BSO — 2017/10/28

This week's Boston Symphony concert is a single work, "The Damnation of Faust" by Hector Berlioz conducted by Charles Dutoit. I was at the Friday matinee and found it very enjoyable — excellent music very well performed by soloists, orchestra, and chorus. All the usual links to background information — performer bios (click on the photos), program notes, audio preview, podcast — are available at the orchestra's performance detail page, along with the following blurb:

Charles Dutoit leads the BSO and an outstanding cast in Hector Berlioz's magnificent The Damnation of Faust. Goethe's Faust resonated strongly in the Romantic era, particularly the title character's attempt to transcend human limitations via science and magic at the cost of promising his soul to Mephistopheles. The very human tragic love story, centered on Faust and Marguerite, looms large in Berlioz's setting, which was the first major work to grapple with Goethe's far-reaching text. The Damnation of Fausthas held a special place in the BSO's repertoire since Koussevitzky led the orchestra's first complete performances in 1934, and it was recorded by the BSO under both Charles Munch (twice!) and Seiji Ozawa.

Both reviews were quite favorable, giving more information about the piece than the performance, but the Globe and the Boston Musical Intelligencer both liked what they heard. I found the music always descriptive of what was happening, and I was especially moved by the final section, in which Marguerite is welcomed to heaven.

There were surtitles (which didn't seem to translate every line of the text, but at least gave the gist of it). I'm not sure how well it will work without being able to see them. Here's a link to the text, alternately in English and French, with some introductory material. The layout is not ideal, but if you sort through it, it's all there. At the least, you'll probably want to follow the synopsis given in the program notes.

As always, you can hear it on WCRB at 8:00 p.m., Boston Time, and I highly recommend it. If you can't catch it live, it will be rebroadcast at 8:00 on Monday, November 6. (Meanwhile, on October 30, the rebroadcast will be of last week's Beethoven and Grieg  incidental music.) The WCRB website has information about future BSO concert broadcasts and other programming on the station.

Enjoy!

BSO — 2017/10/21

This week, it's "incidental music" — music written to go with plays — at the BSO. It's not part of my subscription so I haven't heard it and can't comment on the performance. Also, as of this writing, no review has appeared in the Boston Musical Intelligencer. But the orchestra's performance detail page gives — in addition to all the usual links to further information — the following description:

Bill Barclay and his creative team return to join BSO Associate Conductor Ken-David Masur for an imaginative treatment of Grieg's music for Ibsen's fantastical folk-play Peer Gynt. Rough and rustic, negligent and occasionally criminal, Peer Gynt undergoes many adventures-among them kidnapping his erstwhile fiancée, encountering the Mountain King and begetting a son by the king's daughter, traveling in North Africa, and sidestepping the Devil. Opening the program is Beethoven's incidental music for Goethe's tragedy Egmont, featuring soprano and narrator along with the orchestra, and best-known for its overture, which is frequently heard on its own. The play tells of the Flemish Count Egmont's refusal to relinquish his ideal of freedom in his struggle against the tyrannical Duke of Alba.

(Some emphasis added.)

The Globe review is mixed. Of course, you won't be able to see the action on stage, but you can hear the music, and whatever spoken words are part of the show.

Listen over WCRB tonight at 8:00 p.m., Boston Time (with a rebroadcast scheduled on Monday, October 30)., and see how well the music does on its own. Some of it has been in the standard repertory since it was composed. Check out the rest of the station's offerings through the links on their home page. On Monday, October 23 at 8:00 you'll have your chance to listen again to last week's concert of Ligeti, Dvořák, and Schumann.

Happy Listening!

BSO — 2017/10/14

The Boston Symphony Orchestra's program detail page synopsizes this week's program as follows:

Spanish conductor Gustavo Gimeno and American violinist Hilary Hahn join forces for Dvořák's Violin Concerto, composed in 1879 for the great Joseph Joachim. At times lyrical, Dvořák's concerto also contains passages of great energy based on music from his Czech heritage, especially in the delightful, dance-like finale. Also based on music from Central Europe, György Ligeti's early "Romanian Concerto" is a Bartók influenced orchestral work from early in the great Hungarian composer's career. Robert Schumann's First Symphony is bursting with energy, power, and optimism.

(Emphasis added.)

The reviews in both the Boston Globe and the Boston Musical Intelligencer were quite favorable, both overall, and particularly with regard to Hilary Hahn (with the Intelligencer gushing). I was there on Thursday and found it all enjoyable to listen to, although there was nothing that I'd consider spectacular, just good playing. The third horn in the Ligeti was played offstage through a door that was ajar. Mike Winter seemed slightly embarrassed to come onstage for a bow when other soloists were asked to stand, and he stayed to the side, just inside the door.

You can hear it all this evening over WCRB radio or internet at 8:00 p.m., Boston Time. Their homepage has links to additional information about their programs, including future BSO concerts and other special programs. It seems that they are also repeating the concerts on Monday evenings a week later, so last week's will be rerun on October 16, and tonight's, on October 23. The repeats are also at 8:00 p.m.

Enjoy!

BSO — 2017/10/07

This evening, October 7, at 8:00 p.m., WCRB will broadcast and stream the Boston Symphony Orchestra concert live. Music Director Andris Nelsons will be on the podium. The concert opens with Moler, by Arlene Sierra, a fairly short piece receiving its first Boston performances this week. Then Gil Shaham will be the solo violinist in the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. The concert will conclude with Symphony № 2 by Rachmaninoff. The orchestra's performance detail page has links to audio previews of the Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff pieces (regrettably not the Sierra) and the written program notes for all three. I recommend reading at least the notes for "Moler" to get some idea of what to expect. On the other hand, there's something to be said for just letting it have no expectations to live up to. Then on a second hearing, you can have the assistance of the notes to help sort it out.

The program notes also link a podcast and performer bios and tell us

One of several American composers figuring in this season's programs, Florida-born Arlene Sierra, a former Tanglewood Fellow, wrote Moler (2012) on commission for the Seattle Symphony Orchestra. The eightminute work is a harmonically colorful and rhythmically energetic evocation of the Spanish meaning of the title, "to grind." Also on the program are Tchaikovsky's beloved Violin Concerto featuring acclaimed American violinist Gil Shaham, and Rachmaninoff's lush Symphony No. 2, composed between the Second and Third piano concertos. With its lyrical excursions reminiscent of the arching, lovely melodies in his piano concertos and songs, it has long been the most popular of the composer's three symphonies.

The Boston Musical Intelligencer raves about Gil Shaham's performance of the Tchaikovsky. The reviewer's description of his exuberance matches what I saw at Tanglewood last summer, when he was violinist in the Brahms Double Concerto for Violin and Cello. The other two works on the program get a brief paragraph each, with no real complaints. The Globe review finds fault with some details of Shaham's performance of the Tchaikovsky, but is generally quite favorable.

This concert was not part of my subscriptions, so I can't add my own impressions to those of the reviewers, but based on the reviews, I'm looking forward to hearing it until my brother calls from Tokyo. So I recommend giving it a hearing, especially for the violin concerto; and if the curtain raiser isn't to your liking, hang in there for what's to come.

BSO — 2017/09/30

This week the BSO gives us Piano Concerto No. 4 by Beethoven, with Paul Lewis as soloist. After intermission it's Shostakovich's 11th Symphony, "The Year 1905." Music Director Andris Nelsons is on the podium. The orchestra's program detail page has this to say about it.

The BSO and Andris Nelsons continue their multi-year survey of the complete Shostakovich symphonies with his Symphony No. 11, which the BSO has never performed. Conceived to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the first, failed Russian Revolution (thus the nickname The Year 1905), it was completed in 1957 and earned Shostakovich the prestigious Lenin Prize, a sign of considerable official approval. In keeping with its subject matter, the symphony makes extensive reference to Russian revolutionary songs. To begin the program, English pianist Paul Lewis is soloist in Beethoven's lyrical and poetic Piano Concerto No. 4, which famously opens with a disarmingly intimate passage for solo piano.

Also see the performance detail page for the customary links to performer bios, program notes, audio previews and podcasts.

During the Symphony Hall season The same program is usually given on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, an sometimes on the following Tuesday. So reviews are often available for me to refer to, and often I attend a Thursday performance, enabling me to give my own observations. This week both the Boston Globe and the Boston Musical Intelligencer found Lewis less emotional than they'd have liked in the Beethove — not that they could point to anything actually wrong, just that they'd have liked a different interpretation. Both reviewers liked the Shostakovich. As usual, the Globe, with space limitations, gives mostly background information, while BMInt says more about the actual performance.

My own impression was that the Beethoven was nicely done. I'd never heard the Shostakovich before, and, since there is no break between the four movements and there were more changes of mood than movements, I couldn't tell where one movement ended and the next began. But that's okay. There were parts that seemed to evoke the chill of winter and parts that clearly represented the violence of the troops firing on the people. There were parts that were very loud, and parts so soft I could barely hear them. Overall, I found it fascinating, and I'd say it's not as "difficult" as some of Shostakovich's music.

The broadcast and stream will be on WCRB at 8:00 p.m., Boston Time this evening, September 30. Their home page, where you find the Listen Live button, also has a link to their podcast with interviews about the concert, among other things; and you can also access further information about their programming. (There is an indication that the 8:00 p.m. slot on Mondays is also given to BSO performances. It may well present rebroadcasts of concerts from nine days earlier.)

I'm sure you'll like the Beethoven concerto. Why not stick around and give the Shostakovich symphony a try?

BSO — 2017/09/23

We read in the BSO program detail page:

Franz Joseph Haydn and Gustav Mahler defined the genre of the symphony during their respective eras- Haydn as one of its originators in the late 18th-century Classical era, and Mahler as revitalizer and innovator at the end of the Romantic era. Haydn's Drumroll Symphony-not performed by the BSO since 1995-was the next-to-last symphony he wrote, in the first half of the 1790s. Written nearly 100 years later, the first of Mahler's nine symphonies employs folk-music references and a conventional four-movement form that have their foundations in Haydn's time. Its expanded scope and instrumentation are evidence of the genre's 19th-century transformation as well as Mahler's own stretching of the form.

(Some emphasis added.)

As in prior seasons, the program detail page also has links to performer bios (Click on the thumbnail photo.), program notes, audio previews, and a video podcast.

Also as in prior seasons, WCRB will stream and broadcast the concert, beginning at 8:00 p.m., Boston Time (EDT). Their homepage has links to information about many other offerings on the station. I don't see anything telling us that the concert will be rebroadcast on Monday a week from now, as was formerly the practice, so we'll have to wait and see.

Both symphonies are staples of the orchestral repertoire, so the program should be enjoyable listening (withe the Haydn somewhat more to my taste).

Enjoy.

BSO — Friday, 2017/09/22 — Opening Night Gala

This evening WCRB will broadcast/stream the Boston Symphon'y' opening night gala. It's an all-Bernstein program, as the orchestra begins to mark the centennial of his birth(in Lawrence, Massachusetts). The concert begins at 6:00 and is expected to end at about 7:30. The broadcast begins at 5:30. The performance detail page says the following:

In several concerts this season the BSO celebrates the centennial of the great Leonard Bernstein, the legendary conductor, Broadway and concert composer, pianist, educator, and personality whose talent changed the course of American music. Born in Lawrence, MA, in 1918, Bernstein attended Boston Latin School and Harvard University. A member of the very first class of the Tanglewood Music Center in 1940 and a protégé of legendary BSO conductor Serge Koussevitzky, Bernstein remained a dynamic, irrepressible, and inspiring presence at Tanglewood for fifty years. Led by Andris Nelsons, this Opening Night program features popular vocal selections sung by host Frederica von Stade and acclaimed soprano Julia Bullock, as well as BSO principal flute Elizabeth Rowe. Bookending the program are the composer's delightfully varied Divertimento and familiar, vibrant music drawn from West Side Story.

(Some emphasis added.)

The actual listing of the program will enable you to make sense of the last two sentences I quoted from the page.

"West Side Story" is overly familiar, but I'm looking forward to the instrumental pieces at the beginning.

Again, remember this is Friday, beginning at 5:30, Boston Time. The Saturday concert will be at the usual time.

BSO/Classical New England — 2017/09/16

The BSO's Symphony Hall season will open on Friday, September 22 (and will continue through Saturday, May 5, with the usual month off in December). For the final week of rebroadcasts, WCRB has chosen the concert of April 22, 2017. Radu Lupu joins the orchestra and Maestro Andris Nelsons as soloist in Piano Concerto № 24 in c minor by Mozart. Then we hear the same composer's Requiem with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus and four vocal soloists.

Here's a link to the orchestra's performance detail page, where you can find the usual links the usual background information. Posting about it at the time, I noted generally favorable reviews and gave my own favorable impressions, implicitly suggesting that the reviewers were a bit too dramatic.

I can't listen because I'm going to a concert performance of Tchaikovsky's opera "The Maid of Orleans," which opens Odyssey Opera's 2017-2018 season. But if I were going to be home. I'd certainly enjoy hearing the BSO concert again. I definitely recommend listening over the air or the internet at 8:00 p.m., Boston Time, via WCRB.

BSO/Classical New England — 2017/09/09

This week, WCRB's Saturday evening Boston Symphony broadcast (also streamed) is the concert performed on April 15 of this year. It consists of Piano Concerto No. 20 in d minor by Mozart, with Mitsuko Uchida as soloist. After intermission the orchestra plays Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 6. Music Director Andris Nelsons is on the podium.

I posted briefly about it at the time, but since I hadn't attended an earlier performance of the program, I had no comments of my own. I did include this synopsis from the Orchestra's performance detail page

Japanese pianist Mitsuko Uchida, one of the foremost Mozart pianists of  our age, plays the composer's mysterious, stormy, proto-Romantic D minor piano concerto, a work owing much to the composer's sensitivity to operatic drama and emotion. Bruckner's seldom heard Symphony No. 6, written between 1879 and 1881, was the work he considered his boldest, though only the second and third movements were performed during his lifetime. Gustav Mahler led all four movements-but with cuts-in 1899, in Vienna; the first complete, uncut performance was given in 1901, in Stuttgart. Energetic, lyrical, and expansive, the Symphony No. 6 is a uniquely absorbing example of the composer's monumental symphonic style.

 as well as links to reviews.

The show begins at 8:00 p.m. Boston Time on Saturday, September 9, 2017. Enjoy!

BSO/Classical New England — 2017/09/02

Sorry to be so late. I've been busy. Here are the essentials from the WCRB website.
http://classicalwcrb.org/post/all-french-program-alain-altinoglu#stream/0

Saturday, September 2, 2017
8:00 PM

This is an encore broadcast originally recorded on April 1, 2017.

Alain Altinoglu, conductor
Renaud Capuçon, violin

BERLIOZ Roman Carnival Overture
LALO Symphonie espagnole
DUTILLEUX Symphony No. 2, Le Double
ROUSSEL Bacchus et Ariane, Suite No. 2

Hear the concert on demand

Hear a preview with Alain Altinoglu on The Answered Question:

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