Tanglewood — 2015/07/31-08/02

This weekend brings us a number of familiar works from the core repertoire, works that would have been familiar and well-received a century ago, along with a couple of more recent pieces.


Friday, July 31.  The Friday concert is in a traditional format, with a curtain-raiser followed by another, longer piece. The major offering follows the intermission. Here's the BSO performance detail page's description:

Boston Symphony Orchestra Assistant Conductor Ken-David Masur will lead a program opening with the overture to Weber's Der Freischütz, followed by Schubert's Symphony No. 4, Tragic,  and Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5, Emperor, with soloist Garrick Ohlsson.

(Some emphasis added.)

The page also notes that this is an "Underscore Friday," with a brief introduction from the stage by one of the musicians. It also gives the usual links to program notes, audio previews, and performer bios.

The Weber overture is a thrilling piece containing some of the best themes from the opera — a very fine choice to open the concert. The Emperor concerto is one of Beethoven's greatest achievements, in my opinion. I have a dinner engagement that evening and I'll almost certainly miss the first half of the concert, but I hope to be home in time to hear the whole Beethoven concerto. It should all be enjoyable if you have a chance to listen.


Saturday, August 1.  For some reason, the BSO website isn't showing the program for this evening — although it was there when I began writing this post a half hour or so ago.* WCRB tells us:

Music Director Andris Nelsons leads the BSO in Beethoven's "Triple" Concerto, with pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, violinist Renaud Capuçon, and cellist Gautier Capuçon, and the Symphony No. 10 by Shostakovich.

(Emphasis added.)

While the Triple concerto may not be quite at the pinnacle occupied by the "Emperor" — having been composed with Beethoven's piano pupil the Archduke Rudolf, a talented amateur, as the intended soloist, rather than Beethoven himself or a good professional — it is definitely worth hearing. I don't recall the Shostakovich specifically. I'll just say that Shostakovich's music can be powerful but challenging.


Sunday, August 2.  The BSO gives us the following on their performance detail page:

BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons will conduct Haydn's Symphony no. 90, Dean's Dramatis personae featuring trumpet player Håkan Hardenberger, and Strauss's Don Quixote with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and violist Steven Ansell.

(Some emphasis added.)

There are full program notes and an audio preview of the Haydn linked on the BSO page. As noted there, Hardenberger was the soloist for the American premiere by the BSO last November. I reviewed it at the time** and liked it more than I had expected. I'm looking forward to hearing it again. The Strauss is being performed in observance of the 400th anniversary of the publication of Part II of Don Quixote.


The concerts can be heard via WCRB radio or web: Friday and Saturday at 8:30 p.m., Sunday at 2:30 — all Boston Time. Their BSO page, in addition to the description of the Saturday concert posted above, gives similar information about the remaining Tanglewood concert broadcasts along with an overview of the upcoming Symphony Hall season and various other interesting items and links.


* After drafting this post, I set it aside overnight, and now the BSO performance detail page is back, with the usual links to background material.


** "Spoiler" In my review of the Dean piece, I refer to a composer I was reminded of by the third part of the work. If you want to know who it is, it's Charles Ives.

BSO — 2014/11/13-18

Music Director Andris Nelsons is back on the podium this week with works of Tchaikovsky, contemporary Aussie composer Brett Dean, and Stravinsky — one of Tchaikovsky's least known works, the American premiere of the Dean, and one of Stravinsky's best known. Trumpeter Håkan Hardenberger solos in the Dean. Here are some details from the BSO's performance detail page:

Andris Nelsons is joined here by another close collaborator, masterful Swedish trumpet virtuoso Håkan Hardenberger, for the American premiere of Brett Dean's trumpet concertoDramatis personae. The Australian-born, Grawemeyer Award-winning composer wrote this concerto for Hardenberger, who gave its first performance in August 2013 in Austria. The idea of the title refers to the soloist's position as dramatic protagonist. Inspired by one of literature's most recognizable protagonists, Tchaikovsky's symphonic poem Hamlet, which opens the program, is one of the composer's several intensely Romantic works based on Shakespeare. Stravinsky's groundbreaking, still-thrilling ballet score The Rite of Spring, an orchestral tour de force, closes these concerts.

In addition to the usual links to audio previews, program notes, and performer bios, the page also has an essay discussing the music of "Rite of Spring."

I was there on Thursday and liked the concert. The opening and concluding pieces had places where soloists within the orchestra had a chance to shine, and shine they did, for which they were warmly applauded. Whole sections did yeoman duty as well. The Tchaikovsky "Hamlet" has been played five times by the BSO, the latest performances taking place in 1968. It may not be the finest thing Tchaikovsky ever composed, but it deserves to be heard more frequently that once in 46 years. There's plenty of good music in it evoking various elements of the play, and the orchestra seemed in good form for it. If nothing else, you should listen to the concert for this piece. Who knows when you'll get another chance?

After reading the program note, I was prepared to find the Dean concerto unpleasant and unlikeable. Well, it isn't pleasant in the way Haydn is, but I found it listenable, if gruff. The first movement at times seemed jazzy, and the second was mostly quiet and relaxed. Toward the end of the third movement, I was very much reminded of a certain American composer of an earlier generation. He's mentioned in the lukewarm Globe review, but not in the program note, and it was such a pleasant surprise to hear that part that I won't mention the name. So if you don't read the Globe review until after the concert, you can enjoy the surprise too. It's a really march-like bit, and you'll probably smile even if you don't catch the similarity. The Stravinsky was played clearly, so that one could hear everything that was going on, and I think the soloists as well as the sections and the whole orchestra earned the rousing applause and cheers they got — with Maestro Nelsons taking such care to acknowledge them separately that there was only one curtain call, lasting several minutes.

So I definitely recommend listening to this concert, at least up to the intermission, over WCRB radio or internet. It will probably help with the Dean concerto if you prepare for it by listening to the Brian Bell interview and reading the program notes from the BSO program detail page and listening to the Nelsons and Hardenberger interviews from WCRB's BSO page. Having some idea of what it was all about definitely helped me appreciate it. As usual, it will be available live on Saturday at 8:00 p.m., and recorded on Monday, November 24, also at 8:00 p.m.

Note: As of this writing, the Boston Musical Intelligencer hasn't yet published a review. When I see it, I'll edit this post to include at least a link. So if you see this note and are curious about what BMInt says, you can check back here later.

Edited November 19 to add: Here's the review in the Boston Musical Intelligencer, favorable to the Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky, not to the Dean.