Handel and Haydn — 2019/03/10

On Sunday, March 10, I went to the afternoon concert of the Handel and Haydn Society at Symphony Hall. There were four works on the program. First was Coronation Anthem № 1, "Zadok the Priest," by Handel, which was performed by members of the high school Collaborative Youth Concerts Choruses and the H+H Orchestra, conducted by Emily Isaacson. The remainder of the concert was performed by the orchestra, conducted by Matthew Halls. It consisted of the Overture to "The Magic Flute," K. 620 by Mozart, Clarinet Concerto № 1 in f minor, op. 73, by Weber, with Eric Hoeprich as soloist, and, after intermission, Symphony № 5 in c minor, op. 67, by Beethoven.

For a group of high schoolers from various schools, the chorus performed quite well. I'd say they were flawless. The Mozart overture was also flawless but unspectacular. Eric Hoeprich is Dutch, but comes to play first clarinet with the H+H. He gave a very lively rendition of the solo part in the Weber. Toward the end of the slow movement, there were passages where the clarinet was accompanied only by three horns softly playing sustained chords. One of the horns was playing extremely low notes — something Weber calls for in other pieces as well. The horn players handled it all very well, and when they were finished is said, "Wow!" under my breath. The third horn player, John Aubrey, didn't seem to do much during the rest of the piece, and I suspect he was brought in just to handle the low notes. I find Weber's music very enjoyable, so I was happy to hear this piece so well performed. I gave a "Bravo!" at the end, and a "Bravi!" to the horn players when the conductor had them stand for a bow.

The Beethoven 5th was also wonderful. The H+H plays on period instruments and uses "historically informed" playing techniques. The result was a smaller orchestra than is common — mainly fewer strings — and it was possible to hear all the instruments. Details which often are buried were audible,  so it seemed that I could hear bits which I hadn't noticed before. The performance was very vigorous in the outer movements and, I thought, well-paced in the inner ones. The end of the symphony produces a GSO (guaranteed standing ovation), so other audience members provided the well-deserved bravos without waiting for encouragement from me.

I don't find any reviews of the concert, so for now you'll have to take my word for it that it was an excellent concert. I hope that WCRB will broadcast it sometime, and you can hear it for yourself.

Reviews: BSO 2014/04/25-26; H&H "Samson"

I'm finally getting around to posting a link to a somewhat belated Globe review of the final Boston Symphony concert of the past season. This concert — originally broadcast and streamed on April 25 — will be broadcast and streamed again on Monday, May 5. I've previously given other information and links.

Meanwhile, I went to the Handel and Haydn's performance of Handel's "Samson" on May 2. The program booklet referred to the richness of musical coloration which Handel put into the orchestration. I was paying closer attention to the words and may have missed some of that aspect of the oratorio. At any rate I considered it well played and sung, and definitely worth hearing. So far, no review has appeared in the Globe, but there is an extensive one in the Boston Musical Intelligencer. At the performance I attended, there were signs in the lobby advising us that the concert was being recorded for a later broadcast, so you may have a chance to hear it. I'll let you know if I learn anything about it.

H & H Messiah — Sunday, December 2, 2012

Classical New England will broadcast and stream the Handel and Haydn Society's performance of Handel's "Messiah" live from Symphony Hall this afternoon at 3:00 Eastern Time. Definitely worth hearing, IMO. You can go here for CNE's links to program notes as well as information about other seasonal programming.

H & H's page about Messiah has further links and introduces the performance as follows:

A tradition for 159 years—make it yours! Harry Christophers conducts the Period Instrument Orchestra, Chorus, and internationally acclaimed soloists in Handel’s dramatic masterwork. Don’t miss Canadian superstars soprano Karina Gauvin and countertenor Daniel Taylor, British tenor extraordinaire James Gilchrist, and Boston's own premier baritone Sumner Thompson in this season’s unique rendition of this Boston tradition. No holiday season is complete without Handel’s stunning oratorio.

Concert Season Begins; Good News for Europe

Concert Season Begins.  On Saturday the sailing season ended for me as I helped run the last Saturday races for 2011. On Sunday the concert season began for me as I attended my first Handel and Haydn Society concert of their 2011-2012 season. They had actually given the concert on Friday as well, and here's a link to the review in Saturday's Boston Globe. Unfortunately, I tend to doze more at matinee concerts than at evening ones. Still, I heard enough to say that I liked the performances, that I didn't think the sound of the fortepiano was lost — at least where I was sitting in the second balcony center — and I found the Mozart symphony really striking, especially the second movement, which struck me as a little bit faster than I expected. In a Q&A session with audience member after the concert, Christophers and Bezuidenhout explained that the somewhat faster tempo seems to correspond more nearly to the 18th Century style than the slower tempo which is common today. One source is the metronome markings which Czerny and Hummel placed in the piano four hands arrangements which each made of the symphony.

I had thought that this was the quickest turnaround ever for me between sailing and concert seasons, but I see from my archive that last year I went to a concert even before the sailing season was over. But it was a special event, not part of a subscription.

I may go to the BSO opening night concert this Friday. They are offering a $50 discount, which brings it close to the price I pay for my Thursday evening subscription concerts.

Good News for Europe.  WCRB has announced that they will rebroadcast the Saturday evening Boston Symphony Orchestra concerts at 1:00 p.m. on Sundays (which would be 6:00 p.m. in Great Britain and 7:00 in Germany — a more convenient time for most Europeans that 2 or 3 in the morning, I suppose).

Note: Edited to correct time of rebroadcasts of BSO concerts. Correct times are now in bold face above.

Tanglewood — 2011/07/22-24

The BSO website provides the following information.

All-Baroque Program 

Friday, July 22, 8:30PM

Young Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casado makes his BSO and Tanglewood debuts July 22 as he and the orchestra are joined by renowned mezzo-soprano Susan Graham for an all-Baroque program including vocal excerpts from Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride and arias from Handel's Alcina and Ariodonte. Handel's vocal music forms the heart of the Baroque opera repertoire, and Gluck, writing a generation later, was intent on making opera more natural, more diverse, and more dramatically interesting, as he pioneered reforms to the genre that influenced composers around the world and ushered in a new era of music for the theater.  The orchestral works by J. S. Bach and the French composer Jean-Phillippe Rameau, represented on this program by Rameau's Suite from Pygmalion and Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 4, display the era's instrumental music in its highest form.

Stucky, Brahms, and Beethoven 
Saturday, July 23, 8:30PM

Dutch conductor Jaap van Zweden, currently music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, also makes his BSO and Tanglewood debuts this weekend, conducting Brahms's soaring, ever-popular Violin Concerto; Beethoven's masterful, dance-infused Symphony No. 7; and Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer Steven Stucky's Rhapsodies, a series of 12 short and diverse episodes for orchestra. Each of the mesmerizing work's brief sections is begun by the sound of a single instrument playing alone, and that instrument's timbre is then imitated and interpreted by the rest of the orchestra.

All-Ravel Program 
Sunday, July 24, 2:30PM

Hot on the heels of his two recitals featuring Ravel's complete music for solo piano on July 20 and 21, outstanding pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet again takes center stage July 24, this time with the BSO and guest conductor Emmanuel Krivine, for another program exclusively featuring music by the French master. Mr. Thibaudet is the soloist for both of Ravel's piano concertos, the jazz-inflected Piano Concerto in G and the Piano Concerto in D for the left hand, which was commissioned by the famous concert pianist Paul Wittgenstein after he lost his right arm in World War I. Also on the program are Valses nobles et sentimentales—which Ravel adapted for orchestra from the original piano version—and the immortal Boléro.

This is certainly a varied weekend. There may be something for everyone, but each listener will probably find something that isn't exactly his or her favorite. I hope you'll find something worth listening to. WCRB begins their coverage 1 1/2 hours before each concert. WCRB is not your only resource. There are other stations which broadcast the concerts, and the BSO has its own media center — all as also indicated on the BSO website.

Radio Broadcasts and Streaming

Concerts from the Shed are broadcast each Friday and Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon in Boston on WCRB 99.5 FM and WGBH's HD2 all classical channel, in Albany on WAMC 90.3 FM and its satellite network, and in Connecticut on WMNR 88.1 FM. In addition, Sunday-afternoon concerts are broadcast on WFCR 88.5 in Amherst. Streaming audio of the broadcasts can also be accessed via the stations' websites atwww.wgbh.org/995; www.wamc.org;www.wmnr.org; and www.wfcr.org. How to listen-in from the BSO Media Center: You can listen LIVE to WGBH in our BSO MEDIA CENTER! Fridays and Saturdays at 7pm and Sundays at 1pm Tanglewood concerts are broadcast LIVE by 99.5 All-Classical, a service of WGBH .

You can also check out the WCRB website for scheduling info and other features.

BSO — 2011/04/21-23

As usual, here's info from the BSO website.

Featured Artists 

Masaaki Suzuki  conductor		Hana Blažíková  soprano		Ingeborg Danz  mezzo-soprano
Christoph Prégardien  tenor (Evangelist and arias)		Hanno Müller-Brachmann  bass-baritone (Jesus and arias)

J.S. Bach's great St. John Passion returns to the BSO repertoire after an absence of thirty years. The esteemed Japanese conductor Masaaki Suzuki, is a noted period-performance scholar and director of the Bach Collegium Japan. He brings his historically informed approach to these performances of one of Bach's greatest achievements. Bach revised the work several times after its first performance in 1724, but the "definitive" 1749 version, restores much of the original score. Joining Mr. Suzuki, the BSO, and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus is a terrific cast of soloists including the Czech soprano Blažíková in her BSO debut. 

It's an unusual thing for a modern orchestra and chorus to perform baroque pieces nowadays, but Bach's St. John Passion is well worth hearing, and Maestro Suzuki is certainly one who knows the music. So I think it's worth hearing. Sadly, the reviews were mixed. The Globe was not thrilled(but see the comments on the article for a rejoinder from a member of the chorus). The online Boston Musical Intelligencer was, with commenters both agreeing and disagreeing with the rave review. I was at an open rehearsal Wednesday evening, and the tenor was having vocal trouble. But just listening to it for the text and the music, rather than specifics of the performances, made it a worthwhile experience.

As usual, the BSO website offers their "Media Center" for additional information, and the Program Notes, available through that page or directly, give an English translation of the text, as well as a whole lot of other info.

The usual pre-concert features will be on WCRB at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time, and the Performance is scheduled for 8:00.

You might also be interested in watching and hearing the videos WCRB is offering on their site of a performance of Handel's Israel in Egypt. I attended a performance, and liked it pretty well.

Christmas Radio/Webstream

December 24 at 10:00 a.m. Boston Time ( = 3:00 p.m. England Time) WCRB will give a live broadcast/stream of the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from Kings College Cambridge. So if you have no other source for it, you can listen there.

And then in the evening, at 8:00 Boston time, they'll present the Handel & Haydn's performance of Messiah, recorded earlier this month in Symphony Hall.

Finally, Bach's Christmas Oratorio will be broadcast/streamed in a recording by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra under Ricardo Chailly. It seems it will be done in three installments: Friday at 3:00 p.m.; Saturday at 10:00 a.m.; and Sunday at 10:00 a.m.

Merry Christmas!

Boston Pops; Handel and Haydn Messiah

The Boston Symphony is on hiatus through the end of December. In its place, the Boston Pops are giving their annual Holiday Pops concerts daily through December 26, except on Christmas day itself. WCRB has announced that they will broadcast and stream this Saturday's concert, which begins at 7:30. As usual, there will be a lead-in show starting at 7:00. I don't see anything official about the remaining Saturdays of December or about January 1, but I would not be surprised if December 11 and 18 also included those evenings' Pops concerts. (The BSO will return to Symphony Hall on January 6, with a broadcast on Saturday, January 8.)

Every December, the Handel and Haydn Society performs Handel's "Messiah." This year's performances took place last weekend, under the baton of their still-new music director, Harry Christophers, and WCRB will broadcast and stream this year's version twice: Sunday December 19, at 2:00 p.m. (good for listeners in Europe, for whom this will be Sunday evening), and Friday, December 24, at 8:00 p.m. (which translates to sometime during Christmas day for Antipodean and Asian listeners). The performances were well received by the Boston Globe's critic.

Alexander's Feast

     I'm jumping the gun on the concert season a bit. Our last sailboat race isn't until tomorrow, and my first BSO concert isn't until October 7; but I'm going in to Boston this evening, to a performance of "Alexander's Feast" by Emmanuel Music. The piece is a setting by Handel of an ode for St. Cecelia's day by John Dryden. Here are a couple of videos. One is my favorite aria (for bass). The other gives a chorus and soprano aria (beginning at about 2:30). You can find more videos from the ones I have linked. The wiki article has an outline of the numbers in the work gives links for the text.

     I have a recording from the 1960's on Vanguard's "Bach Guild" label, which I've very much enjoyed. It has Alfred Deller conducting the musical forces. (In that recording, they pronounce the bard's name as tye moe´ thee us, and hearing "tim owe´thee us" takes some getting used to. Also Maurice Bevan pronounced "rear" to rhyme with "hair," which I think is a traditional pronunciation, as in "rarin' to go.")

     Anyway, I think it's a fine work, and I'm looking forward to hearing it from a group whose Bach cantata recordings I've sometimes heard on the radio, but whose concerts I've never attended. I think if you don't already know "Alexander's Feast," you'll like it if you listen to it. I hope the videos have whetted your appetite.

Messiah

     Yesterday (Sunday December 6) I went to the Handel and Haydn Society's performance of Handel's "Messiah" at Symphony Hall in Boston. They performed music from Messiah as part of their first concert, on Christmas, 1815; the first complete performance of Messiah in the United States on Christmas, 1818;and they've performed the whole oratorio every year beginning in 1854. So they should be pretty good at it. And they are. They do "Historically informed perfomances," meaning that they use instruments like those of Handel's day, and a small orchestra (24 players) and chorus (30 singers).

     Unfortunately, I realized after the concert that I was approaching it more as a musical than as a religious event. Musically, it was satisfying, although the soloists didn't have much power on their low notes. But it didn't notice anything unattractive about the singing and playing.

     The program states that "The performances are being recorded for broadcast locally on 99.5 FM All Classical (a service of WGBH) on December 20 and will be featured nationally on American Public Media's Performance Today." (I don't have a link for APM, but I'm sure you can find them easily enough.) They don't say what time the 99.5 FM broadcast will be, but I'm confident it will be either 2:00 or 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time. So if you follow the link, you should be able to hear their webstream.

April 14: Anniversary

Martin in Broda reminds us that April 14, which it still is here for another hour, is the 250th anniversary of the death of George Frideric Handel. Worth remembering. Here's another article.

Boston's Handel and Haydn Society gave the American premiere of Messiah and has performed it every year since the mid 19th century.