BSO — 2013/04/25-30

The next to last concerts of this season are thus described on the BSO's program details page:

BSO Conductor Emeritus Bernard Haitink-who was the Boston Symphony's principal guest conductor from 1995 to 2004-takes the helm for the last two weeks of the 2012-2013 season, beginning with a program of Schubert and Mahler symphonies. The teenaged Schubert composed his Symphony No. 5, a bracingly youthful work suggestive of Haydn and Mozart, in just a few weeks in the summer of 1816. After intermission, Swedish soprano Camilla Tilling is soloist in Mahler's mellifluous Symphony No. 4, a musical journey from earth to heaven.

Go there also for audio previews and program notes.

I was at the performance on Thursday evening and enjoyed it. There wasn't anything spectacular about it, IMO, but it was pleasant music, well performed, as far as I could tell. The Globe's reviewer raved. So I guess it's worth hearing.

You can hear it live this evening over Classical New England's broadcast or webstream at 8:00 (with preliminaries at 7:00), and, as usual, a repeat — without the hour-long warm-up — will be transmitted next weekend, on Sunday afternoon at 1:00. See their BSO page for further links.

Sunday, April 28, the repeat will be of the April 20 performance.

BSO — 2013/04/18-23

This week's concerts showcase the various sections of the orchestra playing without a conductor. The Orchestra's performance detail page, with links to an audio preview, an interview, and program notes. describes it as follows:

Following the great success of the Boston Symphony Orchestra's "members-only" concerts in January 2012, the individual sections of the orchestra again take the stage conductor-less to perform Britten's Fanfare for St. Edmundsbury, Mozart's Serenade No. 11 in E-flat for winds, K.375, Dvořák's Serenade for Strings, and Tippett's Praeludium for brass, bells, and percussion. The full ensemble then joins forces for Britten's well-known Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, which shines a spotlight on each section of the orchestra in turn.

I was at the Thursday performance (before the police chase began). It was okay, but not really exciting. The part I liked best was actually the Britten "Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra," which they played with a conductor. The other Britten and the Tippett were also fairly enjoyable, but the others seemed too long. Players introduced each piece, and the violinist who introduced the Dvořák said that playing without a conductor wasn't a stunt, but for such a big piece, I think it may have been. I'm not sorry I was there, but it wasn't "must hear" IMO. The Boston Globe's reviewer was not unhappy, and tells a bit more about what happened.

See what you think. You can listen this evening over Classical New England at the usual time, with the rebroadcast/webstream on April 28. On April 21, the rebroadcast/stream will be of last week's concert, and CNE's "page 2" has audio and video links to related material.

BSO — 2013/04/12-13

There was no concert on Thursday this week, so I'll be having my first chance to hear it during the Saturday broadcast. As usual, the BSO's performance detail page offers links for program notes, audio previews, and an interview with the composer/conductor. There is also the following description:

The distinguished British composer/conductor Oliver Knussen leads his own Violin Concerto (2002) with soloist Pinchas Zukerman, for whom the piece was written. Then, making her BSO debut, English soprano Claire Booth takes center stage for Knussen's 1992 Whitman Settings, for soprano and orchestra. The program opens with the Symphony No. 10 by the early 20th-century Russian composer Nikolai Miaskovsky and closes with Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition in a rarely heard orchestration by Leopold Stokowski.

Classical New England will broadcast and stream the Saturday performance beginning at 8:00 p.m. Boston Time, with the pre-game show (music by the evening's composers or performers, mostly; maybe an interview; maybe something else). CNE's BSO page has some interesting background info — not only an interview with maestro Knussen, but pictures to go with "Pictures at an Exhibition" and the Miaskovsky symphony.

The Globe has a very favorable review of the concert and an earlier preview interview with Knussen.

This program will be repeated over Classical New England on April 21 at 1:00 p.m. Since there was no concert a week ago, tomorrow's rebroadcast/stream will be from earlier in the season: the Haydn/Mozart/Beethoven program of November 23-27. See the CNE BSO page for details and links.

BSO — April Hiatus — Repeats

The BSO isn't performing in Symphony Hall this week, so there will be no live broadcast/webstream this Saturday. (I think they're on tour in New York.) Classical New England will fill the time slot with a rebroadcast/stream of a concert from last November, as described on their Boston Symphony page.

In an encore broadcast recorded in November 2012, conductor Giancarlo Guerrero leads the BSO in Roberto Sierra's Fandangos, Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, with soloist Daniil Trifonov, and Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5.

Then on Sunday, they'll give the regular rebroadcast/stream of last week's Mahler 3rd Symphony.

BSO — 2013/03/28-30

Because these concerts fall within the Sacred Triduum, I wasn't be there on Thursday, and I probably won't be home to hear much of the Saturday broadcast/webstream before my brother's telephone call from Tokyo. There is one work, Mahler's Third Symphony. Here's the brief description from the BSO's program detail page, which also has links to performer bios (click on the pictures) and program notes and audio previews:

For his third program of the season, Daniele Gatti conducts Mahler's multi-faceted and emotionally wide-ranging Symphony No. 3, a work notable for its length, difficulty, and overwhelming cumulative impact. For this performance, the expanded ranks of the BSO are joined by the eminent Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, the women of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, and the boys of the PALS Children's Chorus. Across its nearly 100-minute length, the broad musical canvas of Mahler's Third Symphony incorporates a full range of musical and emotional expression.

The Globe's reviewer was disappointed. As usual, Classical New England will broadcast and stream the Saturday concert at 8:00 p.m., with a pre-concert show at 7. The concert itself will be rebroadcast and streamed on Sunday April 7 at 1:00, and then become available for on demand listening.

On Sunday, MArch 31, as usual, there will be a retransmission of the previous week's concert. This time, it's the all Wagner program of March 21-26.

BSO — 2013/03/21-26

This week's program is all Wagner:

Conductor Daniele Gatti, mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung, and the BSO celebrate the bicentennial of Wagner's birth with selections from five of the composer's operas, encompassing the themes of love, identity, and redemption that pervade his works. The program includes orchestral excerpts fromGötterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods), the final opera of Wagner's gargantuan Ring cycle; the powerful overture toTannhäuser, one of his great early successes; Kundry's narrative ("Ich sah das Kind") from Act II of Wagner's moving final opera,Parsifal, whose title character attains spiritual transcendence as a Knight of the Holy Grail; the ethereal Prelude to Act I of Lohengrin, music embodying a vision of the Holy Grail itself; and the Prelude and Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde, a twenty-minute distillation of Wagner's four-hour paean to love.

See the BSO's program detail page for links to notes, previews, and artist bios. The Globe critic found it mostly well performed, but not gripping. I can't comment because I wasn't there. The concert wasn't in my subscription (and I had a meeting that evening, so I couldn't get to the HMA either. So if you listen on Classical New England, we'll both be hearing the concert for the first time. The CNE BSO page has the links to interviews, etc. The Sunday repeat of this concert will be on March 31.

Tomorrow, Sunday March 24, at 1:00 p.m. Boston Daylight Time, you'll be able to hear last week's show, including the new Cello Concerto by Augusta Read Thomas.

BSO — 2013/03/14-16

This evening, the world broadcast premiere of a new Cello Concerto. From the BSO performance detail page:

A new BSO-commissioned work receives its world premiere performances when Lynn Harrell is the featured soloist in American composer Augusta Read Thomas's Cello Concerto No. 3. Conducted by National Symphony Orchestra music director Christoph Eschenbach, the program also includes Saint-Saëns's sonorous Symphony No. 3, his so-called Organ Symphony, featuring French organist Olivier Latry in his BSO debut, as well as Mozart's Symphony No. 41, Jupiter, the composer's final work in the genre and a pinnacle of the Classical style.

Sorry I'm so late — no time to say more. Maybe I'll be back with detail about reviews tomorrow. The usual additional info is available at the usual sites, and the broadcast/webstream is at the usual time.

Te Deum

In thanksgiving for the election of the new pope, I thought it makes sense to post the traditional Catholic hymn of thanksgiving, the Te Deum, first in the Gregorian Chant, and then in a baroque setting from the 1600's, by Marc-Antoine Charpentier. The former is what would be done in ordinary church settings, and is probably about what Columbus would have used when he landed in the New World. The latter is a setting which I first heard when I was in college. It may have been my first real introduction to baroque music, and I was hooked. (This performance is significantly faster than people took it 50 years ago.)

Longtime followers may remember that I also posted links to other performances a few years ago for Thanksgiving Day. You can find that post under the label "Te Deum."

BSO — Hiatus Broadcasts/Webstreams 2013/03/09-10,17

The BSO went to New York to perform in Carnegie Hall, so there is no concert in Boston this week. To fill the broadcast (and webcast) schedule, Classical New England has selected one performance from decades ago and one more recent, as well as keeping to their customary time for rebroadcasts.

Here, from their Boston Symphony page, are the descriptions of what they will be broadcasting and streaming this evening and on the next two Sundays.
First, at 7:00 p.m., (and again on March 17) they note the recent passing of Van Cliburn

Special Broadcast: Van Cliburn's BSO Debut

In honor of the passing of pianist Van Cliburn, Classical New England and the Boston Symphony Orchestra bring you the legendary pianist's BSO debut performance, featuring the Piano Concerto in A minor by Robert Schumann and Sergei Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 3. Charles Munch conducts the BSO at Symphony Hall on Oct. 5, 1958.

Tune in and stream live, Saturday, Mar. 9, at 7pm, and Sunday, Mar. 17, at 1pm.

(please note: this concert will not be available for on-demand streaming)

And then, at 9:00, a rebroadcast/stream of the concert of November 17, 2012

Soprano Dawn Upshaw is the soloist in Sibelius's Luonnotar, conducted by Thomas Adés, who also leads his own In Seven Daysand Prokofiev's Piano Concerto No. 1, both with piano soloist Kirill Gerstein, and Sibelius's Symphony No. 6.

Sunday, March 10, we will get the normal rebroadcast/webstream of last week's concert.

Pianist Lang Lang is the soloist in Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2, and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos conducts two BSO signature works: Hindemith's Konzertmusik for Strings and Brass, commissioned by the BSO and premiered in 1931, and Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra, commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky and premiered by the BSO in 1944.

If you go to the CNE/BSO page I've linked, there are further links to interviews with some of the performers and conductors. Happy listening.

BSO — 2013/02/28-03/02

This evening you can listen live or on March 10 to a rebroadcast/stream to a program of Hindemith, Rachmaninoff, and Bartók. The Boston Symphony's program details page gives the following details

With Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos on the podium, the sensational Chinese pianist Lang Lang makes his BSO debut in Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto No. 2. Two works tied to the history of the Boston Symphony Orchestra bookend the program: Hindemith's Konzertmusik for Strings and Brass, commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky and the BSO on the occasion of the orchestra's 50th anniversary in 1931, and Bartók's ingeniously kaleidoscopic Concerto for Orchestra, a Koussevitzky commission premiered by the BSO in 1944. - See more at: http://www.bso.org/Performance/Detail/41088/#sthash.X57F6UJp.dpuf

and has links to background info as usual.

The Globe's reviewer found things to criticize in all three pieces, but thought that it wasn't all bad. Judge for yourself. I'm not familiar enough with any of them to say he's wrong, but I will say that the Bartók Concerto for Orchestra, a BSO specialty from the world premiere, sounded really good to me.

As usual, Classical New England will broadcast/stream this evening's concert at 8:00 (with preliminaries at 7:00) and repeat on March 10 (at 1:00 I expect). The CNE's BSO page gives links to interviews with conductor and soloist.