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.

BSO — 2011/11/17-22 — Info and Reviews

From the BSO website:

French conductor Ludovic Morlot leads two colorful programs this season. His first features BSO principal flutist Elizabeth Rowe reprising her 2010 American premiere performances of Elliott Carter's Flute Concerto, a work co-commissioned by the BSO. Another esteemed soloist, the American pianist Richard Goode, plays Mozart's late Piano Concerto No. 25. Berlioz's rollicking Roman Carnival Overture is based on music from the composer's opera Benvenuto Cellini. Bartók's Miraculous Mandarin Suite, a truncated version of the full ballet score, is an astonishing feat of musical storytelling and brilliant orchestration.

The page also has links to information about the music — program notes and audio.

I enjoyed the first half — Berlioz and Mozart — more than the second, but there were some pleasant surprises after intermission. The Carter piece seemed to have some fragments of themes (repeated rising sequences of notes) although there was too much percussion and not enough music from the rest of the orchestra — or else the percussion distracted from anything else. The Bartók was interesting, with its woodwind solos and its powerful tutti. The Globe reviewer liked it even more than I did.

As usual you can listen on "Classical New England" on Saturday evening ("pre-game show" at 7:00, concert at 8:00) with rebroadcast at 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, and on demand thereafter. Enjoy!

Gunther Schuller

On Wednesday evening, Gunther Schuller and the Borromeo String Quartet teamed up for a lecture/concert at the Harvard Musical Association. The quartet had played a piece by Schuller in December, and he suggested that he could come and explain it to us. The offer was accepted.

The proceedings began with the composer pointing out various instances of contrast and of near-repetition in the piece, with the help of the relevant parts of the score projected on a screen for the audience to follow as the quartet played the passages he had spoken about. He also pointed out a section where he had quoted Mozart and another where he had quoted Beethoven, both at the request of people involved with presenting the piece, and both somewhat disguised so the audience might not recognize it. He also demonstrated the 12-tone row he had used in this piece and many others.

After his illustrated lecture, the quartet played the piece straight through. It certainly sounded musical, rather than a jumble of unrelated sounds. Afterwards I said to Mr. Schuller that it was a very good evening, but it would not help with the works of Elliott Carter (in which I have not been able to detect anything musical except pitch — no rhythm, no harmony, no repetition or near-repetition or development of themes) and he said that if Carter came and gave a similar lecture I would understand that piece just as well.