BSO — 2010/01/09, 16, 23

With the changes in ownership (WGBH bought WCRB and shifted its classical programming to the already all-classical WCRB), WGBH has dropped its broadcasts of Friday afternoon BSO concerts. This means the only broadcast and webstream is on WCRB. Since I'm going to be off the internet for a bit, I thought I'd give you a heads up on today and the next two Saturdays.

Today, January 9 (already the 10th in England and points east) they are giving a concert of Haydn's Symphony No. 98 and Cello Concerto No. 1, with famed virtuoso Yo-Yo Ma as soloist. After intermission they will play C.P.E. Bach's Symphony in G, which they never played before this week, and Schubert's "Unfinished" Symphony in b minor. Conductor is early music specialist Ton Koopman. Reviews were favorable, and I very much enjoyed the performance I attended on Thursday evening. The concert is scheduled for 8:00 p.m., Eastern Time. At 7:00 Ron Della Chiesa begins his "pregame show," which normally includes interviews by his producer with performers as well as other features. You can get the stream through the website at 995allclassical.org It has become unusual for symphony orchestras to perform Haydn since the rise of the early music, "historically informed" movement, but the BSO gives a fine performance.

On January 16, Sir Colin Davis, whose history of guest appearances with the BSO goes way back, will conduct Mozart's Symphony No. 38, "Prague," and Elgar's Violin Concerto with Nikolaj Znaider as soloist.

And on January 23, Sir Colin returns to conduct James MacMillan's "St. John Passion" in the American premiere series of the work which the BSO co-commissioned in honor of Sir Colin's 80th birthday and which had its world premiere under Sir Colin in London in 2008. Baritone Christopher Maltman will sing the part of Jesus, as he did at the world premiere. The Tanglewood Festival Chorus will also sing. James and Bob and I are planning to attend the Thursday performance, which will actually be the American premiere.

Radio (& Internet Streaming?) Changes

     Interesting (to me, anyway) stuff is happening in the Boston classical music broadcast scene. WCRB, the commercial, all classical station was put up for sale. WGBH was the only bidder that wanted to keep it all classical. Fortunately they were successful.

     But running a 24-hour classical music station and broadcasting 7 hours of music to compete with it, didn't make much sense, I guess. Anyway, they decided to put their hosts and programs on the WCRB frequency. The change happens on December 1. After that classical music on WGBH will be no more, and we'll have to rely on the all classical station for it.

     I'm not sure what will happen to the webstreams. They now have a new url , which you are directed to via 995allclassical.org. Meanwhile, the WCRB website has a link for ownership change which takes you to the same page at WGBH.  So it looks as if all the streaming will be accessed through the WGBH website. But at the moment I'm not entirely sure.

     I had a bit of a scare earlier this week. I noticed that in all the information they had given out about the change of broadcast frequency, they had mentioned the Saturday evening symphony broadcasts, but never a word about the Friday afternoon concerts. So it began to seem that those were being dropped. I wrote a member feedback note to WGBH on Monday, making the case for the importance of the Friday broadcasts for those who were busy on Saturday evenings. And I got back a very noncommittal reply on Wednesday saying, in part, "We will be broadcasting Saturday evening BSO, we will no longer be broadcasting Fridays unless we gain the rights to broadcast that as well. … We'll certainly send your requests to our production team. Thanks again for writing."

     WTDickens! Why don't they already have the rights? They've had the rights as WGBH for 58 years, for heaven's sake! What difference does the broadcast frequency make? Is the BSO holding things up? Or have they decided not to ask for the rights and just using this as a cover?

     Finally, this afternoon, at the end of the concert, the radio announcer, Ron Della Chiesa, said that next week's concert would be broadcast, with the usual pre-concert half hour show, but it would be on the new frequency. So I'm greatly relieved. I still wonder why, as of Wednesday, they couldn't tell me that the Friday afternoon concerts were still on. Did my intervention, and possibly some from other people, have an effect on the station management's mind, or was this in the works all along? I guess I'll never know the story behind the story, but all's well that ends well, and the important thing is that the broadcasts continue.

     So I expect that it will continue to be possible for you to hear either or both of the performances each week over the web.

     BTW, this week's program, which I neglected to tell you about, is the Debussy "Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun," Stravinsky's 1945 suite of music from "The Firebird," and the Brahms Violin Concerto with Joshua Bell as soloist. For more info, see the bso website's page. I expect the stream to be over the WCRB website at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Time on Saturday.

BSO — Opening Night Recorded for Broadcast and Webstream on September 27

The Boston Symphony Orchestra had their opening night concert on Wednesday, September 23. The concert was recorded by WGBH, and they will broadcast and stream it on Sunday afternoon, September 27, at 3:00 p.m., Eastern Time. Go to the WGBH website, click "Listen," then find the Listen Live line on a terribly busy page and click the button for "WGBH 89.7" and that should get you there.

The thing I'm looking forward to is the world premiere performance of a piece for harp and orchestra. It is by the movie composer John Williams, and it was commissioned by the BSO and composed for the orchestra's retiring harpist, Ann Hobson Pilot. The concert got a favorable review in the Boston Globe. There was also an article the day before the concert about Ann Hobson Pilot which you might find interesting.

Tanglewood August 21 – 23, 2009: End of Symphony Season — Not to Be Missed!

from the Boston Symphony website

"Kurt Masur Conducts Beethoven and Mendelssohn

Kurt Masur opens the BSO's final Tanglewood weekend August 21 leading two classical masterworks, Beethoven's Symphony No. 1 and Haydn's Symphony No. 88. The program's centerpiece is a performance of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 25 in C, featuring the BSO debut of one of Mr. Masur's favorite collaborators, the young French pianist David Fray. Mr. Fray has received numerous prizes and awards, and was BBC Music Magazine's "Newcomer of the Year" in 2008.

August 22, 2009 8:30 PM Kurt Masur dedicates a concert to showcasing the music of one of his most admired composers, Felix Mendelssohn. This BSO program features Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 4, Italian, one of the composer's most beloved works, evoking the warm climes of the Mediterranean, as well as The Hebrides (Fingal's Cave) Overture, begun during a visit to the Hebrides archipelago off the coast of Scotland. The evening's centerpiece is Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto, featuring one of the BSO's most popular guest artists, the American violinist Gil Shaham.

Michael Tilson Thomas Conducts Beethoven's Ninth Symphony

On August 23, Michael Tilson Thomas leads the Boston Symphony Orchestra's final program of the 2009 festival season, the annual grand finale performance of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9. The masterwork features the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, soprano Erin Wall and mezzo-soprano Kendall Gladen in their BSO debuts, tenor Stuart Skelton in his Tanglewood debut, and bass-baritone Raymond Aceto. The program begins with Ives' Decoration Day, the composer's stirring ode to Memorial Day."

The Friday and Saturday concerts are at 8:30 p.m. and are streamed on WAMC. The Sunday concert is at 2:30. It is also streamed on WAMC; and WGBH streams it with a "pre-game show" beginning at 2:00. All times are Eastern.

More info is available at the website on the Tanglewood pages.

Tanglewood July 24-26, 2009

Here's an excerpt from the BSO website.  As usual, the concerts will be streamed on WAMC, and WGBH will stream the Sunday concert with a "pre-game" show at 2:00 (all times Eastern).

"July 24, 25, and 26 Tanglewood Shed Performances

 The weekend begins as James Levine conducts Berlioz’s Roman Carnival Overture and Harold in Italy, with BSO principal violist Steven Ansell, on a program with the Prelude to Mussorgsky’s Khovanshchina and the dramatic Pictures at an Exhibition (July 24). Mr. Levine and the orchestra reprise last fall’s moving performance of Brahms’s A German Requiem, here featuring the distinguished German baritone Matthias Goerne, along with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus (July 25). 

Conductor David Robertson and the BSO are joined by baritone Thomas Hampson and pianist Orli Shaham for an all-American program—Harris’s Symphony No. 3, Thomson’s Five Songs from William Blake, Barber’s Songs with Orchestra, and Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2, The Age of Anxiety (July 26).

 

Berlioz and Mussorgsky

 FRIDAY 

July 24, 2009 8:30 PM 

BSO principal violist Steven Ansell joins James Levine and the BSO for a performance of Berlioz’s Harold in Italy, which reflects the composer’s “poetic memories” of his “wanderings in the Abruzzi,” on Friday, July 24, at 8:30 p.m. in the Shed. This lively concert of programmatic orchestral showpieces also includes Berlioz’s Roman Carnival Overture and two works by Mussorgsky, the Prelude to the opera Khovanshchina and the dramatic Pictures at an Exhibition, which depicts an imaginary tour of an art exhibit. Originally composed as a virtuoso piano piece, it is played by orchestras in a brilliantly colorful arrangement by Ravel. 

Brahms - A German Requiem

 SATURDAY 

July 25, 2009 8:30 PM 

A memorable highlight of the BSO’s fall season with James Levine was the series of performances of Brahms’ A German Requiem. The Tanglewood performance on  Saturday, July 25, at 8:30 p.m. in the Shed, will feature the distinguished German baritone Matthias Goerne, and soprano soloist Hei-Kyung Hong, along with the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, John Oliver, conductor.  Considered Brahms’s largest and one of his most personal works, A German Requiem originated with music written following the attempted suicide of dear friend Robert Schumann as well as music composed at the time of his mother’s death.

 

Harris, Thomson, Barber and Bernstein - An All American Program

 SUNDAY 

July 26, 2009 2:30 PM 

Esteemed baritone Thomas Hampson and pianist Orli Shaham join conductor David Robertson and the BSO for an all-American program, on Sunday, July 26, at 2:30 p.m. in the Shed.  Mr. Hampson is featured in Thomson’s Five Songs from William Blake and Barber’s Songs with Orchestra. One of the world’s leading baritones, he is in the midst of an in-depth examination of American vocal music, a commitment reflected by his multi-year “Song of America” tour sponsored by the Library of Congress. As part of this tour, Mr. Hampson performed a recital at Tanglewood on July 22 with pianist Craig Rutenberg, which included songs of Ives, Griffes, Carpenter, and Barber. Mr. Robertson, music director of the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra, brings his renowned expertise in the music of our time to the program, which also includes two 20th-century American orchestral classics, Harris’s Symphony No. 3 and Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2, The Age of Anxiety, the latter featuring Robertson’s wife, acclaimed pianist Orli Shaham."

Tanglewood Season

Tanglewood season starts this weekend.
http://www.bso.org/bso/index.jsp?id=bcat5240070

And we've got trouble. It looks as if WCRB isn't streaming its broadcasts right now.

Thank you for your ongoing support of Boston's Classical Station, 99.5 WCRB.... and for your support of our streaming audio online. We have temporarily discontinued our streaming program. However, we are working hard to bring this service back to you as soon as possible! If you are in the Boston area, please tune in to 99.5 FM to continue listening. If you would like to be notified when we resume streaming our audio over the internet, please send an email tostreaming@wcrb.com and we will let you know when we're back online with our classical music.

 

So those of you who are beyond the reach of WCRB's broadcast signal can only hear the Sunday afternoon concerts at 2:00 over WGBH's stream. http://www.wgbh.org

This Sunday they're giving Stravinsky's "Rite of Spring" and Brahms's Violin Concerto, with James Levine on the podium and with Christian Tetzlaff as violin soloist. Concert begins at 2:30 (or a bit later) with WGBH beginning their broadcast at 2:00.  

All times Eastern Daylight.