BSO — September Hiatus — 2014/09/06

This week's BSO rebroadcast and webstream over WCRB is a concert from last February. Here's how WCRB describes it on their BSO page:

In an encore broadcast, pianist Murray Perahia is the soloist in Schumann's Piano Concerto, and Bernard Haitink leads the BSO in Stucky's Funeral Music for Queen Mary, after Purcell, and the Symphony No. 4 by Brahms.

(Some emphasis added.)

As usual, the WCRB page has links to interviews and other material of  interest.

I heard the concert in the Hall on February 6 and published my p/review here on February 8. I won't bother to copy the links from that post. You can go there and see if they still work. Meanwhile, if you're interested in listening to it, the broadcast and webstream begin on WCRB at 8:00 p.m., Boston Time. I'm especially looking forward to listening to the Stucky piece again.

BSO — 2014/02/06-08

Bernard Haitink is back to conduct a second week of concerts (again with no performance on the following Tuesday). Let's see what the orchestra says about it on their performance detail page.

BSO Conductor Emeritus Bernard Haitink is joined by revered American pianist Murray Perahia for the powerful and lyrical Piano Concerto of Robert Schumann. Schumann wrote this piece over several years. Schumann's protégé Johannes Brahms waited until his forties to complete a first symphony, but all four of his works in the genre remain central to the orchestral repertoire. In characteristic understatement, Brahms downplayed the intense, minor-mode Fourth. Opening the program is a wind ensemble re-composition, created by the American, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Steven Stucky of the 17th-century Englishman Henry Purcell's funeral music for Queen Mary.

(Emphasis added)
Visit that page for the usual links to various types of background material.

I was in the hall for the Thursday performance, and I found the Stucky arrangement of the Purcell delightful. I'm not so familiar with 17th Century Music that I could have been sure that it was a modern arrangement: it simply sounded like baroque music to me. The favorable reviews in the Boston Globe and in the Boston Musical Intelligencer both picked up on the line in the program note which said that in  the third episode, "Stucky uses sustaining instruments—piano and metallic pitched percussion—as well as added chromaticism and multiple tempos to “smear” the surface of the music, giving it a kind of mysterious glow." I was looking for it and didn't detect the smearing and the glow, but the reviewers found it. I guess that's why they write reviews for publication and I don't; but I can't help wondering if they'd have noticed it if the program note hadn't said it was there. At any rate, I really enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to listening to this evening's broadcast. Maybe I'll get the smearing and the glow, but even if not, it will be good. The Schumann was pleasant enough as well. As for the Brahms, I will have no comment, because I avoided it by leaving at intermission. I find Brahms's orchestral music unpleasant — too forced-seeming, as if the musicians are straining to push it out — and with too much dissonance. The early works don't share those qualities. Several years ago James Levine led the orchestra in a performance of Brahms' Serenade No. 2, and it was delightful. But I know most people don't find most Brahms so unpleasant, so don't let me dissuade you from listening to the second half of the concert.

As always, Classical New England is your headquarters for the broadcast and webstream over WCRB. The concert is scheduled for 8:00 p.m. Boston Time. There are indications that they begin programming for the concert with preliminaries at 7:00, but the past few times I've listened, I haven't heard references to the upcoming concert in the 7-8:00 hour. They have their own BSO page, as I always note, with links to material about this concert and earlier ones and the schedule of upcoming concerts. The rebroadcast/stream will be on Feb. 17th at 8:00 p.m. EST, and it will also be available on demand, as noted in that page.

This is music I think most people will like. Enjoy!

Tanglewood — 2011/07/22-24

The BSO website provides the following information.

All-Baroque Program 

Friday, July 22, 8:30PM

Young Spanish conductor Pablo Heras-Casado makes his BSO and Tanglewood debuts July 22 as he and the orchestra are joined by renowned mezzo-soprano Susan Graham for an all-Baroque program including vocal excerpts from Gluck's Iphigénie en Tauride and arias from Handel's Alcina and Ariodonte. Handel's vocal music forms the heart of the Baroque opera repertoire, and Gluck, writing a generation later, was intent on making opera more natural, more diverse, and more dramatically interesting, as he pioneered reforms to the genre that influenced composers around the world and ushered in a new era of music for the theater.  The orchestral works by J. S. Bach and the French composer Jean-Phillippe Rameau, represented on this program by Rameau's Suite from Pygmalion and Bach's Orchestral Suite No. 4, display the era's instrumental music in its highest form.

Stucky, Brahms, and Beethoven 
Saturday, July 23, 8:30PM

Dutch conductor Jaap van Zweden, currently music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra, also makes his BSO and Tanglewood debuts this weekend, conducting Brahms's soaring, ever-popular Violin Concerto; Beethoven's masterful, dance-infused Symphony No. 7; and Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer Steven Stucky's Rhapsodies, a series of 12 short and diverse episodes for orchestra. Each of the mesmerizing work's brief sections is begun by the sound of a single instrument playing alone, and that instrument's timbre is then imitated and interpreted by the rest of the orchestra.

All-Ravel Program 
Sunday, July 24, 2:30PM

Hot on the heels of his two recitals featuring Ravel's complete music for solo piano on July 20 and 21, outstanding pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet again takes center stage July 24, this time with the BSO and guest conductor Emmanuel Krivine, for another program exclusively featuring music by the French master. Mr. Thibaudet is the soloist for both of Ravel's piano concertos, the jazz-inflected Piano Concerto in G and the Piano Concerto in D for the left hand, which was commissioned by the famous concert pianist Paul Wittgenstein after he lost his right arm in World War I. Also on the program are Valses nobles et sentimentales—which Ravel adapted for orchestra from the original piano version—and the immortal Boléro.

This is certainly a varied weekend. There may be something for everyone, but each listener will probably find something that isn't exactly his or her favorite. I hope you'll find something worth listening to. WCRB begins their coverage 1 1/2 hours before each concert. WCRB is not your only resource. There are other stations which broadcast the concerts, and the BSO has its own media center — all as also indicated on the BSO website.

Radio Broadcasts and Streaming

Concerts from the Shed are broadcast each Friday and Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon in Boston on WCRB 99.5 FM and WGBH's HD2 all classical channel, in Albany on WAMC 90.3 FM and its satellite network, and in Connecticut on WMNR 88.1 FM. In addition, Sunday-afternoon concerts are broadcast on WFCR 88.5 in Amherst. Streaming audio of the broadcasts can also be accessed via the stations' websites atwww.wgbh.org/995; www.wamc.org;www.wmnr.org; and www.wfcr.org. How to listen-in from the BSO Media Center: You can listen LIVE to WGBH in our BSO MEDIA CENTER! Fridays and Saturdays at 7pm and Sundays at 1pm Tanglewood concerts are broadcast LIVE by 99.5 All-Classical, a service of WGBH .

You can also check out the WCRB website for scheduling info and other features.