BSO — 2018/11/03

This evening a couple of "golden oldies" surround a piece which the BSO is giving its American premiere this week. On the orchestra's program detail page we read:

In this London-oriented program, Andris Nelsons leads the BSO in the American premiere of the first of several BSO co-commissions this season, English composer Mark-Anthony Turnage's Remembering: In Memoriam Evan Scofield. Evan, son of the great jazz guitarist and Turnage collaborator John Scofield, died of cancer at age twenty-five. The piece was co-commissioned by the BSO with the Berlin Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestra. Opening the program is Haydn's Symphony No. 93, one of the first of the group of bold, innovative symphonies he wrote for performance in London during his visits there in the early 1790s. The English composer Edward Elgar's tour-de-force of orchestral and expressive imagination, the Enigma Variations, is a series of widely varied portraits of his friends via transformations of a common musical theme.

(Some emphasis added.)
The page also has the usual links to background material.

I was there for the first performance of the program on Thursday. I didn't notice anything spectacular in the playing of the Haydn or the Elgar, but they are enjoyable to listen to. At the end of the Turnage piece, the composer joined the conductor on stage after the initial bows, and I was part of the warm ovation for him. I like to applaud composers who produce listenable works. As the program notes point out, the work is in four parts. The first part struck me as jazzy. The second seemed noisy and cacophonous. If that had been the whole thing, I wouldn't have been so inclined to applaud the composer. The third part had both jazzy and noisy elements. In the last part, which was the first composed, we finally got calm and elegiac music such as one would expect in a piece expressing sorrow.

The review in the Globe is favorable (but not a rave) and gives an insight into the meaning of the first three parts of "Remembering." The Boston Musical Intelligencer's review, less encumbered than the Globe's by space limitations, is also favorable, with more detail.

So I definitely recommend listening over WCRB at 8:00 p.m. EDST this evening, November 3, and/or at 8:00 EST on Monday, Nov. 12. A second page on the station's website gives links to a conversation with composer Turnage and another, about the program, with Andris Nelsons.

Enjoy.

BSO — 2013/10/24-26

This week brings the American premiere performances of a work that was co-commissioned by the BSO — Speranza, by Mark-Anthony Turnage, who also wrote the opera "Anna Nicole." Mahler's Lied von der Erde completes the program. On the BSO performance detail page we read:

English conductor Daniel Harding makes his BSO debut in a program featuring the first of several BSO-commissioned works for the 2013-14 season, Mark-Anthony Turnage's Speranza, which the composer calls "upbeat, extrovert, and optimistic." Harding led the premiere of his compatriot's piece with the London Symphony Orchestra in February 2013. Mahler's hour-long song-symphony Das Lied von der Erde ("The Song of the Earth") is a group of wide-ranging settings of Chinese poetry translated into German; the composer responds with music tinged by Eastern exoticism.

As always, the page also includes links to program notes, interviews, audio previews, and performers bios.

I was there for the actual American premiere on Thursday, and although I liked the new piece initially, I'm having second thoughts. Maybe it's just a bit too unmusical and lugubrious, except in the third movement. That's not surprising, considering how the composer describes his development of the piece. Still, it is as it is, and you can listen and decide for yourself. The Mahler symphony seemed coarse and loud. Maybe that's how it's supposed to be, but it was harsher than I expected, and apart some excellent playing by Jason Snider in the lowest range of the french horn, I was generally underwhelmed. Some acquaintances I saw in the corridor afterwards were enthusiastic, so maybe it was better than I thought. The Globe reviewer was unenthusiastic, although his comments on the Turnage are similar to how I felt about it at the time, and I have to agree that the flute and english horn solos in the Mahler were impressive.

Classical New England will broadcast and stream the concert beginning at 8:00 this evening, with a retransmission on Monday, November 4, also at 8:00 p.m.. This evening there will be the usual warm-up at 7:00. Their web page devoted to the BSO has links to their own interviews with composer and conductor (and to lots else).

The CNE rebroadcast/stream on this Monday, October 28, will be last week's Wagner, Mozart, and Brahms program under the baton of Andris Nelsons.

BSO — 2012/01/05-07 — (Back to Normal) Info and Reviews

This week the Boston Symphony resumes its weekly concerts in Symphony Hall, and Classical New England resumes broadcasts and webstreams. The BSO website isn't offering the brief synopsis we've been used to, but the page on the website devoted to the concert has links to the program notes for each piece. A page on the Classical New England website includes a link to an interview with the conductor, Marcelo Lehninger, an assistant conductor of the BSO, who had two weeks' notice that he would be conducting in place of Andris Nelsons.

The concert consists of Haydn's Symphony No. 88, a 15-minute trumpet concerto titled "From the Wreckage" by British composer Mark-Anthony Turnage (getting its American premiere at these concerts), and "Also Sprach Zarathustra" by Richard Strauss. The trumpet soloist is Håkan Hardenberger, for whom the work was commissioned, and who gave the world premiere in 2005.

The Boston Globe reviewer wasn't ecstatic but he seems to have liked the new piece, as well as the performance of the Haydn. Reading between the lines, he seems to have thought that the Strauss didn't go perfectly. I enjoyed the Haydn and found the Turnage interesting. Shortly before the end of the first section, the phrase "easy listening" came to mind. Later bits were less so, but it wasn't unpleasant. The Strauss is what it is — overwhelming beginning, then it meanders along, and I was ready for it to be over five or ten minutes before they stopped playing. I thought the conductor did a great job, given his unfamiliarity with both the Turnage and the Strauss.

So give it a listen, at least the first half, tonight at 8:00 with pre-concert features beginning at 7:00 and/or Sunday at 1:00 p.m. (just the concert).

P.S.  WHRB is giving a Bruno Walter Orgy this month. The first part will be on Sunday, January 15, from 3:00 to about 10:30 p.m., and the second part will be the following Sunday, January 22, from 2:30 to about 10:30 p.m.