BSO — 2013/10/03-08

This week's program includes music of Prokofiev, Shostakovich, and Strauss. Here's how the BSO performance detail page summarizes it:

French conductor Stéphane Denève is joined by universally acclaimed cellist Yo-Yo Ma for one of the 20th century's great concertos, Dmitri Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1. This intense, highly personal work was composed for Mstislav Rostropovich, who premiered it in 1959. Also on the program is Serge Prokofiev's Suite from his opera The Love of Three Oranges, based on an 18th-century Carlo Gozzi farce and featuring some of Prokofiev's most characterful and familiar passages. Richard Strauss's tone poem Ein Heldenleben ("A Heroic Life") quotes liberally from the composer's own earlier tone poems summing up the first phase of his musical life in a powerful orchestral tour de fource.

As always, the page contains links to audio and text background material (including performer bios if you click on the photos).

Listen on Classical New England at 8:00 p.m. Boston time (with pre-concert material at 7:00). Their BSO page has links to various related items, as well as the season schedule. The station's weekly schedule also shows Boston Symphony Orchestra on Mondays from 8:00-10:00 p.m. I've read elsewhere that this is a rebroadcast of a previous concert, but I'm not sure if it is the concert from two or nine days earlier. Sometime I'll check it out. You can too, of course.

I was at the concert on Thursday. Overall, I didn't really care very much for the Prokofiev, but it was certainly tolerable. What I did like was some nice solo viola playing at one point. The conductor gave the violist a solo bow at the end of the piece. The Shostakovich was more musical to my ears. Of course, it was an outstanding performance by Yo-Yo Ma. I was also very impressed by extended solo work in the Strauss by concertmaster Malcolm Lowe, returning this season after a couple of years' health leave. The Globe reviewer liked it.

BSO — 2013/09/26-10/01

This week's concert has but a single work: Mahler's Symphony No. 2, "Resurrection." For a brief description, with links to program notes, audio material, and performer info, go to the BSO's performance detail page, where we read:

In the second of his five BSO programs this season, Christoph von Dohnányi leads Gustav Mahler's inspirational Symphony No. 2, Resurrection, with Swedish soprano Camilla Tilling, British mezzo-soprano Sarah Connolly, and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. Mahler composed this five-movement work over several years, making a number of major changes along the way. The third movement is a setting of "Urlicht," a poem from the volumeDes Knaben Wunderhorn, which was a significant source of texts for Mahler's songs. The finale's second half is a setting for chorus and soprano of Klopstock's poem Resurrection, which Mahler had heard sung at the funeral of his colleague Hans von Bülow.

The pre-concert material on Classical New England begins at 7:00, with the concert itself at 8:00. See also their BSO page for their own links and info.

There was also a rave review of the Thursday performance in the Boston Musical Intelligencer. The reviewer also noted that the concert actually began at 8:09, and that there was a five minute pause between the first and second movements (which, it turns out, Mahler called for in the score).

BSO — 2013/09/21-24

This is the opening concert of the Boston Symphony's 2013-2014 season. It's an all-Brahms program, which will probably appeal to many listeners. Here's what the performance detail page tells us:

To open the Boston Symphony Orchestra's 2013-14 subscription season, revered German-born conductor Christoph von Dohnányi is joined by violinist Augustin Hadelich in his BSO subscription series debut and cellist Alban Gerhardt for Johannes Brahms's Double Concerto for violin, cello, and orchestra, the composer's final orchestra work. Brahms's Symphony No. 2 dates from the previous decade. Composed relatively quickly after the composer's long-awaited First, the lilting No. 2 is generally regarded as the most genial and relaxed of Brahms's four works in the genre. Opening Night includes a pre-concert reception at 7PM.

The page, linked above, provides further links to audio previews and to the program notes from the program booklet. In addition, there are brief bios of the musicians which you can see by brining your cursor over their pictures, and complete official bios by clicking on said pix.

As usual, it will be broadcast and streamed virtually live by Classical New England. The official starting time is 8:00 p.m., Eastern Time. Beginning at 7:00 they have pre-concert features, consisting mostly of music composed by the evening's composer or performed by the evening's performers. They also have a page of their own devoted to the BSO broadcasts with the season schedule and links to their own related material.

Last year they rebroadcast/streamed the concerts at 1:00 p.m. on the Sunday 8 days later. I don't notice anything about it right now, but I wouldn't be surprised if they do so again. I'd be disappointed if they don't, but so far it isn't included in the regular weekly schedule page.

Classical New England — 2013/09/14

This evening's placeholder in the regular BSO slot on Classical New England http://www.wgbh.org/995/ is this summer's August 6 "Tanglewood on Parade" concert. There's some information at the CNE home page. Also, see their BSO page — http://www.wgbh.org/995/bso.cfm — for a bit more about is, as well as a brief preview of the upcoming season of the BSO and other links. There is more about this concert in my post for the weekend of the concert. The program this evening begins at 8:00 p.m., Boston time.

As noted on CNE's BSO page, the regular BSO season begins on Sept. 21. I presume* that they'll have their pre-concert show at 7:00, with the concert scheduled for 8:00. (It never actually starts before 8:05 — a courtesy to patrons who hit a slight delay getting there, I suppose.)

* When I presume, I make a pres. of u and me.

Classical New England — 2013/09/07

Sorry I'm a bit late with this. I had Race Committee duty today.

We're back to the 8:00 p.m. start time for the concert programming at Classical New England. This week, instead of rerunning a Boston Symphony Concert, they're giving us the BBC Symphony Orchestra's Last Night of the Proms (I always thought it was Last Night at the Proms — live and learn). Here's the description,

99.5 WCRB brings you one of the world's great music traditions on Saturday at 8pm, as conductor Marin Alsop leads the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus at the Last Night of the Proms, from Royal Albert Hall in London.

The Music Director of both the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and the São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, steps up to the podium for a tradition-soaked celebration of music from the heart of Great Britain.

Special guests include American mezzo-sopranoJoyce DiDonato and British violinist Nigel Kennedy.

London-born composer Anna Clyne, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's composer in residence, has written a new work that will open the program, and the concert also pays tribute to the anniversaries of the births of Richard Wagner, Giuseppe Verdi, and Benjamin Britten.

Of course, no Last Night of the Proms would be complete without Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 ("Land of Hope and Glory"), Sir Charles Hubert Hastings Parry's "Jerusalem," and "God Save the Queen," performed this year in the arrangement by Benjamin Britten.

Join us at 8pm, Saturday, Sept. 7, on 99.5 WCRB in Boston and New Hampshire, and on 88.7 WJMF in Providence.

and here's a link to that page at CNE, which also gives the full program.

Classical New England — 2013/08/31

As I mentioned last week, the Boston Symphony Orchestra is between seasons, so for his weekend and the following two, Classical New England will devote the BSO time slot (7:00-11:00 p.m.) to rebroadcasts/webstreams of various concerts — some by the BSO and some by others. This evening's is clearly described on the Classical New England BSO page.

As part of WGBH's Opera Bash, WCRB revisits two spectacular Boston Symphony concerts featuring works by Richard Wagner in celebration of the bicentennial of the composer's birth.

First, from a Symphony Hall concert in March, mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung is the guest soloist in a program that includes excerpts fromGötterdammerung, Tannhäuser, Parsifal, Lohengrin, and Tristan und Isolde, conducted by Daniele Gatti.

Then, from a July performance at Tanglewood, Bryn Terfel sings the role of Wotan in Act III of Die Walküre, with Katarina Dalayman as Brünnhilde, Amber Wagner as Sieglinde, and Elizabeth Byrne as Waltraute, conducted by Lothar Koenigs.

The Walküre portion will begin about 9:00.

Next week it will be a Proms concert from the Royal Albert Hall, and the week after that we can listen to the Tanglewood concert of August 6

Tanglewood — 2013/08/23-25

This is the last weekend of the 2013 Tanglewood Season. The BSO will be playing on Friday evening and Sunday afternoon, with the Boston Pops on Saturday. Sunday afternoon's concert will give us the customary season-ending Beethoven 9th Symphony. Specifics follow.

August 23  The 8:30 p.m. Friday concert is an "Underscore Friday," in which a member of the orchestra gives an introduction to the music from the stage. This evening, per the program note, there will be "introductory comments from the stage by BSO trumpet player Michael Martin." As it happens, I've missed the previous two "Underscore Friday" concerts this season, so this will be a first for me. The program is described thus for us on the orchestra's performance detail page.

The BSO kicks off the final weekend of its 2013 Tanglewood season on Friday, August 23, at 8:30 p.m. with a program featuring pianist  Peter Serkin and led by BSO Assistant Conductor  Andris Poga in his Tanglewood debut. Mr. Serkin will join Mr. Poga and the orchestra for Stravinsky's Concerto for Piano and Winds, a Bach-inspired work from the beginning of the composer's neoclassical period, about which he wrote "I have gone back in the centuries and have begun over again, on a historic foundation. What I write today has its roots in the style and methods of Palestrina and Bach." The program also includes Prokofiev's Haydnesque Symphony No. 1,  Classical, and Beethoven's Symphony No. 7.

As usual, if you go to that page you will find links to program notes and audio previews, as well as to performer bios when you click on their photos.


August 24 brings "Film Night at Tanglewood." The performance detail page puts it this way:

A beloved summer tradition continues on August 24 at 8:30 p.m. in the Shed with  John Williams' Film Night.  Joining maestro Williams and the  Boston Pops for this special program-which features selections by Alfred Newman, Henry Mancini, Max Steiner, and more-are guest conductor  David Newman, son of Alfred Newman and a film composer in his own right, and superstar vocalist and Broadway and screen actress  Audra McDonald, who recently won a Tony Award for her performance as the leading lady inPorgy and Bess. Ms. McDonald will join the orchestra for selections from a number of films, including  A Star Is Born,  State Fair, and  The West Point Story. Mr. Williams will also lead the Pops in his own film music, including pieces from Jaws,  Indiana Jones, and  Hook.

If I understand the program notes correctly, Maestro Newman will conduct the first half, some of which will be music composed by his father; and after intermission, Maestro Williams will conduct some of his own compositions. It's not clear to me whether Maestro Williams or Brian Hertz will be on the podium when Ms. McDonald sings.


August 25

The BSO's 2013 Tanglewood season comes to a close on Sunday, August 25, at 2:30 p.m. with the traditional performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, led by BSO Conductor Emeritus Bernard Haitink. Maestro Haitink, the orchestra, and Tanglewood Festival Chorus will be joined for this season's valedictory concert by soprano  Erin Wall, mezzo-soprano Tamara Mumford, tenor  Joseph Kaiser, and bass-baritone John Relyea. Completed in 1824 near the end of the composer's life when he was completely deaf, mostly destitute, and increasingly ill, this monument of musical innovation and accomplishment has stood as an iconic tribute to and example of the ability of the human spirit to triumph over adversity ever since.

Visit the performance detail page (from which the quote was taken) for the usual links to further info.


You can listen to the concerts over Classical New England, by radio if you're within range, otherwise via their webstream. As usual, there is a pre-concert program a half hour before each concert's stated start time, and there are links of various sorts on the station's BSO page. BTW, if you haven't already noticed, you might want to scan the home page of the website for links to descriptions of some of their other programming.

After this weekend, the Boston Symphony Orchestra will be off until the Symphony Hall season begins in Boston on September 21. I'm not sure what CNE will be presenting on the two intervening Saturday evenings, but I expect it will include rebroadcasts of some BSO concerts. I'll let you know, if I find out. Otherwise, you can just listen in at 7:00 or 8:00 p.m.

Tanglewood — 2013/08/16-18

August 16  Friday evening we have a concert by the Boston Pops (which is why I label the summer posts "Tanglewood — [date]": it's not always the BSO). There is still a performance detail page, with a link to the program notes, and it tells us the following:

Keith Lockhart will lead the Boston Pops in an evening concert in the Shed on Friday, August 16, with celebrated pianist, vocalist, and archivist of the great American Songbook, Michael Feinstein. The evening will feature some of the most beloved tunes in the American songbook repertoire. Special guests include Broadway and television star Cheyenne Jackson and actress and singer Faith Prince.

August 17  On Saturday, the Boston symphony returns to the stage for the first of two Mozart/Mahler programs — this one under the baton of Bernard Haitink.

Conductor Emeritus Bernard Haitink joins the BSO at Tanglewood for the first time in five years on Saturday, August 17, leading the BSO in Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 5 with soloistIsabelle Faust and Mahler's Symphony No. 4, featuring sopranoCamilla Tilling.

Go to the performance detail page for links to the background information (including performer bios by clicking on their pics).


August 18  Sunday brings the second Mozart/Mahler concert, with Christoph von Dohnányi at the podium. This is the "Leonard Bernstein Memorial Concert."

Emanuel Ax joins conductor Christoph von Dohnányi and the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra for the Leonard Bernstein Memorial Concert and the second weekend program dedicated to the music of Mozart and Mahler. Mr. Ax will perform as soloist in Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 9 in E-flat, K.271, and the program closes with Mahler's Symphony No. 1.

See the performance detail page for the links to background info, including audio previews, program notes, and performer bios.


Classical New England will have their regular pre-game shows 1/2 hour before the concerts.
Visit their BSO page for all sorts of links: interviews, previous concerts on demand etc.

Tanglewood — 2013/08/09-11

August 9  We have Sibelius and Brahms on offer Friday evening.

Christoph von Dohnányi takes the podium on Friday, August 9, at 8:30 p.m. leading the Boston Symphony Orchestra and soloist Gil Shaham in Sibelius's Violin Concerto, a virtuosic work that eschews strict traditional forms for a freer, more organic style; similar to Sibelius's most popular symphonies, the concerto provides plenty of energy and excitement, as well as splendid, sweeping climaxes. The program concludes with Brahms's rich and multifaceted Symphony No. 2, which combines pastoral beauty with melancholic reverie then gains momentum and sprints to a thrilling finale.

As always, go to the performance detail page for links to background material.


August 10  Saturday brings another Brahms Symphony and (continuing a series begun last week) a Beethoven Piano Concerto. The program also includes a piece by a favorite of James Levine, the recently deceased centenarian Elliott Carter. Go to the performance detail page for the links. It describes the program as follows:

On Saturday, August 10, at 8:30 p.m., pianist Yefim Bronfmanjoins Maestro von Dohnányi and the orchestra for Beethoven's stormy Third Piano Concerto, a dramatic, tumultuous work in which Beethoven takes an audible step away from the style of Mozart, his towering forebear in the piano concerto genre. Also on the program are Brahms's towering Symphony No. 4-Brahms's ultimate fusion of past and present, combining a mastery of Classical, Baroque, and even Renaissance techniques with his own lush Romantic idiom-and Elliott Carter's meditative Sound Fields, the composer's only workfor string orchestra, performed in commemoration of Mr. Carter's recent passing.

August 11  The final concert of the weekend is an all Beethoven program, including another of the piano concertos, a symphony, and an overture, to wit:

On Sunday afternoon, August 11, at 2:30 p.m., Christian Zacharias returns to the BSO for an all-Beethoven program, building on a relationship as conductor/pianist with the orchestra that began with his BSO conducting debut during the orchestra's 2010-11 season. To open and close the concert, Mr. Zacharias will conduct the composer's Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus and his Symphony No. 6, Pastoral. At the heart of the program, Mr. Zacharias leads the Piano Concerto No. 2 from the keyboard. Used as a means for the young Beethoven to display his virtuosic pianistic talents in concert and make a reputation for himself in Vienna, the work is quite Mozartean in form and character but hints at the storminess that was soon to come.

Here's the link to the performance detail page.


Classical New England will broadcast and stream all three virtually live (there is a delay of a few seconds) with introductory material beginning 1/2 hour before the scheduled concert times. Their BSO page has lots of potentially interesting links to things beyond just these three concerts.

Tanglewood — 2013/08/02-04

Yikes! I thought I still had a day to post about this weekend's Tanglewood concerts. I just realized that it's already Friday, and the first concert of the weekend is already over. Here's their description of what I missed:

Several Friday-evening Shed performances will be part of the popular UnderScore Friday series this season. At these performances, patrons will hear comments about the program directly from an onstage BSO musician. Dates: July 12, August 2, August 23. 

Stéphane Denève, chief conductor of the Stuttgart Radio Symphony Orchestra, returns to Tanglewood on Friday, August 2, at 8:30 p.m. leading a performance of Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4 with pianist Lars Vogt. Compared with the Third that preceded it and the Fifth that followed, the Concerto No. 4 is a sharply contrasting interlude, a less imposing but more original sideways step with which Beethoven explored the lyrical and discursive possibilities of the form. The program opens with Strauss's searching tone poem Death and Transfiguration, a young man's vision of a far-off death, and ends with Poulenc'sStabat Mater for soprano, chorus, and orchestra, featuring the Tanglewood Festival Chorus.

Hopefully, you were alert enough to realize that this was a concert night and listened even without my prompting. Of course, the links on the performance detail page may still be of interest, especially the audio of the concerto and the interview with Maestro Denève.


August 3  Still to come, as of this writing, is a Saturday evening program of music by Ravel and Beethoven conducted by Charles Dutoit with Lang Lang as soloist in the Beethoven. A fuller description follows:

Acclaimed Swiss conductor Charles Dutoit leads the BSO in two programs, Saturday, August 3, and Sunday, August 4, continuing the BSO's multi-year survey featuring Maestro Dutoit in repertoire from the early- to mid-twentieth century. On Saturday evening at 8:30 p.m., Chinese superstar pianist Lang Lang  joins the BSO and Maestro Dutoit as soloist in Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1. The program will also include Ravel's hauntingly beautiful Pavane for a Dead Princess, one of his many works inspired by the music and culture of Spain, and the composer's complete ballet score Daphnis et Chloé, a signature piece for both Mr. Dutoit and the orchestra.

Again, see the performance detail page for links to performer bios (by clicking on the photos), program notes, and audio previews.


August 4  The Sunday afternoon concert has Maestro Dutoit returning to conduct two pieces by Stravinsky, with Yo-Yo Ma soloing in the Dvořák Cello Concerto. As always, the performance detail page gives links to bios, program notes, and audio material, as well as the "official description" of the program:

On Sunday, August 4, at 2:30 p.m., cellist Yo-Yo Ma joins the orchestra for Dvořák's romantic Cello Concerto, an ardent piece full of tuneful melody and impassioned music that is one of the composer's finest works and is infused with the Slavic flavor present in all of Dvořák's oeuvre. The program also includes Stravinsky's brief orchestral fantasy, Fireworks, an early work that finds the composer still writing in the mold of his mentor Rimsky-Korsakov, and The Rite of Spring, an iconic work that demonstrates Stravinsky's early maturity and which celebrates its centennial in 2013.

Classical New England will broadcast and stream the concerts at the usual times (see previous posts for specifics). See their BSO page for links. BTW, I just noticed that they have links to the Verdi Requiem broadcast and the all Mozart program on that page. I'm not sure how long they'll be available, since no earlier concerts are linked on that page.