BSO — 2012/01/26-31 Info and Reviews

This week we have just one piece on the Boston Symphony program, Lobgesang, or "Song of Praise," by Felix Mendelssohn.


Here's a bit from the BSO website, with more available at the link.

Conductor Bramwell Tovey will lead the orchestra January 26-31 in Mendelssohn's Lobgesang (Hymn of Praise), for soloists, chorus, and orchestra, with sopranos Carolyn Sampson and Camilla Tilling, tenor John Tessier, and the Tanglewood Festival Chorus.

Mendelssohn wrote this big work in 1840 for a three-day festival in Leipzig celebrating the 400th anniversary of Gutenberg's movable-type printing method. This will be only the second time the BSO has performed the complete work at Symphony Hall; the fist was under Seiji Ozawa in 1988. The BSO's only performance prior to that took place in Pittsburg, PA, under Arthur Nikisch in May of 1890! 

I really enjoyed the performance on Thursday evening. Mendelssohn's music is very "accessible." Like me, the Boston Globe's reviewer found it well performed by chorus and orchestra. I'd even call it exhilarating.

So I think you're in for a treat if you listen to the broadcast/stream on Classical New England this evening or tomorrow afternoon or on demand over the next two weeks. The link also gives access to an interview with the conductor.

(I suppose at the time Mendelssohn wrote the piece, he thought of the "night" which Gutenberg helped dispel with his invention of movable type as being the pre-Reformation era, but that was then and this is now.)

BSO — 2012/01/19-24 Info and Reviews

This week's scheduled conductor, Ricardo Chailly, bowed out because of health reasons. Giancarlo Guerrero takes over conducting duties for "The Rite of Spring," by Stravinsky, which concludes the concert. But the orchestra threw out the pieces originally scheduled for before the intermission, and chose instead to play four pieces without a conductor — two for the brass section and percussion, one for woodwinds and horns, and one just for strings. The BSO website lists them as follows:

The Boston Symphony Orchestra itself will be showcased on the first half of the BSO program of January 19-24, originally to have been conducted by Riccardo Chailly, when it performs-without a conductor-music for brass, for winds, and for strings: Aaron Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man and the "Procession du Vendredi-saint" ("Good Friday Procession") from French composer Henri Tomasi's Fanfares liturgiques for brass and percussion; Richard Strauss's Serenade in E-flat, Op. 7, for winds; and Tchaikovsky's Serenade in C for Strings, Op. 48. Conductor Giancarlo Guerrero will then step in for Riccardo Chailly on the second half of the program to lead Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, which was originally scheduled to conclude these concerts. The works on the first half of the program will be introduced by members of the BSO's brass, wind, and string sections.

Visit this page for links to additional information.

I was there on Thursday, and found it all pretty good. They kept together pretty well without a conductor, I thought, and the pieces before intermission were worth hearing. Of course, we know the Copland and Tchaikovsky. Tomasi was  born in 1901, so he's a contemporary of Copland. Someone near me remarked that his piece for a procession is similar to Respighi's piece in "The Pines of Rome" depicting the march of Roman Legion on the Appian Way. "The Rite of Spring"  is no longer really shocking, and I thought it was done cleanly. The Boston Globe reviewer had some criticism of a couple of details, but was overall favorable.

Listening opportunities on Saturday and Sunday are as usual.

BSO — 2012/01/12-17 Info and Reviews

Three Warhorses and a World Premiere

This weeks Boston Symphony program begins with the Overture to "Euryanthe", by Carl Maria von Weber, followed by Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 1, with Leif Ove Andsnes as soloist. After the intermission we have the world premiere performances of John Harbison's Symphony No. 6, which was commissioned by the BSO and is dedicated to former Music Director James Levine, who secured the commission. Soloist in the first movement is Paula Murrihy, mezzo-soprano. The final work on the program is "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks", by Richard Strauss. Conductor is David Zinman.

As usual, the BSO website has additional info, including the program notes for the four pieces and audio previews of the three "warhorses." There are also previews with the conductor, the pianist, and the composer at WCRB/Classical New England.

Broadcasts/webstreams are Saturday at 8:00 and Sunday at 1:00 p.m., with the concert available On Demand for two weeks after that. And there are the usual pre-concert features at 7:00 on Saturday.

I was there for the absolute premiere of the Harbison 6th on Thursday evening and again on Friday afternoon. I liked it better than his 5th symphony, which was played earlier this season. The singing in the first movement seemed a bit more lyrical, and although there were cacophonous moments here and there throughout the symphony, there was more that was not unpleasant, with musical figures or themes being repeated, given changed pitch, and developed. I won't be able to listen to the broadcast tonight, but I hope to hear the rebroadcast tomorrow afternoon and record it.

Here's the Boston Globe reviewer's take on the concert, and here's a feature about the Harbison symphony that was published a week ago.

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.

New Year's Day Concerts

Classical New England will offer a couple of New Year's Day concerts.

The Vienna Philharmonic's concert* will be broadcast and streamed live at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, and retransmitted at 6:00 p.m.

Boston Baroque's concert will also be transmitted live from Sanders Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts at 3:00 p.m. "Boston time."


*For those unfamiliar with the tradition at these concerts, there are "always" encores at the end, and these always include the Blue Danube Waltz (which "always" gets a burst of applause after the first note is heard. The music stops and the conductor says, "Die Wiener Philharmoniiler und ich wünschen Ihnen …," and the orchestra shouts, "Prosit Neujahr!" "The Vienna Philharmonic and I wish you …" "Happy New Year" — literally "Cheers! New Year!" Then they play the waltz.) and the Radetzky March.

I'll be in church at 11:00, but I'm planing to listen at 3:00 and 6:00.

Enjoy!

Winter Orgy® Period 2011 — Already in Progress

My apologies! I wasn't paying attention to WHRB, and the Orgy® Period began a couple of weeks ago. The first classical music orgy was the Percy Grainger Orgy, on December 3. Many of the orgies this year have focused on performers, rather than composers, but at this point, they are in the midst of the Franz Liszt Orgy, which will end Friday evening at 10:00.

Saturday evening there will be an Ivor Novello Orgy from 6:00 to 10:00.

The Carl Maria von Weber Orgy will be Sunday, December 18, from 1:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. and Monday from 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.. That is the last of the classical music orgies so titled, but on Tuesday from 9:00 a.m. to midnight they will observe the Gian Carlo Menotti Centenary (with "Amahl and the Night Visitors"* reserved until December 24 at 4:30 p.m.); and Wednesday, December 20, they will observe the Nino Rota Centenary from 10:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m.

All of this is available on the web at the link above.

* I believe I saw the world premiere of this one hour opera, which was a television performance in 1951. I know I saw it on TV back in the early 1950's.


Meanwhile the Boston Symphony went on tour to California for four concerts, and the Boston Pops are giving their holiday concerts for the rest of the month. You may want to check out what WCRB streams in the regular concert times. Last Saturday, they repeated a concert from earlier in the season. Also, this Sunday at 3:00 p.m. they will give a live broadcast/webstream of the Handel and Haydn's "A Bach Christmas" concert,  which will include music of other baroque composers as well. I think I'll listen to that — tearing myself away from the Weber Orgy. BSO concerts will again be streamed live beginning on January 7.

Follow-up

I listened to the Harbison 5th on the radio Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon. It reinforced and clarified my impression from Thursday. The symphony is more like a series of "accompagnato" recitatives followed by a duet. He's gone back to Bach. The orchestra supports the declamation of the texts and adds tonal color and emphasis, but there is no memorable melody from singer or instruments. It works very well as a dramatic retelling of the legend, but calling it a symphony is an unusual use of the word.

BSO — 2011/12/01-03 — Info and Reviews

I was in the audience for the Thursday evening performance of John Harbison's Symphony No. 5 — which could be subtitiled "Orpheus and Eurydice" but hasn't been — with Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4  and Leonore Overture No. 3 after the intermission. BTW, I had heard the world premiere of the Harbison when the BSO gave it three and a half years ago.

Here's a bit from the BSO website.

Making his BSO debut, Czech conductor Jiří Bělohlávek is chief conductor of the BBC Symphony and chief conductor designate of the Czech Philharmonic. The program opens with John Harbison's BSO-commissioned Symphony No. 5 (premiered in 2008) for baritone, mezzo-soprano, and orchestra, a dramatic, lyrical work setting poems inspired by the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice. The program's second half features American pianist Jonathan Biss in Beethoven's equally dramatic and lyrical Fourth Piano Concerto. To finish, Beethoven's powerful LeonoreOverture No. 3 offers another musical take on the transportive power of love.

That website page also has links to the program notes and an audio preview. I very much recommend the program note for the Harbison for a good explanation of the piece, including the use of three different poems to cover various facets of the legend.

Perhaps I'll revise my opinion after I hear the Harbison symphony again this evening and tomorrow afternoon, but the hearing on Thursday left me a bit disappointed. The baritone who sings the first two movements and with the mezzo soprano in the fourth had very clear enunciation, so that practically every word could be understood even without looking at the text in the program. The mezzo did almost as well in the third and fourth movements. And the texts were interesting. But the music itself was rarely engaging or even particularly expressive, to my ears. The composer was on hand, as he had been last week, to take a bow from the stage after his symphony. Then he was seated diagonally across from me in the first balcony for the second half. I couldn't help wondering if he was wondering if his symphony would be as much listened to after 200 years as Beethoven's music is today.

I want to like John Harbison's work, so I'll be hoping this symphony will impress me more on my later hearings. The poems have interesting insights into the legend, and at least the music doesn't get in the way of them; and of course Beethoven is always worth hearing. As usual, you can hear it over WCRB/WGBH/Classical New England. In addition to being able to hear the webstream, you can use this link to find a further link to a page where you can hear the composer himself talking about the symphony.

The Globe reviewer seems to have liked the Harbison better than the way the orchestra played the Beethoven.

BSO — 2011/11/25-29 — Info and Reviews

I went to the BSO today to listen to John Harbison's 4th Symphony. I liked it. He has managed to occupy the middle ground between Beethoven and Babbitt. You can hear it tomorrow at 8:00 p.m Boston time on the webstream from http://www.wgbh.org/995/ with a "pre-game show" at 7:00, or on Sunday at 1:00 without the "pre-game." After that it will be available on demand for two weeks.

They also had a book signing by Ron Della Chiesa, the radio and web announcer of the concerts, for his book "Radio My Way." I got he book and the autograph and had a nice conversation with him while the orchestra was playing a Suite from "Daphnis and Chloë. (I had left the auditorium so as not to overlay the Harbison with the Ravel.) Among other things, I learned that the phrases "Fenway Park of Music" (referring to Symphony Hall), and "pre-game show" are things which the producer, Brian Bell, came up with. I had always thought the they were original with Ron.

To amplify a bit on my statement that "I liked it. He has managed to occupy the middle ground between Beethoven and Babbitt," the work is jagged and episodic, but it has recognizable short themes which get repeated and modified, so I considered it musical. You might want to check out the program notes included on the BSO website, and I'll link the Boston Globe review when it is published.  Here it is. He's noncommittal.

Here's the description of the whole concert on the orchestra's website. This page also has links to the program notes for the Ravel and the Mahler.

To open his second program this season, former BSO assistant conductor Ludovic Morlot leads Pulitzer Prizewinning American composer John Harbison's exciting Symphony No. 4. Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé Suite No. 2 begins with an atmospheric evocation of dawn and ends with the stunning, breathless "danse générale." Mahler's Symphony No. 1 draws on melodies that reflect the folk music and natural environment of the composer's native central Europe.

As I mentioned above, I didn't want to cover the Harbison in my mind with the Ravel, so I left the auditorium after the Harbison symphony. But I went back after intermission and listened to the Mahler. It was a fine performance, IMO, with nothing that struck me as particularly noteworthy or different. I did notice some "faulty intonations," as I think they call it, from the horns, but they were loudly cheered, along with each of the sections when the conductor recognized them at the end. There was a standing ovation, which only lasted for two curtain calls! Adequately played, Mahler's First is definitely worth hearing, so I'd say this performance is worth listening to.

BSO — 2011/11/17-22 — Info and Reviews

From the BSO website:

French conductor Ludovic Morlot leads two colorful programs this season. His first features BSO principal flutist Elizabeth Rowe reprising her 2010 American premiere performances of Elliott Carter's Flute Concerto, a work co-commissioned by the BSO. Another esteemed soloist, the American pianist Richard Goode, plays Mozart's late Piano Concerto No. 25. Berlioz's rollicking Roman Carnival Overture is based on music from the composer's opera Benvenuto Cellini. Bartók's Miraculous Mandarin Suite, a truncated version of the full ballet score, is an astonishing feat of musical storytelling and brilliant orchestration.

The page also has links to information about the music — program notes and audio.

I enjoyed the first half — Berlioz and Mozart — more than the second, but there were some pleasant surprises after intermission. The Carter piece seemed to have some fragments of themes (repeated rising sequences of notes) although there was too much percussion and not enough music from the rest of the orchestra — or else the percussion distracted from anything else. The Bartók was interesting, with its woodwind solos and its powerful tutti. The Globe reviewer liked it even more than I did.

As usual you can listen on "Classical New England" on Saturday evening ("pre-game show" at 7:00, concert at 8:00) with rebroadcast at 1:00 p.m. on Sunday, and on demand thereafter. Enjoy!