BSO — 2009/11/20-21

     Even as I write the BSO is performing Debeussy's "Nocturnes" for Orchestra, under the baton of Bernard Haitink. This is to be followed by the Ibert Flute Concerto with James Galway and the Brahms First Symphony. WGBH is streaming it.

     WCRB says they're back to streaming, so you should also be able to hear it Saturday evening at 8:00 Eastern Time.

BSO — 2009/11/06

     Sorry for the short notice. Today, in just under 2 1/2 hours from when I'm posting this, they're doing the Beethoven 8th and 9th symphonies. I was at last night's performance and enjoyed it, although the Globe's reviewer didn't, largely because he doesn't like Lorin Maazel as a conductor. I'll post a link later.

     Also, a friendly B.C. grad student chatted with me during the intermission. Nice guy. Hope I'll see him again.

     I expect today's concert to be streamed on www.wgbh.org


     And here's the review from today's Boston Globe.

Litanei: Franz Schubert

     On my other blog I posted a performance of this song by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. I thought it would be good to share Dame Janet Baker's performance as well.

     I hadn't known what the images would be about, and I find them overwhelmingly moving in this context. As I write this, the tears blur my view of the keyboard and run down my face.

     Enjoy the beautiful music, beautifully sung, and say a prayer for all victims of violence.

BSO — 2009/10/23-24

This week at the BSO we're back to basics. An all-Beethoven program, consisting of Symphonies 1, 2, and 5, begins a series which will present all nine. Because James Levine is recovering from back surgery, this week's concerts are being led by frequent guest conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos.

I was at the Thursday concert, and I thought it was all good, except that the third movements of the 1st and 2nd symphonies seemed to be a little on the slow side. But the 5th! The audience gave a prolonged standing ovation. Four curtain calls instead of the usual two (or three if there are soloists and they're really enthusiastic) and plenty of cheering. I contributed a couple of bravos of my own — one to get things started and one during the third or fourth curtain call.

The reviewer for the Boston Globe couldn't find anything worth complaining about, apart from saying at one point "… even if one could quibble about various tempo choices." I wonder if he was also thinking about the movements I thought were a bit slow. Anyway, it's a lukewarm review even though everything was good, in his opinion.http://www.boston.com/ae/music/articles ... ven_cycle/

Worth hearing this afternoon at 1:30 Boston time (less than two hours from now) with "pre-game" show at 1:00 overhttp://www.wgbh.org or Saturday at 8:00 p.m. over http://www.wcrb.com

Enjoy! Sorry for the short notice.


Edited to add: My apologies. I assumed WCRB was back to streaming, but evidently they aren't. I couldn't find tonight's concert anywhere on their website or on WAMC. So I guess the only stream available is the one on WGBH on Fridays, and possibly a WGBH rebroadcast some Sunday afternoon (Eastern Time). Sorry if I sent anybody on a wild goose chase.

BSO — 2009/10/16-17

Here's what the BSO website says about this weekend's concerts.

"Former Boston Symphony Orchestra assistant conductor Ludovic Morlot returns to Symphony Hall October 15-20 to lead the BSO in an imaginative, wide-ranging program that showcases his depth and range as one of the leading conductors of his generation. He and the orchestra give the American premiere of Augusta Read Thomas's rhythmically vibrant, orchestrally brilliant Helios Choros II (Sun God Dancers). Distinguished American pianist Peter Serkin is the soloist in Stravinsky’s sparkling Capriccio for piano and orchestra, an homage to Tchaikovsky given its American premiere by the BSO in 1930. The program continues with Tchaikovsky’s Francesca da Riminiand The Frescoes of Piero della Francesca by Bohuslav Martinů, one of two works this season commemorating the 50th anniversary of the great Czech composer’s death.

Augusta Read Thomas, a former Tanglewood Music Center Fellow and the director of last summer’s Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood, has emerged as one of America’s most skilled and poetic composers, as well as one of contemporary music’s most impassioned and informed advocates. Her Helios Choros II (Sun God Dancers), a co-commission of the BSO and the London Philharmonic Orchestra, is a big, bold work given its world premiere in December 2008. It is the second “panel” of a three-part triptych named for the Greek sun god Helios. The composer imagines her triptych as a ballet unfolding as two spiraled layers, one representing ancient Greek mythology, the other representing elemental human rituals. 

The greatest Czech composer of his generation, Bohuslav Martinů (1890-1959) was strongly championed by Serge Koussevitzky and the BSO when he fled war-torn Europe in the 1940s. The Frescoes of Piero della Francesca, one of his later works, is a three-movement symphonic triptych inspired by the composer’s visit to the Church of San Francesco in Arezzo, Italy, that houses Piero della Francesca’s famous Renaissance fresco paintings. Stravinsky’s 1929 Capriccio for piano and orchestra is homage to the charm and melodic lyricism of one of his most admired composers in the Russian tradition, Tchaikovsky. Written in the style of the Baroque concerto grosso, it was given its American premiere in 1930 by the BSO. Tchaikovsky composed Francesca da Rimini in 1876. A programmatic orchestral work inspired by a tragic love story, it musically portrays the ill-fated love of Paolo and Francesca as told in Dante’s Inferno." 

I was at this evening's, and I think it's worth hearing. The new piece is not too tough to take.

As usual, WGBH for the matinee Friday, and WCRB for Saturday evening.

BSO — 2009/10/10

I missed alerting you before the first broadcast, but there's a pretty good concert tonight. It's all Russian and features a young Russian conductor, Vasily Petrenko (the last name sounds Ukrainian to me). It opens with an early work by Stravinsky, Capriccio Fantastique, and after the intermission they play Shostakovich's Symphony No.10. But got me the highlight was Rachmaninoff's "Isle of the Dead." It's a wonderfully evocative piece based on a painting which shows a boatman (Charon?) transporting a coffin (across the River Styx?) to an island. The BSO hasn't performed it in Symphony Hall since 1945. It begins about 15 or 20 minutes into the first part of the concert.

8:00 Eastern Time, WCRB.

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.

Stabat Mater

As I mentioned on my regular blog, the sequence "Stabat Mater" has been set to music by numerous compsers. As promised, here are some samples in various styles culled from many more available on YouTube. Enjoy.

Here's a different version of the first stanza as set by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi.

Palestrina's late Renaissance version, which goes all the way through without repeating the text.

Haydn (not the beginning part).

An excerpt from Rossini's setting, with Luciano Pavarotti singing.

And the beginning of Dvorák's.

At one point I collected a number of recordings by different composers. Talking to a colleague of mine at work who had studied Latin, I jokingly referred to my "collection of Stabant Matres" putting the title in the plural (which is as if I were to refer to a collection of various editions of the play "She Stoops to Conquer" as my collection of "They Stoop to Conquer").

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 August 14 – 16, 2009

August 14 - 16 at Tanglewood 

"Michael Tilson Thomas Returns to Tanglewood

 One of the most highly anticipated guests at Tanglewood this season is Michael Tilson Thomas, who returns to the festival and the BSO for the first time in two decades, leading the BSO in two programs, August 14 and 23. His first program August 14 initiates a weekend highlighted by three great Romantic piano concertos, as he conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra and soloist Yefim Bronfman in Rachmaninoff's tempestuous Piano Concerto No.3, on a program with Shostakovich's Symphony No.5.

  

André Previn and Kurt Masur at Tanglewood

On August 15, André Previn collaborates with the Boston Symphony and pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet in Liszt's poetic Piano Concerto No. 2, on a program with Beethoven's Symphony No. 4 and Ravel's La Valse.

Kurt Masur takes to the podium Sunday afternoon, August 16, to lead an all-Brahms program including the Piano Concerto No. 2, with Garrick Ohlsson as soloist.. The program's second half is the composer's bucolic Symphony No. 2."

There will be streams over the web as usual.