BSO — 2014/10/09-11

This evening Christian Zacharias conducts the orchestra in music of Schubert to open and close the concert and solos in a Mozart piano concerto before intermission. Here's the description from the orchestra's performance detail page:

The German pianist-conductor Christian Zacharias returns to the BSO in his dual role for Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 17 in G, performing from the keyboard as Mozart would have done for most of his concerto premieres during his Vienna years. This concerto, one of the composer's most joyous, may have been written for and premiered (in June 1784) by his student Barbara Ployer. Music by Mozart's Viennese successor Franz Schubert opens and closes the program. Schubert's familiar music for the 1823 play Rosamunde has had a successful life in the concert hall, although the play itself was a failure and has long since been lost. Completing the program is one of Schubert's most popular works, the haunting, two-movement Unfinished Symphony in B minor.

(Some emphasis added.)
That page is also where you can go for links to audio previews, program notes, and a performer bio.

This concert is not part of my subscription, so I can't offer my own thoughts about it. The Globe review, well-focused on the music, is generally favorable, with a couple of reservations. The reviewer in the Boston Musical Intelligencer also gave a generally favorable review. While they gave most praise to different aspects, they both found it worth hearing.

Hearing it is what you can do by radio or internet via WCRB this evening at 8:00 or Monday evening October 20, also at 8:00. It will also be available for a year for on-demand listening over the web. The station's BSO page gives the complete season broadcast/webstream schedule along with links to numerous interviews and on-demand concerts. Enjoy.

If you missed last week's Beethoven, Bartók, Tchaikovsky concert, it will be the broadcast/stream on Monday the 13th at 8:00 p.m., following the usual pattern of rebroadcasts.

BSO — 2013/01/31-02/05

February 2, 2013.  Russian composers and Latvian performers are on the bill this week. The BSO's performance details page (with links to program notes, audio previews and an interview with the conductor) puts it this way:

Latvian conductor Andris Nelsons is joined by the exciting young Latvian violinist Baiba Skride, who makes her BSO debut as soloist in Shostakovich's Violin Concerto No. 1, which was written in the late 1940s but only premiered in 1955, after Stalin's death helped relax the constraints on artistic expression in the USSR. The second half of the program is devoted to Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5, the second of his well-known last three symphonies.

I was there for theThursday performance, and I thought the violinist was spectacular. She played the whole thing from memory and seemingly effortlessly. She got a prolonged ovation (most in the audience standing), and when she came back for her second solo bow (fourth overall) she gave us an encore by Bach. There were no problems IMO with the Tchaikovsky either, but I kind of resent the automatic standing O it got, faster and from even more of the audience than that for the Shostakovich soloist. The way the symphony ends is pretty much guaranteed to get that response, regardless of whether the performance was unusually good or not. At least the audience didn't keep up the applause as long as they did for Ms. Skride. The Globe's reviewer liked the concert but was not blown away. Most of his dissatisfactions were with the Tchaikovsky.

Even if you can't stick around for the Tchaikovsky, I think hearing the Shostakovich performance will be worthwhile. Listen in on Classical New England — concert at 8:00 p.m., preliminaries at 7:00 — and check their page devoted to the BSO for links to interviews with the conductor and the soloist.


February 3, 2013, at noon.  Last weeks concert of music by Hindemith, Liszt, and Prokofiev starts an hour earlier than usual — noon, rather than 1:00 p.m. This is the second week in a row that they've changed the time for the rebroadcast. Dunno why they're doing it, but it can be a real inconvenience for people who want to hear, and have to keep changing their schedules to accommodate the station's whims.

Beethoven/BSO, January 3, 2010; Belated Bach

     I just got the program guide for next month's offerings on WGBH and WCRB, and I see that WCRB's Sunday Concert at 3:00 p.m. Boston Time (= Eastern Standard, lol) on January 3 is a rebroadcast of one of last October's performances of Beethoven's symphonies Nos. 3 and 4. The Boston Globe critic was not thrilled; but it's Beethoven and a good orchestra, and even though the 4th is my least favorite Beethoven symphony, I liked the concert I attended. So I recommend giving a listen to the webstream via the link I posted above.

     This just in: when I tested the link above, I saw on the home page that tonight they're rebroadcasting the Beethoven 6th and 7th, under the baton of Lorin Maazel, in a performance (or composite of performances) given in late October. You can catch the stream at 8:00 p.m. EST this evening, December 26. Again, the Globe critic wasn't satisfied, but I enjoyed it.

     This is also the time for Bach's Christmas Oratorio — six cantatas for six days of the Christmas season. I'm a day late recommending that you listen to them, since the parts are designated for the first, second, and third days of Christmas (yesterday, today, and tomorrow as and where I write), for New Year's day, the following Sunday, and Epiphany (January 6 in the traditional calendar). They're worth listening to, even all at once, but probably better if you spread them out.

     Here's a video of the opening chorus of the first part , the part for the Christmas Day. And an older video (slightly out of sync) of my favorite number, the bass aria, "Grosser Herr, O starker König."  You can compare the qucker tempo and natural trumpet version with John Elliot Gardiner (same performance as the opening chorus I linked) if you want. YouTube gives a link. I actually prefer the Gardiner performance, but I wanted to give a sample of a slightly different performance style; and Fischer-Dieskau is one of the great baritones of the 20th century. I won't try to find videos of the whole thing, but I'm sure you can find most, if not all, of it if you want to. And I'm sure there are audio recordings available for downloading. I have three complete sets on vinyl discs, one led by Karl Richter, one led by Nikolaus Harnoncourt, and one featuring the Regensburger Domspatzen. Any of them that you can find would be worth listening to IMO.

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.