BSO — 2025/10/25

 Tonight's program doesn't feature any really familiar pieces (to me at least), but the interview with the condustor makes me want to hear the Copland symphony which concludes the concert. Here's WCRB's description: https://www.classicalwcrb.org/show/the-boston-symphony-orchestra/2025-09-10/yuja-wang-prokofiev-and-the-boston-symphony

Saturday, October 25, 2025
8:00 PM

Yuja Wang is the soloist in Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto—a work by turns acerbic and melodic—and Domingo Hindoyan returns to Symphony Hall to lead the BSO in Bernstein’s Three Dance Episodes from On The Town and Copland’s Third Symphony.

Domingo Hindoyan, conductor
Yuja Wang, piano

Leonard BERNSTEIN Three Dance Episodes from On The Town
Sergei PROKOFIEV Piano Concerto No. 2
Aaron COPLAND Symphony No. 3

Learn more about the Boston Symphony Orchestra's 2025-2026 season on their site.

Conductor Domingo Hindoyan talks with CRB's Brian McCreath about the genesis of this program, his interpretation of Bernstein's and Copland's work, and his positions at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the Los Angeles Opera. To listen, use the player above, and read the transcript below.

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT (lightly edited for clarity):

Brian McCreath I'm Brian McCreath at Symphony Hall with Domingo Hindoyan, who's here with the Boston Symphony

The BSO's performance detail page give us a bit more as well as links to program notes and performer bios: https://www.bso.org/events/oct-23-25-bern-prokofiev-cop?performance=2025-10-25-20%3A00

Boston Symphony Orchestra Domingo Hindoyan, conductor Yuja Wang, Piano BERNSTEIN Three Dance Episodes from On The Town  PROKOFIEV Piano Concerto No. 2       intermissionCOPLAND Symphony No. 3  

Scintillating pianist Yuja Wang joins returning conductor Domingo Hindoyan and the BSO in Sergei Prokofiev’s technically challenging Piano Concerto No. 2, a piece that combines the composer’s sardonic humor with his gift for soaring melody. Two American works from the 1940s bracket the concerto. Leonard Bernstein’s Three Dance Episodes from his 1944 musical On the Town features music referencing such hits as “New York, New York” and the wistful “Lonely Town.” Aaron Copland’s Third Symphony, premiered by the BSO in 1946, includes the uplifting “Fanfare for the Common Man"

I don't find a review in the Globe, but there is a detailed and favorable one https://www.classical-scene.com/2025/10/24/bso-scintillate/ in the Intelligencer.

So it should be a good show.

BSO/Classical New England — 2025/06/14

 WCRB treats us to another concert from last summer at Tanglewood. Herewith their description:

Saturday, June 14, 2025
8:00 PM

In an encore broadcast, BSO Assistant Conductor Samy Rachid leads the orchestra for the first time in an all-Russian program that begins with Svetlanov’s emotional “Dawn in the Field,'' followed by Prokofiev’s First Violin Concerto, with soloist Midori, and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 5, a piece celebrating victory through strife.

Boston Symphony Orchestra
Samy Rachid, conductor
Midori, violin

Evgeny SVETLANOV Dawn in the Field
Sergei PROKOFIEV Violin Concerto No. 1
Pyotr Ilyich TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 5

This concert was originally broadcast on August 16, 2024, and is no longer available on demand.

The BSO's performance detail page has just the facts, but it also gives links to the program notes for each piece, which could prove interesting.

Tanglewood

Koussevitzky Music Shed, Lenox/Stockbridge, MA 

Boston Symphony Orchestra 
Samy Rachid, conductor 
Midori, violin

SVETLANOV Dawn in the Field 
PROKOFIEV Violin Concerto No. 1
-Intermission-
TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 5

It should be good listening.

BSO/Classical New England — 2025/05/17

 Again this week the encore broadcast is taken from last year's Tanglewood season. Most of it is the concert of July 14, but it is supplemented by one piece from the concert of July 8. Here's WCRB's synopsis:

Saturday, May 17, 2025
8:00 PM

Augustin Hadelich is the soloist in Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in a Boston Symphony concert led by Andris Nelsons that also features Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7 and Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Forward Into Light, a meditation on “perseverance, bravery, and alliance.”

Boston Symphony Orchestra
Andris Nelsons, conductor
Augustin Hadelich, violin

Sarah KIRKLAND SNIDER Forward into Light 
Sergei PROKOFIEV Violin Concerto No. 2
COLERIDGE-TAYLOR Ballade in A minor (Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, Na'Zir McFadden, conductor, recorded on July 8, 2024)
Antonín DVOŘÁK Symphony No. 7

This concert was originally broadcast on July 14, 2024, and is no longer available on demand.

The program notes for the three works on the July 14 concert are available on the performance detail page for that concert.  https://www.bso.org/events/snider-prokofiev-dvorak?performance=2024-07-14-14:30  That page also provides the following overall description:

Tanglewood

Koussevitzky Music Shed, Lenox/Stockbridge, MA 

Boston Symphony Orchestra
Andris Nelsons, conductor 
Augustin Hadelich, violin

Sarah Kirkland SNIDER Forward into Light 
PROKOFIEV Violin Concerto No. 2 
DVOŘÁK Symphony No. 7
 

Written as part of the NY Philharmonic’s “Project 19” — which commissioned 19 female composers to write new works commemorating the ratification of the 19th Amendment — Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Forward Into Light is a meditation on “perseverance, bravery, and alliance.” The title is derived from a suffrage slogan, and the music contains quotes from the woman’s suffrage movement anthem, “March of the Women.”

Grammy-winner Augustin Hadelich rounds out the program with Prokofiev’s intense Violin Concerto No. 2, and Andris Nelsons leads the BSO in Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7 – sometimes called the composer's greatest symphony.

I can't find a performance detail page for the Coleridge-Taylor piece, but most of his music is good.

The Globe reviewer was happy with the July 14 concert; the Intelligencer didn't review it.

 I wrote about the July 14 concert back then, and I think it should be worth listening to along with the interpolation from the 8th.

P.S. Next weekend, WCRB will give us four evenings of rebroadcasts: the full cycle of Beethoven symphonies from last winter. They'll begin with Nos. 1, 2, and 3 on Friday evening of the long weekend, followed by 4 and 5 on Saturday, 6 and 7 on Sunday, and 8 and 9 on Monday, all at 8"00 p.m. Boston Time.

Tanglewood — 2024/07/13-14

 I didn't get a chance to include last evening's concert in this post. Here's what we have to look forward to today and tomorrow.

Here's WCRB's synopsis of tonight's concert:

    Saturday, July 13, 2024

8:00 PM

Andris Nelsons conducts a Boston Symphony program that includes Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto, with soloist Yuja Wang, as well as two pieces by Duke Ellington and Carlos Simon’s “Warmth from Other Suns.”

Boston Symphony Orchestra
Andris Nelsons, conductor
Yuja Wang, piano

Carlos SIMON Warmth from Other Suns, for string orchestra
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN Piano Concerto No. 4
Duke ELLINGTON Three Black Kings

    ELLINGTON A Tone Parallel to Harlem 

 

If you want to read up on the music, here's a link to the BSO's performance detai page, which has links to the program notes for the various pieces: https://www.bso.org/events/bso-simon-beethoven-featuring-yuja-wang?performance=2024-07-13-20:00

For Sunday, here's the program, per WCRB:

Sunday, July 14, 2024
7:00 PM

Augustin Hadelich is the soloist in Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in a Boston Symphony concert led by Andris Nelsons that also features Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7 and Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Forward Into Light, a meditation on “perseverance, bravery, and alliance.”

Sunday, July 14, 2024
7:00 PM

Augustin Hadelich is the soloist in Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in a Boston Symphony concert led by Andris Nelsons that also features Dvořák’s Symphony No. 7 and Sarah Kirkland Snider’s Forward Into Light, a meditation on “perseverance, bravery, and alliance.”

Boston Symphony Orchestra
Andris Nelsons, conductor
Augustin Hadelich, violin

Sarah KIRKLAND SNIDER Forward into Light 
Sergei PROKOFIEV Violin Concerto No. 2
Antonín DVOŘÁK Symphony No. 7

Here's the linkf or the performance detail page forr Sunday: https://www.bso.org/events/snider-prokofiev-dvorak?performance=2024-07-14-14:30

Note the earlier start time on Sunday.

Some of this is familiar and should be very good. Some of it is new and unfamiliar, so your guess is as good as mine. Enjoy what you can.

BSO — 2024/04/27

 This evening's Boston Symphony concert could be challenging or fun, depending on which review you believe. Before we get to the reviews, here's what WCRB says:

Saturday, April 27, 2024
8:00pm

Encore broadcast on Monday, May 6

BSO Principal Trumpet Thomas Rolfs is the soloist in Detlev Glanert’s Trumpet Concerto, an eclectic, dramatic work commissioned for and premiered by Rolfs in 2019. The concert opens with a new work by one of the greatest living composers, Sofia Gubaidulina’s The Wrath of God, dedicated to Beethoven, and closes with Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 4, commissioned by longtime BSO Music Director Serge Koussevitzky for the orchestra’s 50th anniversary in 1931.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Thomas Rolfs, trumpet

Sofia GUBAIDULINA The Wrath of God (American premiere)
Detlev GLANERT Trumpet Concerto
Sergei PROKOFIEV Symphony No. 4

In a preview of Detlev Glanert's Trumpet Concerto, the composer and the soloist, BSO Principal Trumpeter Thomas Rolfs, describe the very personal expressions of emotion, first inspired by Glanert's friend and mentor, composer Oliver Knussen, that are woven throughout the score and through Rolfs's performances. To hear the interview with CRB's Brian McCreath, use the player above, and read the transcript below.

TRANSCRIPT:

Brian McCreath I'm Brian McCreath at Symphony Hall with Thomas Rolfs, principal trumpet of the Boston Symphony, and Detlev Glanert, the composer

Turning to the BSO's performance detail page, we read the following:

Boston Symphony Orchestra

Symphony Hall, Boston, MA 

Andris Nelsons, conductor 
Thomas Rolfs, trumpet 

Sofia GUBAIDULINA The Wrath of God 
Detlev GLANERT Trumpet Concerto
Intermission
PROKOFIEV Symphony No. 4, Op. 47 (original version)

Thursday evening’s performance is supported by Hemenway & Barnes LLP.
Thursday evening's performance by Thomas Rolfs is supported by Dr. Kenan E. Sahin and Andrea TN Sahin.
Friday afternoon's concert is supported by the Gilbert Family

The program begins with the American premiere of Sofia Gubaidulina’s musically and spiritually forceful Wrath of God, a 2019 work dedicated to Beethoven that Andris Nelsons recorded with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig. BSO principal trumpet Thomas Rolfs is the soloist in Detlev Glanert’s Trumpet Concerto, an eclectic, dramatic work commissioned for and premiered by Rolfs in 2019. The program concludes with Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 4, commissioned by longtime BSO music director Serge Koussevitzky for the orchestra’s 50th anniversary in 1931.

As always, there are links to the program notes for each of the pieces, and they could be well worth reading.

The Globe review is lukewarm and suggests that much of the evening's music could be challenging. The Intelligencer's reviewer finds no difficulty in an interesting and enjoyable evening. I guess the only thing to do is listen and decide for ourselves.

BSO/Classical New England — 2023/12/09

My cruise prevented me from posting on November 18; my cancelled flight home and the fonsequent delay of one day kept me from saying anything on the 25th. I don't remember why I didn't put anything up last week, but finally I'm back and ready to go. Meanwhile, I hope you found the concerts without a push from me.

Now the Symphony is on hiatus while "Holiday Pops" graces Symphony Hall. We get an encore broadcast  from last winter. Here's the blurb from WCRB:

Saturday, December 9th, 2023
8:00pm

In an encore broadcast, pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet joins the Boston Symphony for Saint-Saëns’s virtuosic Egyptian Concerto, and Israeli conductor Lahav Shani leads the BSO in his Symphony Hall debut with Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony and Rachmaninoff’s dazzling Symphonic Dances.

Lahav Shani, conductor
Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano

Sergei PROKOFIEV Symphony No. 1, Classical
Camille SAINT-SAËNS Piano Concerto No. 5, Egyptian
Sergei RACHMANINOFF Symphonic Dances

This concert was originally broadcasted on February 18th, 2023 and is no longer available on demand.

Hear a preview of Saint-Saëns's Piano Concerto No. 5 with Jean-Yves Thibaudet with the audio player above, and read the transcript below:

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT:

Brian McCreath I'm Brian McCreath at Sy

(The past participle of broadcast is broadcast, not "broadcasted." What's the matter with kids these days?)

I posted about it back then, and I expect the links there to work now. It looks as if I neglected to post a link to the BSO's performance detail page.Here it is, with the usual links.

This should be enjoyable.

Tanglewood — 2023/08/19-20

 Again I apologize. I didn't think of the Friday evening Tanglewood concert until the Red Sox game was over, about 10 o'clock. It was a couple of piano concertos, preceded by something titled "Four Black American Dances." Here's a link to the BSO announcement. If you didn't listen last evening, you can try to find it in the "On Demand" on the WCRB homepage.

This is the final weekend of the BSO's Tanglewood Season, so it will end with the traditional Beethoven Ninth Symphony. That's on Sunday. This evening WCRB will transmit the following:

Saturday, August 19th, 2023
8:00 PM

Leonidas Kavakos is the soloist in Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto, and Andris Nelsons leads the Boston Symphony Orchestra in Prokofiev's Symphony No. 5 at Tanglewood.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Leonidas Kavakos, violin

Pyotr TCHAIKOVSKY Violin Concerto
Sergei PROKOFIEV Symphony No. 5

Leonidas Kavakos appears courtesy of Sony Classical, a label of Sony Music Entertainment

Leonidas Kavakos can't perform with the BSO unless Sony Classical permits him to? Wow!

The Tchaikovsky is good listening; I don't know the Prokofiev, so no comment on it. But there are links on the BSO page for the concert where you can read the program notes for each of the works.

As promised, on Sunday we get the Beethoven Ninth, after a "curtain raiser." As WCRB tells us:

Sunday, August 20th, 2023
7:00 PM

Susanna Mälkki leads the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus in Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 with soloists Amanda Majeski, J’Nai Bridges, Stephen Costello, and Jongmin Park. BSO Choral Director James Burton leads the TFC in Tippett's breathtaking Spirituals from A Child of Our Time.

Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra
Susanna Mälkki, conductor (Beethoven)
James Burton, conductor (Tippett)
Amanda Majeski, soprano
J’Nai Bridges, mezzo-soprano
Stephen Costello, tenor
Jongmin Park, bass
Tanglewood Festival Chorus

Michael TIPPETT Spirituals from A Child of Our Time
Ludwig van BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 9

The Beethoven Ninth is pretty well known since the second movement was used as the theme music for the Huntley-Brinkley Report on NBC. Unfortunately the BSO page for the concert doesn't give us a link to the program note for the Tippett music, while it does give us one for the Beethoven.

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.

Tanglewood — 2023/07/07-09

 The Boston Symphony has returned to Tanglewood and will present concerts in the customary format: separate concerts on Friday and Saturday evenings and Sunday evening over the next seven weekends. (Occasionally, the concerts are by a different ensemble, such as the Boston Pops, or the Tanglewood Musical Center Orchestra.) WCRB  transmits the Friday and Saturday concerts live, and the Sunday concert by a delayed braodcast in the evening. Here's what well get for opening weekend, per WCRB: https://www.classicalwcrb.org/show/the-boston-symphony-orchestra/2023-06-08/opening-night-at-tanglewood-with-trifonov-and-the-bso

Friday, July 7th, 2023
8:00 PM

Music Director Andris Nelsons, soloist Daniil Trifonov, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra kick off a new summer season with Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3, along with Marsalis' “Herald, Holler, and Hallelujah” and Tchaikovksy’s Symphony No. 4.

Andris Nelsons, conductor
Daniil Trifonov, piano

Wynton MARSALIS Herald, Holler, and Hallelujah
Sergei PROKOFIEV Piano Concerto No. 3
Pyotr TCHAIKOVSKY Symphony No. 4

Then on Saturday we get the Pops: https://www.classicalwcrb.org/show/the-boston-symphony-orchestra/2023-06-08/lockhart-the-pops-and-ragtime-at-tanglewood

Saturday, July 8th, 2023
8:00 PM

Keith Lockhart leads the Boston Pops in a specially written concert version of the Broadway hit Ragtime! Nikki Renée Daniels, Alton Fitzgerald White, Elizabeth Stanley, and John Cariani are among the celebrated cast of performers.

Boston Pops Orchestra 
Keith Lockhart, conductor
Jason Danieley, Stage Director
Alton Fitzgerald White (Coalhouse Walker Jr.) 
Elizabeth Stanley (Mother) 
John Cariani (Tateh) 
Nikki Renée Daniels (Sarah)
David Harris (Father)
A.J. Shively (Mother’s Younger Brother)
Klea Blackhurst (Emma Goldman)
Ragtime Ensemble

Ragtime: The Symphonic Concert

For whatever reason, WCRB hasn't posted the program for Sunday yet (or if they have, I can't find it) but here's the equivalent information from the BSO's own page: https://www.bso.org/events/bso-bullock-hahn?performance=2023-07-09-14:30

Boston Symphony Orchestra
Andris Nelsons, conductor
Julia Bullock, classical singer
Hilary Hahn, violin

Iman HABIBI Zhiân (world premiere; BSO commission)
Jessie MONTGOMERY Freedom Songs (BSO co-commission)
Intermission
BRAHMS Violin Concerto

The BSO page doesn't include program notes for any of the pieces to be played, and of course there are no reviews possible yet. So, more I cannot tell you.

 

B BSO/Classical New England — 2023/04/01

 This evening we get an "encore broadcast" from WCRB, the concert performed on February 12, 2022. Herewith their blurb:

Saturday, April 1, 2023
8:00 PM

In an encore Boston Symphony broadcast, Philippe Jordan makes his BSO debut conducting an all-Russian program of Borodin, a suite from Prokofiev’s "Romeo and Juliet," and Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 with soloist Yefim Bronfman.

Philippe Jordan, conductor
Yefim Bronfman, piano

BORODIN Overture to Prince Igor
RACHMANINOFF Piano Concerto No. 3
PROKOFIEV Suite from Romeo and Juliet

This concert was originally broadcast on February 12, 2022 and is no longer available on demand.

Hear Philippe Jordan describe his own suite from Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet, the differences between conducting ballet music for a ballet and in concert, and the complicated history of Borodin's Prince Igor Overture with the audio player above, or in the tab below. Read the transcript in the tab below.

Hear Yefim Bronfman describe the challenge of returning to Rachmaninoff's Third Piano Concerto after being away from it for many years, the value of hearing the composer play it, and the mysteries of choosing the right instrument to play it on, using the audio player in the tab below. Read the transcript in the tab below.

Interview With Philippe JordanInterview With Yefim Bronfman

I posted about it back then. I hope the links to the reviews and performance detail page still work. As you see, there are links on the WCRB page to interviews with the pianist and the conductor. It's all pretty standard stuff. So enjoy.

Since this is an "encore" there apparently won't be a chance to hear it again on April 10.