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.

Messiah

     Yesterday (Sunday December 6) I went to the Handel and Haydn Society's performance of Handel's "Messiah" at Symphony Hall in Boston. They performed music from Messiah as part of their first concert, on Christmas, 1815; the first complete performance of Messiah in the United States on Christmas, 1818;and they've performed the whole oratorio every year beginning in 1854. So they should be pretty good at it. And they are. They do "Historically informed perfomances," meaning that they use instruments like those of Handel's day, and a small orchestra (24 players) and chorus (30 singers).

     Unfortunately, I realized after the concert that I was approaching it more as a musical than as a religious event. Musically, it was satisfying, although the soloists didn't have much power on their low notes. But it didn't notice anything unattractive about the singing and playing.

     The program states that "The performances are being recorded for broadcast locally on 99.5 FM All Classical (a service of WGBH) on December 20 and will be featured nationally on American Public Media's Performance Today." (I don't have a link for APM, but I'm sure you can find them easily enough.) They don't say what time the 99.5 FM broadcast will be, but I'm confident it will be either 2:00 or 3:00 p.m. Eastern Time. So if you follow the link, you should be able to hear their webstream.

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.

Thanksgiving

     As mentioned on my other blog, in honor of Thanksgiving Day, here are videos of a performance of the ancient hymn of thanksgiving, "Te Deum." But rather than the traditional Gregorian chant, this is a setting by the French baroque composer Marc-Antoine Charpentier.

     Here's the first video.

     And here's the second.

     They take it faster than I'm used to hearing it, but at least the proportions seem right. (I'd give you William David Christie's version with Les Arts Florissants if I could find the whole thing on video.) You'll also note that they pronounce the Latin as if it were French. Presumably that is how scholars believe it was done in 17th Century France.

      If you want to hear it in the "original" Gregorian chant setting, try this, which I also posted on my other blog. There is further info and a good translation in the wiki article on Te Deum.

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.