BSO — 2012/09/22 Opening Night

Here we are at the verge of another Symphony Hall Season of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Opening Night is Saturday, September 22, with a program described as follows in the BSO website detail page:

Legendary Israeli-born violinist Itzhak Perlman joins the Boston Symphony Orchestra as both soloist and conductor to begin the 2012-2013 season with an all-Beethoven Opening Night at Symphony. The program starts with the composer's lyrical early Romances No. 1 and 2 for violin and orchestra. Completing the program is the dance infused Symphony No. 7 which the composer himself acknowledged as one of his finest works.

As usual, that page has links for program notes and audio previews.

I'll be attending most of the Thursday evening concerts in subsequent weeks, so I should be able to provide my own "review" as well as a link to the Boston Globe review. I'm even thinking of adding the Boston Herald review.

Again this season, Classical New England will be broadcasting and streaming the concerts live on Saturday evenings. Here's the page for their season overview. Usually the concerts begin at 8:00 p.m., with the "pre-game" show beginning at 7:00. But for Opening Night, it seems that the concert itself begins at 7:00, an hour earlier than usual. And another change from the usual practice is that this concert will not be rebroadcast/streamed on Sunday afternoon. We'll see if it becomes available for on-demand listening.

A big change in the broadcasts this year is that Classical New England has laid off Brian Bell, the long-time producer of the broadcasts. Here's their announcement. In addition to writing announcer Ron Della Chiesa's scripts, Brian conducted knowledgeable interviews with composers, conductors, soloists, and orchestra members and audio previews of works to be performed. It seems that Cathy Fuller will be sharing the announcer's booth with Ron Della Chiesa, which I suppose means that they won't be scripted. Ron is knowledgeable enough and a good enough raconteur that I think that format may work well. I also suppose that, given Ron's age, the station is wise to bring in a co-announcer as a potential successor to Ron. But Brian Bell's pre-concert and intermission features will be badly missed.

Tanglewood — 2012/07/27-29

Since I'll be away later this week, I'm trying to schedule this to post on Thursday.

July 27.  The weekend begins with the Friday evening concert at 8:30. The BSO website only tells us what is on the program and links the program notes. But if you put your cursor on a picture, a pop-up box identifies the artist; and if you click on the picture, you get the artist's bio. It turns out the conductor is Marcelo Lehninger, and the pianist is Nelson Freire.

MOZART - Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor, K.466
VILLA-LOBOS - Momoprecoce, Fantasy for piano and orchestra
MUSSORGSKY (orch. RAVEL) - Pictures at an Exhibition

For Classical New England's preview material go to their BSO Tanglewood page, and scroll down to the weekend of July 27-29.




July 28.  Saturday night brings, per the website

BERLIOZ - La Damnation de Faust

Charles Dutoit conducts. You can check the website page for the singers and choruses. Not much at Classical New England's website for this one. Maybe more will come later.




July 29.  The Sunday matinee at 2:30 brings Charles Dutoit and Emmanuel Ax in the following program:

BEETHOVEN - Piano Concerto No. 3
TCHAIKOVSKY - Symphony No. 5

The BSO website is here. The CNE website (link above) has a preview of the Tchaikovsky.




Ron Della Chiesa's "pre-game show" begins a half hour before each concert, and for the hour before that they give something called "Tanglewood Today" with recordings that somehow relate to Tanglewood. As always, the webstream is at http://www.wgbh.org/995/ and the broadcasts on 99.5 FM.


Enjoy!

BSO — 2011/11/25-29 — Info and Reviews

I went to the BSO today to listen to John Harbison's 4th Symphony. I liked it. He has managed to occupy the middle ground between Beethoven and Babbitt. You can hear it tomorrow at 8:00 p.m Boston time on the webstream from http://www.wgbh.org/995/ with a "pre-game show" at 7:00, or on Sunday at 1:00 without the "pre-game." After that it will be available on demand for two weeks.

They also had a book signing by Ron Della Chiesa, the radio and web announcer of the concerts, for his book "Radio My Way." I got he book and the autograph and had a nice conversation with him while the orchestra was playing a Suite from "Daphnis and Chloë. (I had left the auditorium so as not to overlay the Harbison with the Ravel.) Among other things, I learned that the phrases "Fenway Park of Music" (referring to Symphony Hall), and "pre-game show" are things which the producer, Brian Bell, came up with. I had always thought the they were original with Ron.

To amplify a bit on my statement that "I liked it. He has managed to occupy the middle ground between Beethoven and Babbitt," the work is jagged and episodic, but it has recognizable short themes which get repeated and modified, so I considered it musical. You might want to check out the program notes included on the BSO website, and I'll link the Boston Globe review when it is published.  Here it is. He's noncommittal.

Here's the description of the whole concert on the orchestra's website. This page also has links to the program notes for the Ravel and the Mahler.

To open his second program this season, former BSO assistant conductor Ludovic Morlot leads Pulitzer Prizewinning American composer John Harbison's exciting Symphony No. 4. Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2 begins with an atmospheric evocation of dawn and ends with the stunning, breathless "danse générale." Mahler's Symphony No. 1 draws on melodies that reflect the folk music and natural environment of the composer's native central Europe.

As I mentioned above, I didn't want to cover the Harbison in my mind with the Ravel, so I left the auditorium after the Harbison symphony. But I went back after intermission and listened to the Mahler. It was a fine performance, IMO, with nothing that struck me as particularly noteworthy or different. I did notice some "faulty intonations," as I think they call it, from the horns, but they were loudly cheered, along with each of the sections when the conductor recognized them at the end. There was a standing ovation, which only lasted for two curtain calls! Adequately played, Mahler's First is definitely worth hearing, so I'd say this performance is worth listening to.