BSO — 2024/04/27

 This evening's Boston Symphony concert could be challenging or fun, depending on which review you believe. Before we get to the reviews, here's what WCRB says:

Saturday, April 27, 2024
8:00pm

Encore broadcast on Monday, May 6

BSO Principal Trumpet Thomas Rolfs is the soloist in Detlev Glanert’s Trumpet Concerto, an eclectic, dramatic work commissioned for and premiered by Rolfs in 2019. The concert opens with a new work by one of the greatest living composers, Sofia Gubaidulina’s The Wrath of God, dedicated to Beethoven, and closes with Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 4, commissioned by longtime BSO Music Director Serge Koussevitzky for the orchestra’s 50th anniversary in 1931.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Thomas Rolfs, trumpet

Sofia GUBAIDULINA The Wrath of God (American premiere)
Detlev GLANERT Trumpet Concerto
Sergei PROKOFIEV Symphony No. 4

In a preview of Detlev Glanert's Trumpet Concerto, the composer and the soloist, BSO Principal Trumpeter Thomas Rolfs, describe the very personal expressions of emotion, first inspired by Glanert's friend and mentor, composer Oliver Knussen, that are woven throughout the score and through Rolfs's performances. To hear the interview with CRB's Brian McCreath, use the player above, and read the transcript below.

TRANSCRIPT:

Brian McCreath I'm Brian McCreath at Symphony Hall with Thomas Rolfs, principal trumpet of the Boston Symphony, and Detlev Glanert, the composer

Turning to the BSO's performance detail page, we read the following:

Boston Symphony Orchestra

Symphony Hall, Boston, MA 

Andris Nelsons, conductor 
Thomas Rolfs, trumpet 

Sofia GUBAIDULINA The Wrath of God 
Detlev GLANERT Trumpet Concerto
Intermission
PROKOFIEV Symphony No. 4, Op. 47 (original version)

Thursday evening’s performance is supported by Hemenway & Barnes LLP.
Thursday evening's performance by Thomas Rolfs is supported by Dr. Kenan E. Sahin and Andrea TN Sahin.
Friday afternoon's concert is supported by the Gilbert Family

The program begins with the American premiere of Sofia Gubaidulina’s musically and spiritually forceful Wrath of God, a 2019 work dedicated to Beethoven that Andris Nelsons recorded with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. BSO principal trumpet Thomas Rolfs is the soloist in Detlev Glanert’s Trumpet Concerto, an eclectic, dramatic work commissioned for and premiered by Rolfs in 2019. The program concludes with Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 4, commissioned by longtime BSO music director Serge Koussevitzky for the orchestra’s 50th anniversary in 1931.

As always, there are links to the program notes for each of the pieces, and they could be well worth reading.

The Globe review is lukewarm and suggests that much of the evening's music could be challenging. The Intelligencer's reviewer finds no difficulty in an interesting and enjoyable evening. I guess the only thing to do is listen and decide for ourselves.

BSO/Classical New England — 2022/05/21

 Per WCRB:

Saturday, May 21, 2022
8:00 PM

Tonight at 8, in a celebration of the composer's 90th birthday, Andris Nelsons leads the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Sofia Gubaidulina's "The Light of the End," as well as Rachmaninoff’s powerfully dramatic Third Symphony.

Boston Symphony Orchestra
Andris Nelsons, conductor

Sofia GUBAIDULINA The Light of the End
Sergei RACHMANINOFF Symphony No. 3

Hear a preview of Gubaidulina's The Light of the End with Andris Nelsons and CRB's Brian McCreath with the audio player above.

Transcript:

Brian McCreath [00:00:00] I'm Brian McCreath from WCRB, at Symphony Hall with Andris Nelsons. And this really amazing program

They forgot to mention that this is a rebroadcast of the concert of October 23, 2021. I posted about it back then, and I don't have anything to add now.

Enjoy.

BSO — 2021/10/23

 WCRB says:

Saturday, October 23, 2021
8:00 PM

Celebrating the composer's 90th birthday, Andris Nelsons leads the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Sofia Gubaidulina's The Light of the End, as well as Rachmaninoff’s powerfully dramatic Third Symphony, Saturday at 8pm.

Andris Nelsons, conductor

Sofia GUBAIDULINA The Light of the End
RACHMANINOFF Symphony No. 3

Hear and read Bernard Haitink's recollection of his first experiences with the BSO.

To hear a preview of Gubaidulina's The Light of the End with Andris Nelsons, click on the player above.

Transcript:

Brian McCreath [00:00:00] I'm Brian McCreath from WCRB, at Symphony Hall with Andris Nelsons. And this really amazing program of two pieces, Sofia Gubaidulina's The Light of the End and Rachmaninoff's Third Symphony. Andris, you're doing a lot of Gubaidulina in the coming year, and you've even recorded this piece, that'll be released this week with the Gewandhaus Orchestra. Tell me about what the qualities are that draw you to her music?

The rest of the transcript and the link to the audio of the interview are on the page.

The BSO says, on the performance detail page:

This all-Russian program led by Andris Nelsons opens with a BSO-commissioned piece by Sofia Gubaidulina, premiered by the orchestra under Kurt Masur’s direction in 2003. The work’s uniquely colorful harmonies and instrumental colors create its expressive drama. The title refers to the bright sound of antique cymbals at its conclusion. These performances celebrate Sofia Gubaidulina’s 90th birthday on October 24, 2021.
Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 3 dates from 1936, falling between the Paganini Rhapsody for piano and orchestra and Symphonic Dances. Like those works, the symphony is characterized by scintillating orchestration and Rachmaninoff’s noted gift for long-spun melody and compelling musical narrative.

There is a favorable review, with lots of description of the music — much more than of the playing — in the Intelligencer. The review in the Globe is mildly favorable as well.

I wasn't there on Thursday, so I have no specific impressions. I will say, based on what I read in the reviews, that I don't consider this "must listen" material. I'm a little bit curious to hear how the first piece goes. I'll probably miss the Rachmaninoff during the phone call from my brother in Tokyo, and I don't consider it a tragedy.

If you want to hear it but can't listen tonight, there are the opportunities to listen to it later which I mentioned last week.

BSO/Classical New England — 2018/09/22

This week's rebroadcast on WCRB is the concert of February 25, 2017: a triple concerto by Sofia Gubaidulina which was receiving its premiere performances and Shostakovich's Eighth Symphony. I wrote about it at the time and, as you can see, thought it was good. The synopsis on the orchestra's performance detail page is as follows:

The Russian-born Sofia Gubaidulina, acclaimed as one of the most significant composers in the world today, was encouraged in her career early on by Dmitri Shostakovich. She wrote her Triple Concerto (a BSO co-commission receiving its world premiere at these concerts) for the unusual combination of violin, cello, and bayan, a type of accordion often employed by Gubaidulina and a mainstay of Russian folk music. Joining Latvian violinist Baiba Skride are Dutch cellist Harriet Krijgh and Swiss bayanist Elsbeth Moser, both making their BSO debuts. Shostakovich wrote his Seventh Symphony, Leningrad, as a tribute to the peoples' fortitude in the face of the German Army's long and destructive siege of that city during World War II. Serge Koussevitzky led the first U.S. concert performances of the piece with the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra in August 1942, following the NBC Symphony's radio broadcast premiere under Toscanini the previous month. The present performances continue Andris Nelsons' and the BSO's survey of the complete Shostakovich symphonies, which are being recorded for Deutsche Grammophon.

(Some emphasis added.)

I'll be in Boston this evening attending Odyssey Opera's performance of "La reine de Saba" by Gounod. If you can't be there, I think this concert will be worth (re)hearing this evening at 8:00 EDST.

BSO — 2017/02/25

This week's concert includes the broadcast premiere of a work the BSO gave its world premiere on Thursday. After intermission comes a massive symphony from Shostakovich. The BSO performance detail page has this to say:

The Russian-born Sofia Gubaidulina, acclaimed as one of the most significant composers in the world today, was encouraged in her career early on by Dmitri Shostakovich. She wrote her Triple Concerto (a BSO co-commission receiving its world premiere at these concerts) for the unusual combination of violin, cello, and bayan, a type of accordion often employed by Gubaidulina and a mainstay of Russian folk music. Joining Latvian violinist Baiba Skride are Dutch cellist Harriet Krijgh and Swiss bayanist Elsbeth Moser, both making their BSO debuts. Shostakovich wrote his Seventh Symphony, Leningrad, as a tribute to the peoples' fortitude in the face of the German Army's long and destructive siege of that city during World War II. Serge Koussevitzky led the first U.S. concert performances of the piece with the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra in August 1942, following the NBC Symphony's radio broadcast premiere under Toscanini the previous month. The present performances continue Andris Nelsons' and the BSO's survey of the complete Shostakovich symphonies, which are being recorded for Deutsche Grammophon.

(Most emphasis added.)

Go to that page for links to musical previews, program notes, performer bios, and a podcast.

I was in the hall for the Thursday concert. I'm always inordinately happy to be present for a world premiere. Sometimes the work is terrible, sometimes tolerable, sometimes worthwhile and interesting, and occasionally very enjoyable. What I found very interesting in the Gubaidulina piece is how she shifted from on instrument or group of instruments. Rarely did the whole orchestra play together. One result was that the soloists didn't get drowned out by the full orchestra. And what they played sounded to me mostly like music, not noise. There wasn't a lot of development that I detected, more a series of musical bits which were ot obviously related to one another. It's not going to drive Beethoven's Triple Concerto from the repertoire, nor does it deserve to be as frequently performed, but I hope they'll perform it once in a while.

As for the Shostakovich, if I hadn't already known that it was supposedly in response to the Nazi siege of Leningrad, I don't think I'd have guessed that it was about war. Full disclosure: after the first movement I began to get drowsy, and I may have missed portions of the third and fourth (that's how riveting it was).

The reviewer for the Boston Musical Intelligencer and Mass Live were much more interested in the Shostakovich than the Gubaidulina world premiere, and they spent a lot of time describing the symphony, although the Boston Musical Intelligencer gives a fair amount about the performance also, as well as a description of the triple concerto. The Globe is more balanced. I didn't notice any complaints from the reviewers about anything, but they weren't exactly wildly enthusiastic, either.

Listen to WCRB radio or web this evening at 8:00, Boston time, and decide for yourself about the new piece and the "warhorse." If you miss it this evening or want to hear it again, they'll transmit it again at 8:00 p.m. on Monday, March 6. Note also the link to their podcast on the homepage and the other information on other pages of the site.

BSO — 2014/11/06-11 (Somewhat Belated)

Toward the end of last week, I was quite busy with other matters, so I didn't get to post anything about last Saturday's broadcast before it happened. But as regular readers know, the concert will be rebroadcast and streamed over WCRB on Monday, November 17, at 8:00 p.m. Boston Time. It is also being performed again in Symphony Hall this evening at 8:00, so if what you see here piques your interest and you live near enough, you can pop over and listen live.

The program consists of two works. Here is how the BSO's performance detail page describes it:

New BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons returns for his second series of 2014-15 concerts, joining forces with several longtime collaborators for music with a Scandinavian and Slavic accent. This program features acclaimed Latvian violinist Baiba Skride, a compatriot and contemporary of the conductor, as soloist in Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina's Offertorium-a piece recorded by the BSO in 1988 and considered one of the most important 20th century concertos for the instrument. Gubaidulina's music is strongly affected by her spirituality, making use of the modern era's wealth of expressive techniques. Closing the concert is Finnish composer Jean Sibelius's Second Symphony, a work of remarkably pastoral temperament that remains one of his most beloved works.

(Some emphasis added.)

There are the usual links to program notes, audio previews, and performer bios on the performance detail page.

The Boston Globe reviewer gives considerable attention to explaining the piece itself, which is useful, and not so much to the actual performance. He finds nothing to criticize about either, and he is also satisfied with the Sibelius. The review in the Boston Musical Intelligencer has a lot of detail about Maestro Nelsons' conducting as it was the reviewer's first time seeing him conduct. Like the Globe reviewer, he admired the violinist's playing, and also briefly noted his satisfaction with the Sibelius.

The concert was not part of my subscription, so  I didn't hear it on Thursday. When I started listening on the radio on Saturday, the Gubaildina concerto was already in progress, and what I heard was not really very pleasant. Maybe it wasn't supposed to be. It became calmer and easier on the ear as it approached the end. If I read the program notes, which I hope to do, perhaps I'll appreciate it more. I'll listen to the rebroadcast, but I won't spend the money and make the effort of going in to Boston to hear it in the hall. I do like the Sibelius symphony, but I've heard it a number of times, so I don't need to attend for its sake. This isn't an easy decision. I really like to give myself the chance to hear new music, and the idea of the Gubaidulina is interesting, so going tonight is an attractive idea. But I don't quite need to be there.

As always, WCRB's BSO page has links to a lot of material about this concert and others. Check it out.