This week we are treated to a rebroadcast of the BSO concert of last April 9. Here's what WCRB says about it, plus the beginning of a sixteen minute interview with the conductor (with audio also linked on the page):
Saturday, November 19, 2022
8:00 PM
The BSO Assistant Conductor conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra in an encore broadcast featuring a modern work by American composer Ellen Reid and Sibelius’s Symphony No. 7, and pianist Alexandre Kantorow makes his BSO debut as the soloist in Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 2.
Anna Rakitina, conductor
Alexandre Kantorow, piano
Piotr TCHAIKOVSKY Piano Concerto No. 2
Ellen REID When the World as You’ve Known It Doesn’t Exist
Jean SIBELIUS Symphony No. 7
This concert was originally broadcast on April 9, 2022 and is no longer available on demand.
Hear a preview of the program with Anna Rakitina with the audio player above (transcript below).
Brian McCreath I'm Brian McCreath at Symphony Hall with Anna Rakitina
For whatever reason, it seems I didn't write about theis concert at the time, or in the preceding or following weeks, so all I can say is Tchaikovsky is pretty safe, and I like Sibelius' symphonies. Based on that, it should be good, although the reid piece is a question mark for me.
The BSO performance detail page says:
Having made her Symphony Hall debut in the BSO’s streamed concerts of 2020–21, Assistant Conductor Anna Rakitina conducts her first live-audience Symphony Hall program featuring the BSO debut of French pianist Alexandre Kantorow. The grand prix winner in the 2019 Tchaikovsky Competition performs Tchaikovsky’s rarely heard Piano Concerto No. 2, an attractive work long overshadowed by the composer’s immensely popular Concerto No. 1. Tennessee-born composer Ellen Reid won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize in Music for her opera p r i s m. Her 2019 orchestral score When the World as You’ve Known it Doesn’t Exist revels in energy and pure orchestral sound; the instrumental ensemble is enhanced by the earthy sounds of three soprano voices. Sibelius’ one-movement Symphony No. 7, one of his last completed works, was an entirely personal reinvention of the genre that had occupied him for almost forty years and which was closely tied to the landscape and culture of Finland.
There are also links to the program notes on that page.
The Globe has a tepid review. By contrast, the reviewer in the Intelligencer found the concert "fabulous" and felt that the Reid piece deserves a second hearing.
After reading the linked material, I'd suggest that the concert may not be the greatest ever, but still worth hearing. When will you have another chance to hear Tchaikovsky's Second Piano Concerto?
