphony Hall; the fist was under Seiji Ozawa in 1988. The BSO's only performance prior to that took place in Pittsburg, PA, under Arthur Nikisch in May of 1890! 

I really enjoyed the performance on Thursday evening. Mendelssohn's music is very "accessible." Like me, the Boston Globe's reviewer found it well performed by chorus and orchestra. I'd even call it exhilarating.

So I think you're in for a treat if you listen to the broadcast/stream on Classical New England this evening or tomorrow afternoon or on demand over the next two weeks. The link also gives access to an interview with the conductor.

(I suppose at the time Mendelssohn wrote the piece, he thought of the "night" which Gutenberg helped dispel with his invention of movable type as being the pre-Reformation era, but that was then and this is now.)

BSO — 2012/01/19-24 Info and Reviews

This week's scheduled conductor, Ricardo Chailly, bowed out because of health reasons. Giancarlo Guerrero takes over conducting duties for "The Rite of Spring," by Stravinsky, which concludes the concert. But the orchestra threw out the pieces originally scheduled for before the intermission, and chose instead to play four pieces without a conductor — two for the brass section and percussion, one for woodwinds and horns, and one just for strings. The BSO website lists them as follows:

The Boston Symphony Orchestra itself will be showcased on the first half of the BSO program of January 19-24, originally to have been conducted by Riccardo Chailly, when it performs-without a conductor-music for brass, for winds, and for strings: Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man and the "Procession du Vendredi-saint" ("Good Friday Procession") from French composer Henri Tomasi's Fanfares liturgiques for brass and percussion; Richard Strauss's Serenade in E-flat, Op. 7, for winds; and Tchaikovsky's Serenade in C for Strings, Op. 48. Conductor Giancarlo Guerrero will then step in for Riccardo Chailly on the second half of the program to lead Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, which was originally scheduled to conclude these concerts. The works on the first half of the program will be introduced by members of the BSO's brass, wind, and string sections.

Visit this page for links to additional information.

I was there on Thursday, and found it all pretty good. They kept together pretty well without a conductor, I thought, and the pieces before intermission were worth hearing. Of course, we know the Copland and Tchaikovsky. Tomasi was  born in 1901, so he's a contemporary of Copland. Someone near me remarked that his piece for a procession is similar to Respighi's piece in "The Pines of Rome" depicting the march of Roman Legion on the Appian Way. "The Rite of Spring"  is no longer really shocking, and I thought it was done cleanly. The Boston Globe reviewer had some criticism of a couple of details, but was overall favorable.

Listening opportunities on Saturday and Sunday are as usual.