BSO/Classical New England — 2023/09/23

 WCRB https://www.classicalwcrb.org/show/the-boston-symphony-orchestra/2022-11-10/the-symphony-hall-debuts-of-canellakis-and-benedetti-with-the-bso gives us another encore concert broadcast while the BSO is away and we wait for the Symphony Hall season to begin:

Saturday, September 23rd, 2023
8:00 PM

In an encore broadcast, Karina Canellakis takes up her baton at Symphony Hall for the very first time in a folk-inspired Boston Symphony program that features Dvořák’s The Wood Dove and Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra, and Nicola Benedetti makes her BSO debut with Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto No. 2.

Karina Canellakis, conductor
Nicola Benedetti, violin

Anton DVOŘÁK The Wood Dove
Karol SZYMANOWSKI Violin Concerto No. 2
Witold LUTOSŁAWSKI Concerto for Orchestra

This concert was originally broadcast on January 21st, 2023 and is no longer available on demand.

Hear a preview of the program with Karina Canellakis in the audio player above, and read the transcript below:

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT:

Brian McCreath I'm Brian McCreath at Symphony Hall with Karina Canellakis, who is here to conduct the Boston Symphony for the first time in this space, though, Karina, you have conducted the BSO a couple of times in the past. Thanks for a little bit of your time today.

I posted about back in January, and although I wasn't enthusiastic about it, the good reviews led me to recommend listening. I have no reason to change that. I presume the links in my post still work.

 Enjoy.

BSO — 2023/01/21

Tonight's BSO concert is all unfamiliar, but not really bad. Here's WCRB's description (with links):

Saturday January 21, 2023
8:00 PM

Encore broadcast on Monday, January 30

Karina Canellakis takes up her baton at Symphony Hall for the very first time in a folk-inspired Boston Symphony program that features Dvořák’s The Wood Dove and Lutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra, and Nicola Benedetti makes her BSO debut with Szymanowski’s Violin Concerto No. 2.

Karina Canellakis, conductor
Nicola Benedetti, violin

DVOŘÁK The Wood Dove
SZYMANOWSKI Violin Concerto No. 2
LUTOSŁAWSKI Concerto for Orchestra

To hear a preview of the program with Karina Canellakis, use the player above, and read the transcript below.

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT:

Brian McCreath I'm Brian McCreath at Symphony Hall with Karina Canellakis, who is here to conduct the Boston Symphony for the first time in this space, though, Karina, you have conducted the BSO a couple of t

Further information is available, as always, at the BSO performance detail page:

Making her BSO debut, violinist Nicola Benedetti joins conductor Karina Canellakis in her Symphony Hall debut for Karel Szymanowski’s scintillating Violin Concerto No. 2 from 1933, his last major work. His compatriot Witold Lutosławski’s folk-music influenced Concerto for Orchestra (1954) helped establish his international reputation. Antonín Dvořák’s nature-inspired tone poem Wood Dove has not been played by the BSO since 1905.

Check out the program notes for fuller descriptions of the pieces.

I was there on Thursday, and didn't find anythin too terrible. Dvořák is always pretty good, and "The Wood Dove" is no exception, despite the lurid program note. I'm always apprehensive about Szymanowski and Lutosławski, This time, the Szymanowski wasn't as dissonant as other things of his that I've heard. The piece by Lutosławski was bombastic  at one point I thought of Shostakovich  but it was a notch or so above tolerable.

The Boston Musical Intelligencer gives a very favorable and wordy review. The Globe review is enthusiastic and more descriptive.

SO the reviewers give two thumbs up, and I don't disagree, so I suggest listening in. If you miss it this evening or want to rehear it, the concert will be rebroadcast/streamed om Janiary 30 at 8:00 p.m.

BSO — 2014/01/23-25

This week's concert presents works by Wagner, Lutosławski, and Shostakovich. Here's what the BSO's performance detail page says about it.

For his first full BSO subscription concerts, Latvian BSO Assistant Conductor Andris Poga is joined by eminent American pianist Garrick Ohlsson for the great Polish composer Witold Lutosłaswki's Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, a rhapsodic work from 1988. Its only previous performances by the BSO were led by the composer himself at Symphony Hall in October 1990. Opening the program is Wagner's boisterous overture to his early opera Rienzi, composed partly in Poga's hometown of Riga, Latvia, and premiered in 1842 in Dresden. Shostakovich's utterly characteristic final symphony, No. 15, closes the program. The Russian composer wrote this big piece in 1971.

Emphasis added.

See that page also for the usual links to background material.

I was at the Friday matinee and really enjoyed it. In the first place, the Rienzi overture is a stirring piece of music which I am always happy to hear. The BSO at one time frequently began its concerts with a "curtain raiser," often an opera overture or concert overture. Recently these brief starters for the concert have become less common, but I think they are a good way to begin. The Lutosławski concerto was performed in substitution for the originally programmed world premiere of the piano concerto by Justin Dello Joio, which the BSO  had commissioned. Apparently it wasn't completed in time to be rehearsed and presented at these concerts. The Lutosławski was not unpleasant to listen to, although it seemed kind of disjointed. After intermission, the Shostakovich symphony was quite enjoyable (with quotes from the William Tell Overture in the first movement, and the "fate" motive from Wagner's Ring Cycle in the fourth, and a wonderful conclusion featuring unusual percussion). There were numerous solos or duets from various instruments, and the composer did a good job of quieting the orchestral accompaniment so that they could be clearly heard. All seemed very ably performed. The Globe's review was largely positive.

As usual, you can listen in to the Saturday evening performance (8:00 p.m., Boston Time) on Classical New England. It will be broadcast and streamed again on February 3, again at 8:00 p.m. Also as usual, CNE's page devoted to the BSO has a link to an interview with the conductor, a schedule of the remaining BSO concerts this season (including a reminder that last week's Mozart/Bruckner concert will be rebroadcast/streamed on January 27), and various other links.

Enjoy.

BSO — 2012/03/27-31 Info and Reviews — Also St. Matthew Passion

BSO.  This week's Boston Symphony is unusual: before the intermission a keyboard concerto of Bach's, reworked into the supposedly "original" violin concerto which Bach wrote and then transcribed; then fast forward 200 years for something by the Polish composer Witold Lutosławski; and after intermission Beethoven's Fourth Symphony. Bach is usually the province of "early music" specialists; Lutosłaswski isn't exactly a household name; and the Fourth is not one of the more frequently performed of the Beethoven symphonies (and rightly so, IMO). Surprisingly, to me anyway, it turned out to be a good program.

First, though here's the BSO website, where you can get their information about the music. They summarize it as follows:

Greek violinist Leonidas Kavakos, who has appeared with the BSO as soloist, conducts the orchestra for the first time in two works and is soloist and conductor for Bach's Violin Concerto in D minor. The Polish composer Witold Lutosławski's sonorous, moving Musique funèbre was composed for the tenth anniversary of Bartók's death and was a watershed work for its composer. Beethoven's high-spirited, gregarious Symphony No. 4 closes the program.

As for reviews, the Globe was generally approving, but with reservations. IMO the Bach piece worked quite well as a violin concerto. The program note indicates the there are enough examples of how Bach transformed violin concertos into harpsichord concertos that people can make good guesses at how a hypothetical violin concerto would have looked when all they have top go on is the keyboard version. In this instance, you wouldn't know it wasn't Bach's original. The Lutosławski piece was intended to be  12-tone music. but I could hardly recognize it as such. Much of the time, the pitches he chooses out of the possible 12 actually harmonize. So it was pretty easy listening. Even the jarring dissonance in the middle was tolerable. I think for the audience in the hall, it benefited from the way the players were seated in a semicircle. You could see the music traveling from the cellos on the far right to the first violins on the left, as each section entered; you could see clearly which sections were playing; and at the end, you could see them dropping out from left (top violins) to right (second cellos) until finally there was just a solo cellist. But I think it should be worth hearing even without the visual element. I've never really liked the final two movements of the Beethoven Fourth Symphony. They seemed gruff and boisterous, without much musical value. But on Thursday in symphony hall, they finally sounded like music, not organized noise. I suppose I have to give credit to the conductor for that.

You can hear it all on Classical New England on Saturday at 8:00, with "pre-game" show at 7:00 p.m., and background interviews preceding the concert and during intermission. The repeat should be at 1:00 on Sunday, and "on demand" streaming for two weeks thereafter. As with the BSO website, there are links to background info on the concert.

St. Matthew Passion.  On Sunday afternoon at 3:00 you can hear a live performance of Bach's St. Matthew Passion by he Handel and Haydn Society broadcast and streamed by Classical New England, the same folks who bring you the BSO Saturday concerts. For details and links to additional information, see this page of their website. The Globe's reviewer was quite pleased with the first performance, on Friday evening.


My brother and I have tickets to this performance, so you'll be listening along with us if you tune in or log on.