BSO — 2024/04/13

 A single work makes up this evening's concert, as WCRB tells us:

Saturday, April 13, 2024
8:00pm

Encore broadcast on Monday, April 22

French composer Olivier Messiaen was famously synesthetic, “hearing” colors as harmony and seeing colors in sound. Turangalîla-symphonie summed up the composer’s passions for nature, birdsong, Catholicism, Eastern philosophy and music, and romantic love as embodied in the legend of Tristan and Isolde. Andris Nelsons conducts, Yuja Wang plays the work’s substantial piano part, and Cécile Lartigau performs the rarely heard ondes Martenot, an electronic instrument invented in 1925.

Andris Nelsons, conductor 
Yuja Wang, piano 
Cécile Lartigau, ondes Martenot 

Olivier MESSIAEN Turangalîla-symphonie

Here's the link to the BSO performance detail page,where you can follow the link to the program note. Messiaen's own description of the parts which is there may help. They summarize:

Boston Symphony Orchestra

Symphony Hall, Boston, MA 

Andris Nelsons, conductor 
Yuja Wang, piano 
Cécile Lartigau, ondes Martenot

MESSIAEN Turangalîla-symphonie

French composer Olivier Messiaen was famously synesthetic, “hearing” colors as harmony and seeing colors in sound. The Turangalîla-symphonie summed up the composer’s passions for nature, birdsong, Catholicism, Eastern philosophy, music, and romantic love as embodied in the legend of Tristan and Isolde; in this concert, Andris Nelsons leads this work that the BSO premiered in 1949 under Leonard Bernstein’s baton. The brilliant Yuja Wang takes on the work’s hefty piano part and Cécile Lartigau performs on the ondes Martenot, an early electronic instrument. Turangalîla was commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky. 

There are favorable reviews in the Globe and in the Intelligencer.

I hadn't really expected to enjoy it yesterday, but I was pleasantly surprised. It is pretty cacophonous at times, but not terribly off-putting; and there are calm passages as well. So I recommend giving it a try. I'll be listening this evening and again on the 22nd if I'm free.

T Tanglewood — 2023/07/29-30

Well, here's the scoop from WCRB.

Tonight:

Saturday, July 29th, 2023
8:00 PM

Contralto Avery Amereau sings Berlioz's Les Nuits d’été (Summer Nights) with the BSO and conductor Dima Slobodeniouk, along with other exciting selections by Messiaen, Ravel, and Agata Zubel.

Dima Slobodeniouk, conductor
Avery Amereau, contralto

Olivier MESSIAEN Les Offrandes oublieés
Hector BERLIOZ Les Nuits d’été
Agata ZUBEL In the Shade of an Unshed Tear
Maurice RAVEL Daphnis et Chloé, Suite No. 2

Isabel Leonard, who was originally scheduled to sing Berlioz’s Les Nuits d’ete, has withdrawn from this performance due to illness.

Tomorrow:

Sunday, July 30th, 2023
7:00 PM

This Sunday at 7pm, Anna Rakitina conducts the BSO at Tanglewood in Prokofiev's Suite from "Romeo and Juliet," as well as Ellen Reid's "When the World as You've Known It Doesn't Exist," and star violinist Joshua Bell is the soloist in Paganini's Violin Concerto No. 1.

Anna Rakitina, conductor
Joshua Bell, violin
Eliza Bagg, Martha Cluver,
and Sonja DuToit Tengblad, vocalists

Ellen REID When the World as You’ve Known It Doesn’t Exist
Niccolò PAGANINI Violin Concerto No. 1
Sergei PROKOFIEV Suite from Romeo and Juliet

Hear an interview with Joshua Bell.
Learn more about Ellen Reid's "When the World as You've Known It Doesn't Exist."

I think I'll listen to the Red Sox game this evening, maybe catch the end of the concert when the game is over. But I wouldn't blame you for listening to the whole thing. I don't recall "Les Nuits d’été," but Berlioz is usually good, and the Ravel isn't half bad either. On Sunday, Joshua Bell is not to be missed, and the Prokofiev is pretty good IIRC. If you go to the page from WCRB, you can get the links for the interview and the "Learn more" at the bottom of the page.

Enjoy.

BSO/Classical New England — 2020/06/06

WCRB gives us an encore of the concert which followed the one they encored last week. I posted about it back then (October 26) and here's what I said:

The centerpiece of this week's concert is likely to be challenging, maybe even unpleasant. [Actually, as I recall, it turned out to be okay.] I refer to the piano concerto by Dieter Ammann. Normally, I go to concerts where a piece is to be given its world, American, or BSO premiere. But I was otherwise engaged on Thursday and Friday, so I'll be hearing it for the first time over the radio this evening. We have to rely on the program note (linked on the performance detail page) and the reviews to get an idea of what we are in for. Here's the synopsis of the concert from the performance detail page:

Finnish conductor Susanna Mälkki returns for a program of sensually colorful French music as well as the American premiere of Swiss composer Dieter Ammann’s new work for piano and orchestra, written for the German-born Swiss pianist Andreas Haefliger. Boasting both jazz and modernist credentials, Ammann writes music of great spontaneity and verve. Debussy’s three-movement La Mer—which was given its American premiere by the BSO in 1907—is among the greatest of all French orchestral works, a musical depiction of the changing states of the sea over the course of a day. The program also includes two shorter works: Fauré’s stately, gorgeous, and familiar Pavane, as well as the third movement of Olivier Messiaen’s early orchestral work L’Ascension (1932), which already demonstrates the composer’s unique voice as well as his Debussy-influenced musical heritage.

(Some emphasis added.)

Here are the reviews. The Globe is generally favorable, while the Intelligencer gives a lengthy description of "The Piano Concerto" and is less than thrilled with the conducting of the French pieces.

If the new piece proves intolerable, you can always come back after intermission. I'm not familiar with the Messiaen work, but from the descriptions, I'm guessing that it won't be quite so "advanced" as some of his later compositions.

As always, WCRB will transmit it all live this evening at 8:00 p.m.

My recollection is that the piano concerto proved to be kind of jazzy and not to tough to take. So I'm looking forward to the chance to hear it again.

I hope the links still work. And here's a link to WCRB's page about the concert, with a further link to an interview with the conductor.

BSO — 2019/10/26

The centerpiece of this week's concert is likely to be challenging, maybe even unpleasant. I refer to the piano concerto by Dieter Ammann. Normally, I go to concerts where a piece is to be given its world, American, or BSO premiere. But I was otherwise engaged on Thursday and Friday, so I'll be hearing it for the first time over the radio this evening. We have to rely on the program note (linked on the performance detail page) and the reviews to get an idea of what we are in for. Here's the synopsis of the concert from the performance detail page:

Finnish conductor Susanna Mälkki returns for a program of sensually colorful French music as well as the American premiere of Swiss composer Dieter Ammann’s new work for piano and orchestra, written for the German-born Swiss pianist Andreas Haefliger. Boasting both jazz and modernist credentials, Ammann writes music of great spontaneity and verve. Debussy’s three-movement La Mer—which was given its American premiere by the BSO in 1907—is among the greatest of all French orchestral works, a musical depiction of the changing states of the sea over the course of a day. The program also includes two shorter works: Fauré’s stately, gorgeous, and familiar Pavane, as well as the third movement of Olivier Messiaen’s early orchestral work L’Ascension (1932), which already demonstrates the composer’s unique voice as well as his Debussy-influenced musical heritage.

(Some emphasis added.)

Here are the reviews. The Globe is generally favorable, while the Intelligencer gives a lengthy description of "The Piano Concerto" and is less than thrilled with the conducting of the French pieces.

If the new piece proves intolerable, you can always come back after intermission. I'm not familiar with the Messiaen work, but from the descriptions, I'm guessing that it won't be quite so "advanced" as some of his later compositions.

As always, WCRB will transmit it all live this evening at 8:00 p.m. and retransmit it at the same time on Monday, November 4.