BSO/Classical New England — 2022/03/19

The BSO went "on tour " to New York and will be away today and next week. As usual, WCRB is filling the time with "Encore broadcasts. This evening it's the concert given at Tanglewood on July 18, 2021. Here's the scoop from WCRB:

Saturday, March 19, and Monday, March 28, 2022
8:00 PM

Tonight at 8pm, in an encore broadcast from the 2021 Tanglewood season, Gil Shaham returns to the Berkshires as the soloist in Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 3, and Andris Nelsons conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra in pieces by the storied musical sibling pair Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Gil Shaham, violin

MENDELSSOHN-HENSEL Overture in C
MOZART Violin Concerto No. 3
MENDELSSOHN Symphony No. 5, Reformation

This concert was originally performed on July 18, 2021.

Learn more about this concert and listen to interviews at the Tanglewood Learning Institute online.

All good listening. They'll also give us the rebroadcast Monday week, as it says.

I can't find the program notes from the concert on the BSO page. I posted about it in advance of the concert, and didn't have anything worth trying to track down now.

The Intelligencer didn't have a review. In the Globe, there is a review covering both July 17 and July 18. It focuses on the former. When it gets around to this concert, it is unenthusiastic, mildly critical on a few points. I don't think it should induce you to avoid the show.

So I give it my "thumbs up." Enjoy!

Tanglewood — 2021/07/17-18

It seems that we won't be getting much preview material from the BSO or WCRB for these Tanglewood concerts, and of course there are no reviews of concerts if the program hasn't been given earlier in the week. At Symphony Hall, the Saturday evening concert has already been played on Thursday and often on Friday afternoon, but each Tanglewood concert is only given once. The BSO performance detail pages aren't giving us a short introduction, and sometimes even the program notes aren't available. Similarly, WCRB just gives a bare-bones note. 

So I'll give you what those two supply and throw in any ideas I have, if I have something to say.

Saturday, July 17, 2021.  WCRB tells us:

Saturday, July 17, 2021
8:00 PM

[A] Russian pianist takes center stage for Brahms’s monumental Piano Concerto No. 1 with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Andris Nelsons conducts Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony, Saturday night at 8pm.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Daniil Trifonov, piano

PROKOFIEV Symphony No. 1, Classical
BRAHMS

(Some emphasis added.) 

I'm glad the Prokofiev comes first, since I like it better than Brahms, so it'll be okay if my brother's call interrupts the concerto. But lots of people like Brahms, so don't let me scare you off.

The BSO performance detail page has links to the program notes and performer bios (click the thumbnail photos).You can listen in at 8:00 this evening via WCRB.

Sunday, July 18, 2021.   Again we get a bit from WCRB:

Sunday, July 18, 2021
7:00 PM

Gil Shaham returns to the Berkshires as the soloist in Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 3, and Andris Nelsons conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra in pieces by a musical sibling pair: Felix and Fanny Mendelssohn, Sunday night at 7pm.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Gil Shaham, violin

MENDELSSOHN-HENSEL Overture in C
MOZART Violin Concerto No. 3
MENDELSSOHN Symphony No. 5, Reformation

(Some emphasis added.) 

The BSO performance detail page doesn't have much more detail, except in the program notes (not all of which are there via the links). Strangely, the annotator for the Mendelssohn symphony doesn't seem to have noticed that the second movement uses the tune for "Away in a Manger" but with a different rhythm (if I remember correctly).

I don't recall the Overture, but I'm confident people will like this concert, to be broadcast and streamed on Sunday at 7:00.

BSO/Classical New England — 2019/06/15

This week the encore broadcast is the concert of January 5, 2019. I posted about it at the time. Here's the description from the program detail page:

Returning to Symphony Hall for the first time since her tenure as BSO assistant conductor, Korean-born Shiyeon Sung leads a program juxtaposing music of Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel and her brother Felix, surely one of the most brilliant sibling pairs in music history. Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel's Overture in C, her only extant work for orchestra alone (though she wrote several works for chorus with orchestra), is an elegant, ten-minute piece dating from 1830. Begun in the same year, her brother's Piano Concerto No. 1 has a turbulent, Romantic energy; Argentinian pianist Ingrid Fliter is soloist, making her subscription series debut. One of the great 19th-century symphonies, Dvořák's by turns bucolic and thrilling Eighth was composed in 1889 and is arguably his most individual symphony, a departure from the Brahms-influenced Germanic style of his Symphony No. 7

(Some emphasis added.)

The reviews were mixed (see my post for links), but Mendelssohns' and Dvořák's music isn't hard to listen to. This should all be enjoyable.

As always, WCRB presents the concert beginning at 8:00 p.m., Boston Time, this evening and June 24. Enjoy!

BSO — 2019/01/05

This week the Boston Symphony resumes its (resume their, if you're British) subscription series at Symphony Hall. There are apparently no program notes available on the program detail page, except for the Dvořák symphony, but it does have some of the usual links as well as the following description of the concert:

Returning to Symphony Hall for the first time since her tenure as BSO assistant conductor, Korean-born Shiyeon Sung leads a program juxtaposing music of Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel and her brother Felix, surely one of the most brilliant sibling pairs in music history. Fanny Mendelssohn-Hensel's Overture in C, her only extant work for orchestra alone (though she wrote several works for chorus with orchestra), is an elegant, ten-minute piece dating from 1830. Begun in the same year, her brother [Felix Mendelssohn]'s Piano Concerto No. 1 has a turbulent, Romantic energy; Argentinian pianist Ingrid Fliter is soloist, making her subscription series debut. One of the great 19th-century symphonies, Dvořák's by turns bucolic and thrilling Eighth was composed in 1889 and is arguably his most individual symphony, a departure from the Brahms-influenced Germanic style of his Symphony No. 7.

(Emphasis added.)

The Globe reviewer generally liked it apart from some of the playing in the overture. The Musical Intelligencer's reviewer wasn't satisfied with the Hensel and Mendelssohn performances but really liked the Dvořák.

You can see what you think if you listen to WCRB tonight at 8:00, Boston time, or for the rebroadcast/stream on January 13, also at 8:00. And do't foget to check out the website to see what-all else is available there.