BSO/Classical New England — 2024/11/02

 This evening there is no live BSO concert. The Boston Pops is giving a show for Dia de Muertos — lots of Latino music around All Souls Day. Rather than broadcast that, WCRB is giving us an encore broadcast, which they describe as follows:

Saturday, November 2, 2024
8:00pm

Encore broadcast of Saturday, March 2, 2024

Finnish conductor John Storgårds leads the first of two BSO programs in the Music of the Midnight Sun festival, an exploration of Nordic music and storytelling. Outi Tarkiainen’s Midnight Sun Variations transports you to her homeland of Finland. Evoking similarly vivid soundscapes, the BSO performs three tone poems by Jean Sibelius based on Finnish legends. And Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto makes his BSO debut in the orchestra’s first-ever performances of the great Danish composer Carl Nielsen’s Violin Concerto.

John Storgårds, conductor
Pekka Kuusisto, violin

Outi TARKIAINEN Midnight Sun Variations 
Carl NIELSEN Violin Concerto
Jean SIBELIUS The Oceanides and The Bard
SIBELIUS Tapiola

This concert is no longer available on demand.

To hear a preview of Nielsen's Violin Concerto with Pekka Kuusisto, use the player above and read the transcript below.

TRANSCRIPT

Brian McCreath I'm Brian McCreath. I'm at Symphony Hall with Pekka Kuusisto, who is here with the Boston Symphony for the very first time. Pekka, thank you 

The orchestra's performance detail page is a bit more expressive, and it has the usual links to performer bios and program notes:

Outi TARKIAINEN Midnight Sun Variations 
NIELSEN Violin Concerto
Intermission
SIBELIUS The Oceanides and The Bard
SIBELIUS Tapiola

The music and culture of Finland permeate Symphony Hall in this concert. Finnish conductor John Storgårds leads the first program in our Music of the Midnight Sun series, an exploration of Nordic storytelling and music. Finnish composer Outi Tarkiainen’s nuanced and colorful Midnight Sun Variations transport you to her homeland. Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto debuts with the BSO as the orchestra performs the great Danish composer Carl Nielsen’s 1911 Violin Concerto for the first time. The program closes with three of Jean Sibelius’s tone poems based on Finnish legends, their moods ranging from sweeping power to contemplative mystery.

I wrote about in advance of the performance. At that time there were no reviews available, but afterwards a descrriptive and enthusiastic review appeared in the Intelligencer.

I don't remember how I felt about it all back then, but now, as then, I'm looking forward to hearing it.

BSO — 2024/03/02

 The BSO is beginning a two-week "Music of the Midnight Sun" Festival this week. WCRB has the basic information:

Saturday, March 2, 2024
8:00pm

Encore broadcast on Monday, March 11

Finnish conductor John Storgårds leads the first of two BSO programs in the Music of the Midnight Sun festival, an exploration of Nordic music and storytelling. Outi Tarkiainen’s Midnight Sun Variations transports you to her homeland of Finland. Evoking similarly vivid soundscapes, the BSO performs three tone poems by Jean Sibelius based on Finnish legends. And Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto makes his BSO debut in the orchestra’s first-ever performances of the great Danish composer Carl Nielsen’s Violin Concerto.

John Storgårds, conductor
Pekka Kuusisto, violin

Outi TARKIAINEN Midnight Sun Variations 
Carl NIELSEN Violin Concerto
Jean SIBELIUS The Oceanides and The Bard
SIBELIUS Tapiola

To hear a preview of Nielsen's Violin Concerto with Pekka Kuusisto, use the player above, and read the transcript below.

TRANSCRIPT

Brian McCreath I'm Brian McCreath. I'm at Symphony Hall with Pekka Kuusisto, who is here with the Boston Symphony for the very first time. Pekka, thank you for a little bit of your time today. I apprecia

I have a ticket waiting for me at the box office, but I haven't had a nap today, and I'm feeling a bit drowsy. Unfortunately, public transportation is very spotty in the late evenings, so I think I'll just stay home and listen to WCRB along with you.

For additional information, you can go to the BSO's own performance detail page, with its links to performer bios and program notes. Their introduction is as follows:

Boston Symphony Orchestra

Symphony Hall, Boston, MA 

John Storgårds, conductor 
Pekka Kuusisto, violin

Outi TARKIAINEN Midnight Sun Variations 
NIELSEN Violin Concerto
Intermission
SIBELIUS The Oceanides and The Bard 
SIBELIUS Tapiola

The music and culture of Finland permeate Symphony Hall in this concert. Finnish conductor John Storgårds leads the first program in our Music of the Midnight Sun series, an exploration of Nordic storytelling and music. Finnish composer Outi Tarkiainen’s nuanced and colorful Midnight Sun Variations transport you to her homeland. Finnish violinist Pekka Kuusisto debuts with the BSO as the orchestra performs the great Danish composer Carl Nielsen’s 1911 Violin Concerto for the first time. The program closes with three of Jean Sibelius’s tone poems based on Finnish legends, their moods ranging from sweeping power to contemplative mystery.

Somebody in my grandmother's generation was quoted by my mother as saying, "A little Sibelius goes a long way." Listening to his music has led me to disagree. Sibelius was a very good composer, IMO, and I'm looking forward  to hearing the music on the second half of the program. As for the first half, the composer's description of "Midnight Sun Variations" in the program notes has me interested to hear it, and I have no doubt the Nielsen violin concerto will be good. I can't find any reviews in the Globe or the Intelligencer.

With what I've seen about the program, I think it should be worth listening to. Don't forget the chance to listen again with the rebroadcast on March 11.

Enjoy.

BSO/Classical New England — 2020/05/23

This week WCRB gives us a repeat of the concert originally performed on October 12, 2019. Unfortunately, I was away at the time and didn't post anything about it. But here's the description on the orchestra's performance detail page:

The Russian-born conductor Dima Slobodeniouk makes his BSO subscription series debut in these concerts, collaborating with cellist Truls Mørk in Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto, the composer’s last masterpiece and one of the central works of the cello repertoire. Completing the program are works by two Nordic contemporaries. Jean Sibelius’ Pohjola’s Daughter is one of the composer’s many orchestral tone poems inspired by the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic. Denmark’s greatest symphonist, Carl Nielsen, composed his two-movement Symphony No. 5 in the early 1920s. Last played by the BSO in 1993, the Fifth moves from a dramatic, multipart opening movement to an affirmative, fugue-dominated finale.

(Some emphasis added.)
Of course, the performance detail page has the usual links to program notes, performer bios, and other material.

The reviewer in the Boston Globe was very pleased. The Boston Musical Intelligencer's review was mostly a description of what happens during the pieces, but the reviewer was also happy with how they were performed.

Based on those reviews, I'd say it should be an interesting concert, maybe not the best thing since sliced hard-boiled eggs, but definitely okay. Those who heard it seemed to like it.

So set your radio dial or your computer to WCRB at 8:00 p.m., Boston Time, and see how you feel about it.

Bonus: Sunday at 3:00, Yo-Yo Ma will give a performance of the Bach suites for cello. Details at the WCRB website.

BSO — 2014/10/16-21

This week's concerts of music by Nielsen and Brahms were to have been conducted by the late Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos. His place on the podium will be taken by Thierry Fischer, who is coincidentally Keith Lockhart's successor as music director of the Utah Symphony. The program will be the one originally planned, with Rudolf Buchbinder as piano soloist in the Brahms.

Links to audio previews, program notes, and performer bios (click on the thumbnail pictures) are available at the orchestra's performance detail page, which also gives the following overview of the concerts:

Esteemed Austrian pianist Rudolf Buchbinder joins the BSO for Brahms's vast, emotionally intense D minor piano concerto, which the Viennese composer wrote over the course of several years, in part as a reaction to the tragedy of his mentor Robert Schumann's attempted suicide in 1854 and his death two years later. Brahms-still only in his mid-twenties-was soloist in the concerto's premiere in January 1859. The great Danish composer Carl Nielsen chose to write his Fourth Symphony, an expression of the "Elemental Will of Life," in one large movement. He prefaced this questing 1916 score with a telling aphorism: "Music is Life, and, like it, is Inextinguishable."

(Some emphasis added.)

The reviews in the Boston Globe and the Boston Musical Intelligencer were generally favorable, while pointing out aspects of the performances that each reviewer found less than ideal. But a comment on the Intelligencer review began as follows,

Nice review by Vance Koven…except I’d go much stronger. My best advice to any of you interested in great music-making is to run to the box office and snap up a ticket for one of these remaining concerts. It’s that good. Thursday night’s concert was exceptional. It was non-routine music-making at its best, with tremendous artists (Fischer and Rudolf Buchbinder), and the orchestra playing their hearts out. In what has already been a very strong start to the season (this is my third concert), this has been the best performance yet.

and continues with several paragraphs of equally enthusiastic detail.

I wasn't there on Thursday, having switched my ticket to next Tuesday, so I can't give my own impression. Based on the comment in the Intelligencer, though, I'm looking forward to this concert and I think it'll be worth your listening to it over WCRB this evening at 8:00 or Monday, October 27, also at 8:00 p.m., Boston Time. The station's BSO page has a listing of the broadcast/webstream schedules for the remainder of the season, along with numerous links to interviews and other items concerning this concert and other BSO happenings, including access to earlier concerts now available on demand.

Enjoy the show.