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Welcome to Boston Symphony Orchestra's Concert Preview Podcasts! Learn about past and future music programs performed by the BSO. We hope you find these previews as well as the exclusive videos to be educational, insightful and entertaining.
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2009 - 2010 Season BSO Podcasts September 23, 2009 - May 1, 2010 The 09/10 BSO Audio Concert Previews are written by Richard Dyer, and narrated by Eleanor Hayes McGourty, Publications Coordinator for the Boston Symphony.
Project Tchaikovsky
April 22-27, 2010 BSO Conductor Emeritus Bernard Haitink returns for the final two weeks of the 2009-10 season.Mozart composed what was to become the vigorous Haffner Symphony as a six-movement serenade for the Haffner family, later extracting four movements to make a symphony for performance in Vienna. Richard Strauss’s Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme Suite assembles incidental music written in 1912 for a collaboration with Hugo von Hofmannsthal involving Molière’s 1670 play of the same name.
Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Eleanor McGourty.
Audio
April 13-17, 2010 Canadian-born conductor Julian Kuerti, one of the BSO’s two assistant conductors, collaborates with the acclaimed Canadian pianist Marc-André Hamelin in Dmitri Shostakovich’s brilliant Piano Concerto No. 1. György Ligeti’s early, Bartók-influenced Concert Românesc is flavored with Romanian folk music. Tchaikovsky’s Little Russian Symphony doesn’t refer to his homeland but rather to a part of the Ukraine then known as “Little Russia.” The symphony’s nickname comes from the Ukrainian folk melodies used in the piece. Download the full Program Notes
Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Eleanor McGourty.
Audio
April 8-10, 2010 The Boston Symphony Orchestra continues its long standing collaboration with Pulitzer Prize-winner John Harbison. Harbison wrote his new Double Concerto for violin, cello, and orchestra at the request of the Friends of Dresden Music in honor of the esteemed violinist and teacher Roman Totenberg. The soloists are husband and wife Jan Vogler and Mira Wang; Wang was a student of Totenberg. Mahler’s dynamic Symphony No. 7 closes the program in glorious triumph.
Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Eleanor McGourty.
Audio
April 1-3, 2010 Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos conducts a grand work considered by many to be Mendelssohn’s greatest, his oratorio Elijah. This big work is strongly influenced by Bach, whose St. Matthew Passion Mendelssohn conducted in 1829, rescuing it from obscurity and triggering a renewed interest in that Bach work. Mendelssohn wrote Elijah at the request of the Birmingham Festival, one of England’s great choir festivals; it was first performed there in 1846. For that occasion the original German text was translated to English; in the present performances the German text, taken from the Old Testament, will be used.
Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Eleanor McGourty.
Audio
March 24-27 & 30 Lieberson's Songs of Love and Sorrow, a BSO commission completed this year and written for the Canadian bass-baritone Gerald Finley, is a cycle of five settings of poems from Pablo Neruda's Love Sonnets. In this and in its lyrical style, the piece is a companion work to the composer's Neruda Songs, written for his wife, the late mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, and co-commissioned by the BSO. For Lieberson, Songs of Love and Sorrow are "about the fullness of all life experiences." Neruda penetrates the domains of love, sorrow, joy, and impermanence, and does so with such acuity, passion, and beauty.
Watch the Gerald Finley Interview Video Podcast
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Eleanor McGourty.
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March 18-20 Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, in the second of his two weeks of programs, leads Mendelssohn’s Overture and Incidental Music to Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Mendelssohn wrote the Overture when he was just seventeen, and incorporated it into a complete set of incidental pieces for Shakespeare’s play only much later. Gioachino Rossini “retired” from composing operas in 1829 as the greatest living opera composer. His sacred Stabat Mater (1841) is the most magnificent of his late-life works.
Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Eleanor McGourty.
Audio
March 10-13 & 16 Frequent guest conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos returns this season for two weeks of concerts. This first series features the young American violin virtuoso Hilary Hahn in Prokofiev’s alternately lyrical and witty Violin Concerto No. 1. Also on the program are three orchestrations of brilliant piano pieces by the Spanish composer Isaac Albéniz. They represent three different piano suites: "Córdoba from Cantos de España" and "Granada from Suite español", both orchestrated by Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, and "El Corpus en Sevilla" from Book I of Iberia, orchestrated by Albéniz's friend Enrique Fernández Arbós. These and Rimsky-Korsakov’s exotic Persian-tinged Scheherazade (inspired by Arabian Nights) are breathtaking orchestral showpieces.
Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Eleanor McGourty.
Audio
February 11-13, 2010 American soprano Renée Fleming joins Levine and the BSO in Richard Strauss’s beautiful Four Last Songs, written in 1943 as a kind of late-life love letter to the composer’s wife Pauline. Fleming is also soloist in the final movement of Mahler’s warm, gorgeous Symphony No. 4. Mahler and Strauss were congenial colleagues at the center of Austro-German musical life; Alban Berg’s fantastical Three Pieces for Orchestra were heavily influenced by Mahler as well as by Berg’s teacher Schoenberg.
Watch the video featuring Berg, Strauss and Mahler!
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Eleanor McGourty.
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February 4-9, 2010 The third American premiere and third BSO co-commission of the season is Elliott Carter’s Flute Concerto, a BSO co-commission premiered in Jerusalem in September 2008. BSO principal flutist Elizabeth Rowe makes her Symphony Hall solo debut in this lyrical concerto. The Overture and Entr’actes from Schubert’s incidental music to the 1823 play Rosamunde have had a far more successful life than the play itself, which closed after two performances. Brahms’s Symphony No. 4 is a beautiful, emotionally intense cornerstone of the symphonic repertoire.
Watch the Boston Symphony perform Brahms's Symphony No. 4!
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Eleanor McGourty.
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January 28-30, 2010 This two-soloist program led by James Levine features French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard in two colorful works. Ravel wrote his Piano Concerto for the left hand in 1929-30 at the request of pianist Paul Wittgenstein, who lost his right arm in World War I. Aimard also plays the single-movement Dialogues for piano and orchestra (2003) by Elliott Carter, a composer with whom the pianist has worked frequently in recent years. BSO principal violist Steven Ansell is soloist in Berlioz’s “symphony” for viola and orchestra, Harold in Italy. Ravel’s Suite No. 2 from the ballet Daphnis et Chloé, a lush and glorious orchestral showpiece, closes the concert.
Watch Elliott Carter's Dialogues taken from a 2008 Tanglewood Music Center performance
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Watch the Interview with Steven Ansell
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Eleanor McGourty.
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January Jan 21 - 23, 2010 Sir Colin Davis’s second week of concerts is devoted to a new work co-commissioned by the BSO and the London Symphony Orchestra, the Scottish composer James MacMillan’s St. John Passion. Sir Colin requested this major work from one of his favorite contemporary composers in part to commemorate the conductor’s own 80th birthday; he led the premiere in London in April 2008. The piece is a largescale work in two parts for chorus, orchestra, and baritone solo, building on the great traditional Passions of Bach in a dramatic setting, both traditional and modern, of the Passion narrative from the Gospel of John. These are the American premiere performances. Download the MacMillan Program Notes
Watch the Video Exclusive featuring and Interview with John Harbison & Osvaldo Golijov
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Watch the Video Exclusive: "A Brief Biography of James MacMillan"
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January 14-16 & 19, 2010 Sir Colin Davis is joined by Danish violinist Nikolaj Znaider, in his BSO debut, for Edward Elgar’s monumental, powerful Violin Concerto, one of the most significant of all concertos for the instrument, which the great virtuoso Fritz Kreisler declared on a par with the Beethoven and Brahms concertos. Sharing the program is Mozart’s Prague Symphony, which helped elevate the symphonic genre to a new level of substance and seriousness.
Watch the Video Exclusive featuring an Interview with Nikolaj Znaider
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Eleanor McGourty.
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January 6-9 & 12, 2010 In this interview, BSO Principal Horn player James Sommerville shares his insight on and describes his experience with historical performance practice. In these sold concerts, cellist Yo-Yo Ma is soloist in Haydn's Cello Concerto in C, joining Dutch early-music conductor Ton Koopman in this program of 18th- and early 19th-century works.
Watch the Video Exclusive featuring James Sommerville, Principal Horn, Boston Symphony Orchestra
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Eleanor McGourty.
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Richard Sebring - "The Gifts of Great Meadows" Richard Sebring was skiing near his home last January – with a new iPhone. Not realizing fully what he was about to capture when he shot the natural ice formations on the Sudbury River, he recites that upon seeing the images, “I was blown away – they seemed to reveal an entirely new world.” Richard happened to be working at the time on a new arrangement of Coventry Carol – and thought immediately how the music and the images could work together. From there, Richard says the project “took on a life of its own.” In particular, he thought that “it’d be fun to share ‘our backyard’ – the Sudbury River and the Great Meadows Wildlife Refuge— with Pops audiences.”
Video Podcast: Richard Sebring "Gifts of Great Meadows"
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Digital Music: $3.99 - $4.99
"The 12 Days of Christmas" Now Available for Download!
“I knew we had a winning new arrangement of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” when we premiered it in 2007, but the audience’s enthusiastic response night after night was unlike anything I’ve ever seen at the Pops,” said Boston Pops Conductor Keith Lockhart. “Then a flood of letters and phone calls came in requesting a recording of the new arrangement—an incredibly creative twist on one of the greatest Christmas-time classics. We knew then and there that we would make a recording of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” and that it would become a staple of our Holiday season programming.” This is the traditional "The 12 Days of Christmas" with excerpts from other popular songs skillfully integrated within the melody and lyrics! Think of it as a parody.The new arrangement by Broadway composer and arranger David Chase, was recorded live at Symphony Hall during the 2008 Holiday Pops season and features the Boston Pops Orchestra and Tanglewood Festival chorus under the direction of Keith Lockhart.
Video Podcast: 12 Days of Christmas
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December 2-5, 2009 Bartók, Martinů and Dvořák German violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann joins Christoph von Dohnányi and the BSO in the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu°’s Violin Concerto No. 2, one of several works programmed this season to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the composer’s death. Martinu° was strongly championed by Serge Koussevitzky and the BSO. Violinist Mischa Elman gave the world premiere with the BSO and Koussevitzky in December 1943. Bartók wrote his Divertimento for String Orchestra in 1939 just before he himself fled Europe, modeling it on the Baroque concerto grosso genre. Dvořák's Symphony No. 8 is perhaps the composer’s most representative blending of Czech musical spirit with the German symphonic tradition.
Watch the Video Exclusive featuring Frank Peter Zimmermann
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Eleanor McGourty.
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November 24 - December 1, 2009 Debussy, Stravinsky and Brahms In his BSO Symphony Hall debut conductor Yan Pascal Tortelier is joined by American violinist Joshua Bell in Brahms's evergreen Violin Concerto, written in 1878 for the great Joseph Joachim. Opening this diverse program is Debussy's Prelude to The Afternoon of a Faun, one of his most characteristic and popular scores.
Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Eleanor McGourty.
Audio
November 19-21, 2009 Debussy, Ibert and Brahms This concert celebrates the 70th birthday year of legendary Irish flutist Sir James Galway and the 80th birthday year of BSO Conductor Emeritus Bernard Haitink, who leads Sir James and the orchestra in the effervescent Flute Concerto of the 20th-century French composer Jacques Ibert. Debussy's Nocturnes for orchestra, a triptych of exotically and colorfully scored tone paintings from 1899, begins these concerts. Completing the program is Brahms's Symphony No. 1. Haunted by the symphonic accomplishments of Beethoven, Brahms wrestled for years with the idea of writing a symphony before finally completing this piece in 1876, when he was forty-three.
Watch the Video Exclusive featuring Sir James Galway
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Eleanor McGourty.
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Much has been said and written about the long and complicated gestation of the Brahms 1st Symphony. But to get to the bottom of the Brahms 1st, producer Brian Bell digs into one of the oldest musical tools in a composer's workshop.
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November 12-14, 2009 Honegger, Saint-Saëns and Stravinsky Italian conductor Fabio Luisi and acclaimed 21-year-old French pianist Lise de la Salle collaborate in their BSO debuts, performing Saint-Saëns' elegantly virtuosic Piano Concerto No. 2 with the orchestra. The Swiss-French composer Arthur Honegger's 1920 Pastorale d'été ("Summer Pastoral") is as lyrical and warm as its title suggests. Stravinsky's Petrushka, a ballet about a living puppet, composed for the Ballets Russes in 1911, helped cement Stravinsky's reputation as the most important and exciting young composer in the world.
Watch the Video Exclusive on Stravinsky's "Petrushka"
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Eleanor McGourty.
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November 5-7, 2009 Beethoven, The Complete Symphonies, Program 4 The fourth program in the BSO's historic Beethoven symphony cycle concludes with a program pairing the shortest of the nine, the wonderfully jovial Eighth (premiered in February 1814, and which the composer considered one of his finest symphonies), with his longest and most ambitious, No. 9 (one of the last pieces Beethoven wrote). Beethoven's use of chorus and soloists in the Ninth's final movement, a setting of Schiller's "Ode to Joy"-an unprecedentedly bold and imaginative stroke-remains startlingly effective today.
Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Eleanor McGourty.
Audio
Classical Companion
NEW! Ludwig Van Beethoven "The Complete Symphonies" Classical Companion 'Classical Companion' seeks to enhance the concertgoer experience through a range of interactive and educational online multimedia features. WATCH IT NOW
October 30-31, 2009 Beethoven, The Complete Symphonies, Program 3 The third program in the BSO's historic Beethoven symphony cycle pairs two of the composer's most beautiful and lyrical symphonies. The Symphony No. 6, Pastoral is a programmatic work narrating a pleasant day spent in the country, with cuckoos, dancing peasants, and a thunderstorm. The Seventh Symphony, premiered at the end of 1813, has been an audience favorite ever since.
Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Eleanor McGourty.
Audio
Classical Companion
NEW! Ludwig Van Beethoven "The Complete Symphonies" Classical Companion 'Classical Companion' seeks to enhance the concertgoer experience through a range of interactive and educational online multimedia features. WATCH IT NOW
October 27-29, 2009 Beethoven, The Complete Symphonies, Program 2 This is the second series of concerts in the BSO's historic overview of all nine Beethoven symphonies in a multi-week, four-program span. This program features the groundbreaking Symphony No. 3, Eroica, which was inspired by Napoleon's rise to power. The story goes that Beethoven angrily tore the dedication page in half when Napoleon arrogantly assumed the title of Emperor. The gracefully exuberant Fourth Symphony stands in contrast to the Third's high drama.
Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Eleanor McGourty.
Audio
Classical Companion
NEW! Ludwig Van Beethoven "The Complete Symphonies" Classical Companion 'Classical Companion' seeks to enhance the concertgoer experience through a range of interactive and educational online multimedia features. WATCH IT NOW
October 22-24, 2009 Beethoven, The Complete Symphonies, Program 1 Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos and the BSO perform the first set of concerts in a rare series of all nine Beethoven symphonies in a two-week, four-concert span. In Symphony No. 1 from 1800, we can trace the influence of both Haydn and Mozart. Symphony No. 2, from 1802, departs radically from Classical models in many ways, but is one of the composer's warmest and most sunlit works. The powerful Fifth Symphony—which needs no introduction—is a tremendous live experience. Download the full Program Notes
Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Eleanor McGourty.
Audio
Classical Companion
NEW! Ludwig Van Beethoven "The Complete Symphonies" Classical Companion 'Classical Companion' seeks to enhance the concertgoer experience through a range of interactive and educational online multimedia features. WATCH IT NOW
October 15-20, 2009 Martinů, Stravinsky, Thomas and Tchaikovsky Former BSO assistant conductor Ludovic Morlot, now widely acclaimed as a guest conductor, brings a fascinatingly diverse program in his return to Symphony Hall. He leads the BSO in the American premiere of Augusta Read Thomas's vibrant Helios Choros II (Sun God Dancers). Thomas was composerin- residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for many years and also has strong ties to the BSO and Tanglewood. Helios Choros II, the central panel of an orchestral triptych, was co-commissioned by the BSO and the London Symphony Orchestra; the LSO gave the premiere in December 2008. Peter Serkin is soloist in Stravinsky's sparkling Capriccio, a 1929 piece given its American premiere by the BSO under Koussevitzky in 1930. The Frescoes of Piero della Francesca, inspired by the great Italian Renaissance artist, is one of several Bohuslav Martinů works on BSO concerts this season, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Czech composer's death. Tchaikovsky's fervent "symphonic fantasia" Francesca da Rimini is a programmatic piece based on a passage from Dante's Inferno.
Watch the Video Exclusive on Featuring Augusta Read Thomas
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Eleanor McGourty.
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October 8-13, 2009 Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich St. Petersburg-born conductor Vasily Petrenko, chief conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, makes his BSO debut in the first three performances of this all-Russian program, and BSO assistant conductor Julian Kuerti leads the final concert of the series, on October 13. One of Stravinsky's earliest works, the 1908 Scherzo fantastique shows the imprint of the composer's studies with Rimsky-Korsakov. Stravinsky himself declared that it owed less to Rimsky than to "Mendelssohn via Tchaikovsky." This brilliant concert-opener contrasts strongly with Rachmaninoff's tone poem The Isle of the Dead, a substantial, atmospheric work inspired by a famous series of paintings by the Swiss artist Arnold Böcklin. Completed in 1909, the piece was first performed by the BSO under the composer's direction that year. Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10 was a response to the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. Written eight years after his Symphony No. 9 and considered one of his finest, the Tenth seems partly to have been an exorcism of his resentment of the Soviet leader.
Watch the Video Exclusive on Shostakovich's Symphony No. 10
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Eleanor McGourty.
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Vasily Petrenko with WGBH's Brian Bell.
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October 3, 2009 Beethoven, Carter, Debussy, Williams and Ravel Ann Hobson Pilot joined the BSO as its assistant principal harp in 1969 and became principal harp in 1980, retiring at the end of the 2009 Tanglewood season after forty years with the orchestra. This program celebrates her tenure here, and the great impact she has had as a musician with the BSO and elsewhere. She is soloist in John Williams' On Willows and Birches, a new work written for her and premiered by her on the BSO's Opening Night concert this season, as well as in Elliott Carter's Mosaic, a chamber work co-commissioned by the BSO and given its American premiere by Ms. Pilot at Tanglewood in 2008. She also plays Debussy's Danses sacrée et profane, a staple of the harp-and-orchestra repertoire. These concerts begin with Beethoven's high-spirited Symphony No. 4 and end with Ravel's popular La Valse, his unsettling farewell to the golden era of Vienna.
Watch the Video Exclusive interview with Ann Hobson Pilot on Elliott Carter
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Eleanor McGourty.
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September 26, 29, 2009 Stravinsky & Mozart James Levine leads two great sacred works for orchestra and chorus in this program featuring the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. Italian soprano Grazia Doronzio and German mezzo-soprano Anke Vondung make their BSO debuts in Mozart's Requiem, joining Michael Schade and Eric Owens. Mozart began his Requiem in response to a mysterious commission. It remained incomplete at his death in 1791, but at his wife Constanze's request, his pupil Franz Xaver Süssmayer finished it with remarkable fidelity to the master's style. Stravinsky wrote his starkly beautiful Symphony of Psalms at the behest of Serge Koussevitzky to celebrate the BSO's 50th anniversary. Symphony of Psalms was first performed in Europe, and Koussevitzky led the BSO in its American premiere in December 1930.
Watch the Video Exclusive on Stravinsky and Mozart.
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Eleanor McGourty.
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September 23, 2009 Opening Night at Symphony For Opening Night of the 2009-10 season, BSO Music Director James Levine leads a diverse program including the world premiere of a new work by John Williams, On Willows and Birches, written especially for the BSO's longtime principal harp, Ann Hobson Pilot, who retired from the BSO at the end of the 2009 Tanglewood season. The dazzling Russian pianist Evgeny Kissin is soloist in Chopin's Piano Concerto No. 2, one of the composer's few works with orchestra. Berlioz's rousing Roman Carnival Overture, based on music from his opera Benvenuto Cellini, opens the program, which concludes with Debussy's lush, shimmering La Mer-a piece given its American premiere by the BSO in 1907.
Watch the Video Exclusive of "Willows and Birches"
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Eleanor McGourty.
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2008 - 2009 Season BSO Podcasts September 24, 2008 - May 2, 2009 The 08/09 BSO Audio Concert Previews are written by Richard Dyer, and narrated by Ron Della Chiesa, radio personality and host of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Tanglewood broadcasts on WGBH Radio
April 29 - May 2, 2009 Mozart and Berlioz For the final concerts of the 2008-09 BSO season, the illustrious English conductor Sir Colin Davis brings the monumental Te Deum of Berlioz, a composer with whose music Sir Colin has long and profound experience. Tenor Matthew Polenzani, who has sung in recent BSO performances of Berlioz's Requiem and Roméo et Juliette, joins the Tanglewood Festival Chorus and the PALS Children's Chorus for these performances. The elegant English pianist Imogen Cooper is soloist in Mozart's majestic Piano Concerto No. 25, written in Vienna in 1786.
Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Ron Della Chiesa.
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April 23-25, 2009 Ravel, Stravinsky and Debussy Debussy's early, short Petite Suite for piano four-hands was orchestrated colorfully by Henri Büsser in "Debussy style" in 1907. Ravel made his own orchestrations of his piano suite Le Tombeau de Couperin, an homage to the French Baroque composer Couperin. Stravinsky's Pulcinella ballet, written just a few years later, takes some of its music from Pergolesi and refashions it in purely Stravinskian good humor.
Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Ron Della Chiesa.
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April 16-18, 2009 Beethoven and Mahler British conductor Mark Wigglesworth makes his BSO debut with this program, which also features two internationally acclaimed soloists. German violinist Isabelle Faust, who made her BSO debut under James Levine's direction in February 2008 with music of Alban Berg, returns as soloist in Beethoven's broadly lyrical Violin Concerto. German soprano Juliane Banse, well known for her performances of recital, orchestral, and operatic repertoire, makes her BSO debut in Mahler's heartwarming, sunlit Symphony No. 4, which has as its finale a setting of the poem “The Heavenly Life,” from the German folk poetry collection Des Knaben Wunderhorn (“Youth's Magic Horn”).
Watch the Enhanced Video Podcast on Mahler's Fourth Symphony!
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Ron Della Chiesa.
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April 9-14, 2009 Sibelius, Grieg, Copland and Bartók Korean conductor Shi-Yeon Sung, in her second season as an assistant conductor of the BSO, makes her subscription series debut with this thoughtfully conceived program of music from four countries. The eminent Brazilian pianist Nelson Freire joins Ms. Sung and the BSO for the Norwegian Edvard Grieg's popular and Romantic Piano Concerto. Finnish composer Jean Sibelius's short, meditative tone poem The Bard contrasts with the effusive openness of Aaron Copland's very American suite from Appalachian Spring. Closing the concert is the suite from Bartók's lurid, exotic ballet The Miraculous Mandarin.
Watch the Enhanced Video Podcast on Charles Dutoit!
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Ron Della Chiesa.
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March 26-28 Ravel, Prokofiev and Stravinsky Swiss conductor Charles Dutoit returns to Symphony Hall with one of his frequent collaborators, Georgian-born violinist Lisa Batiashvili, to perform Serge Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 2. Also on the program is music from two ballets both written for Diaghilev's Ballet Russes in the same year, 1911: Ravel's suite from the ballet Mother Goose and Stravinsky's Petrushka.
Watch the Enhanced Video Podcast on Charles Dutoit!
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Ron Della Chiesa.
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WGBH's Brian Bell with Charles Dutoit on Stravinsky.
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March 19-21, & 24 Brahms & Bruckner The Dutch violinist Janine Jansen and the American cellist Alisa Weilerstein, both of whose young careers have begun to soar, make their BSO debuts in these concerts, joining Hans Graf for Brahms's Double Concerto, written for the cellist Robert Hausmann and his quartet partner, Brahms's old friend Joseph Joachim, in 1887. Graf also conducts Bruckner's magisterial and deeply felt Symphony No. 7, a work that has been likened to a cathedral in sound.
Watch the Enhanced Video Podcast on Janine Jansen and Alisa Weilerstein!
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Ron Della Chiesa.
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WGBH's Brian Bell with Hans Graf on Bruckner's Symphony No. 7.
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March 12 -14 & 17 Nielsen, Mozart and Brahms Richard Goode, one of the esteemed Mozart pianists of our time, performs the Piano Concerto No. 18, with the BSO and Herbert Blomstedt. Blomstedt also conducts the great Danish composer Carl Nielsen's concert overture Helios, celebrating the passage of the sun. Hans von Bülow, who premiered it, said about Brahms's final symphony, "Unparalleled energy from beginning to end." Brahms had called it "a bunch of polkas and waltzes." Understatement of the musical century.
Watch the Enhanced Video Podcast on Brahms's Symphony No. 4!
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Ron Della Chiesa.
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March 5-7 & 10, 2009 Sibelius, Rachmaninoff, and Ives American conductor Alan Gilbert, who becomes music director of the New York Philharmonic in 2009-10, leads English pianist Stephen Hough in Rachmaninoff's brilliant and poetic Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. Receiving a rare BSO performance is Charles Ives's epic Symphony No. 4, a work of great originality and a virtual autobiography of Ives's musical experience. Opening the program is Sibelius's short tone poem Night Ride and Sunrise (1908), not played by the BSO since 1918.
Enhanced Video Podcast: Ives Symphony No. 4 Historical Context
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Enhanced Video Podcast: Ives Symphony No. 4 Analysis
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Ron Della Chiesa.
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February 19, 2009 James Levine's Press Conference Boston Symphony Orchestra releases its first major recordings with Music Director James Levine—Ravel's complete Daphnis and Chloé, Brahms's A German Requiem, Mahler's Symphony No. 6, William Bolcom's Eighth Symphony, and Bolcom's Lyric Concerto for flute and orchestra—available on the orchestra's own BSO Classics label through its website at bso.org. These initial releases featuring James Levine and the BSO are drawn from recordings made during live performances at Symphony Hall, part of an ongoing project to record all of Mr. Levine's BSO concerts for archival purposes and possible recording consideration.
Watch the Enhanced Video Podcast of this Press Event!
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February 25-28, 2009 Ravel, Liszt and Dvořák Montreal-born conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin makes his Boston Symphony Orchestra debut with a BSO audience favorite, the stylish French pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, performing Franz Liszt's sparkling Piano Concerto No. 2. Dvořák's Symphony No. 6, is one of the finest of Romantic scores but seriously neglected among his symphonies. Ravel's Valses nobles et sentimentales opens the concert on a colorful note.
Watch the Enhanced Video Podcast featuring Jean-Yves Thibaudet!
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Ron Della Chiesa.
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WGBH's Brian Bell with Jean-Yves Thibaudet talking about Franz Liszt after a 2006 Tanglewood performance.
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February 12-21, 2009 Three All-Mozart Programs Because so few conductors look beyond the tried-and-true favorites among Mozart’s symphonies, it’s rare to encounter in the concert hall any of the composer’s symphonies that we haven’t already heard. For his final concerts of the BSO’s 2008-09 subscription season, Music Director James Levine—who recorded all of Mozart’s symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic in the 1980s—leads three programs that offer a mix of early and middle Mozart symphonies—some of them never previously played by the BSO—followed by the great final trilogy of the symphonies 39, 40, and the Jupiter. This week’s two programs—the first on February 12 and 13, the second on February 14 and 17—offer a mix of works that show Mozart using and expanding upon the musical and stylistic trends of predecessors and contemporaries as he made the symphony his own. These concerts will be followed on February 19, 20, and 21 with Mozart’s last three symphonies, performed in a single program.
Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Ron Della Chiesa - Early and Middle Symphonies.
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Ron Della Chiesa - Final Symphonies.
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Listen to WGBH's Brian Bell on Mozart's Symphony No. 41, Jupiter
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February 2009 "Project Mozart" - First-Ever Fashion Contest The Boston Symphony Orchestra will present Project Mozart, a unique fashion contest featuring designs inspired by the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, scheduled in conjunction with upcoming BSO all-Mozart programs, February 12, 17, and 19, at Symphony Hall. The Project Mozart contest will feature evening wear designs by eleven talented fashion students affiliated with schools throughout the greater Boston area. Symphony Hall doors will open at 6:30 p.m. for pre-concert receptions on all three Project Mozart evenings, allowing patrons to view the dresses presented by professional models and enjoy a festive Symphony Hall atmosphere before taking their seats for the 8pm concert. The winner of Project Mozart will be announced at a special post-concert reception in Higginson Hall, following the February 19 performance.
Project Mozart Enhanced Video Podcast
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February 5-7, 2009 Mozart, Schuller and Brahms Following her performances as Amelia in Verdi's Simon Boccanegra, Barbara Frittoli returns to sing very different music: a Mozart concert aria as well as a dramatic scene from his first operatic masterpiece, Idomeneo, King of Crete. Also on the program is the fourth world premiere of this season, eminent American musician Gunther Schuller's orchestrally kaleidoscopic, symphony-like Where the Word Ends, a BSO 125th anniversary commission. Brahms's wonderfully warm Symphony No. 2 closes the program.
Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Ron Della Chiesa.
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WGBH's Brian Bell on Brahms' Symphony No. 2.
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January 29 - February 3, 2009 Verdi - Simon Boccanegra James Levine brings some of the world's most sought-after vocal stars to Symphony Hall in his continuing role as an advocate of opera in concert performances. Verdi's grand opera Simon Boccanegra tells the story of the title figure, a Genoese corsair, whose ascent to lead that city-state is complicated by both political and personal intrigue in this great operatic tragedy.
Enhanced Video Podcast: Verdi Simon Boccanegra Historical Context
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Enhanced Video Podcast: Verdi Simon Boccanegra Synopsis
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Enhanced Video Podcast: James Levine In Converstaion With Richard Dyer, An Overview of Simon Boccanegra
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Enhanced Video Podcast: James Levine In Conversation With Richard Dyer, Verdi's Mastery of Color & Character
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Ron Della Chiesa.
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January 22-27, 2009 All - Mendelssohn Program Former New York Philharmonic music director Kurt Masur returns to the BSO podium with an all- Felix Mendelssohn program, marking the 200th anniversary of the composer's birth. The Hebrides Overture was inspired by the composer's tour to Scotland's islands and its folklore. Symphony No. 3, Scottish, completed in 1842, had been noted down the first sketches in 1829 during the same Scottish sojourn. He began his Italian Symphony in 1830 during an extended stay in that sunlit country.
Watch the Enhanced Video Podcast featuring Kurt Masur!
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Ron Della Chiesa.
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One summer at Tanglewood, Brian Bell spoke to Robert Spano about Mendelssohn's Italian Symphony. With Charles Munch's classic BSO recording illustrating the points, this feature serves as a conversation piece that unveils the musical and technical questions that face musicians and listeners.
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January 14-17, 2009 Mozart, Haydn and Handel Québécoise conductor Bernard Labadie is one of the world’s most accomplished early-music specialists. In his debut performances with the BSO, he is joined by Dutch cellist Pieter Wispelwey in Haydn’s congenial Cello Concerto No. 2 in D. The concert begins with the Chaconne from the ballet music Mozart composed to follow his first operatic masterpiece, Idomeneo. Handel’s famous Water Music far transcends the highest aspirations of “occasional” music, its original purpose.
In conversation with BSO Assistant Artistic Administrator Benjamin Schwartz, conductor Bernard Labadie shares reflections about his upcoming BSO debut, the joys and challenges of conducting Handel, and how to navigate the switch between working with period and modern instrument ensembles.
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In between his first two rehearsals leading the Boston Symphony for his debut, Bernard Labadie spoke to Brian Bell about his concert program of January 15-17, 2009. Is Labadie an early music specialist changing the ways of the Boston Symphony? His thoughts might surprise you.
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Ron Della Chiesa.
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December 4-9, 2008 Schubert, Beethoven, Carter and Stravinsky Boston Symphony Orchestra Music Director James Levine takes to the podium and the piano for two wide-ranging programs celebrating the 100th birthday of the dean of American composers, Elliott Carter, December 4-9. Both programs are anchored by Stravinsky's groundbreaking The Rite of Spring, the 20th century masterpiece that inspired a young Carter to become a composer himself.
Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Ron Della Chiesa.
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After the final rehearsal on December 4th 2008 for the world premiere of the Elliott Carter Interventions, the composer, who turns 100 on December 11th, BSO Music Director James Levine and piano soloist Daniel Barenboim gathered in the soloists dressing room for a roundtable discussion of Elliott Carter's piece, written on the occasion of his centenary.
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November 28-28, 2008 Messiaen and Berlioz Director Laureate Seiji Ozawa returns to lead the BSO at Symphony Hall for the first time since April 2002. He leads an all-French program including Berlioz's popular Symphonie fantastique, which tells the hyper-Romantic story of an artist's unrequited love.
Enhanced Video Podcast: Seiji Ozawa Tribute
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Ron Della Chiesa.
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WGBH's Brian Bell on Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique.
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November 20-25, 2008 Brahms, Elgar and Tchaikovsky Julian Kuerti leads Tchaikovsky's tone poem-like, four-movement Manfred Symphony, based programmatically on Byron's verse-play about a self-tortured hero who wanders the Alps seeking redemption. Brahms's rarely heard Handel Variations, originally for piano, were orchestrated by the important English composer Edmund Rubbra in 1938. The esteemed American cellist Lynn Harrell joins the BSO for performances of Sir Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto.
Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Ron Della Chiesa.
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WGBH's Brian Bell on Tchaikovsky's Manfred Symphony.
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November 13-15, 2008 Dvořák and Beethoven German conductor Marek Janowski returns to guest-conduct the BSO and Alban Gerhardt in Dvořák's Cello Concerto, arguably the greatest of concertos for the instrument, with equal parts Romantic (and very Dvořákian, i.e., Czech) intensity and lyrisicm. Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, familiar as it remains, is ever fresh in its depiction of a day spent in the countryside, and enjoying even the thunderstorm that is its fourth movement.
Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Ron Della Chiesa.
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WGBH's Brian Bell on Beethoven's Symphony No. 6
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November 6-8, 2008 Orff - Carmina burana For the second of his two weeks of concerts, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos brings Carl Orff's sprawling 20th-century masterwork, Carmina burana, to Symphony Hall. Scored for vocal soloists, chorus, children's chorus, and orchestra, Orff's work is a series of pieces based on medieval Latin and German texts (from a collection called "Carmina burana"), celebrating pastoral love with the overarching presence of "Fortuna," the fickle goddess of fortune. The medieval music ensemble Sequentia will perform selections from medieval settings of the "Carmina burana" texts.
Enhanced Video Podcast: Carmina burana John Oliver and members of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus.
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Ron Della Chiesa.
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WGBH's Brian Bell on Carmina burana.
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October 29 - November 4, 2008 Brahms and Strauss Richard Strauss was the late Romantic master of the tone poem, evoking in music everything from Don Quixote's battles to the elevated philosophy of Nietzsche. The Symphonia domestica hits closer to home, a remarkably powerful and entertaining musical response to a day in the life of the Strausses. Also on this program, the Greek-born violinist Leonidas Kavakos joins frequent BSO guest conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos in Brahms's stately, beautiful Violin Concerto.
From the Archives: Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos Enhanced Video Podcast, by Matt Heck.
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Ron Della Chiesa.
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WGBH's Brian Bell with Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos Do you have some doubts about Strauss' Symphonia Domestica? Let conductor Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos take you on a personal guided tour. He spoke with Brian Bell of WGBH Radio.
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October 23-25, 2008 Messiaen, Boulez and Berlioz In this all-French program, BSO principal violist Steven Ansell is soloist in Berlioz's Harold in Italy. The title is a reference to Byron's Childe Harold. Messiaen's Et exspecto is one of the composer's profound statements of his Catholic faith, dazzlingly scored for an orchestra of winds and percussion. The orchestral versions of the first four of Boulez's Notations, originally for piano, recall both Messiaen and Debussy.
Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Ron Della Chiesa.
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October 16-18, 2008 Tchaikovsky, Kirchner and Schumann The BSO's second world premiere of the 2008-09 season, continuing the series of commissions celebrating the orchestra's 125th anniversary, is the eminent composer Leon Kirchner's The Forbidden, based on his rhapsodic and romantic recent piano piece of the same name (aka Sonata No. 3). Tchaikovsky's lush, passionate, and searing Symphony No. 6, begins this concert, which ends with Schumann's Piano Concerto as performed by the great Italian pianist Maurizio Pollini.
The History of BSO Commissions Enhanced Video Podcast, by Anthony Fogg, BSO Artistic Administrator.
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Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Ron Della Chiesa.
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WGBH's Brian Bell with Leon Kirchner Brian Bell speaks to Leon Kirchner about the musical language behind The Forbidden.
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WGBH's Brian Bell on Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6 Every music director with the exception of William Steinberg conducted the Tchaikovsky Sixth frequently, even Erich Leinsdorf had difficulty staying away from the piece. Here is Brian Bell's analysis.
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October 10-14, 2008 Mahler, Symphony No. 6 Continuing a multi-year survey of the works of Gustav Mahler, James Levine conducts the BSO in the composer's Symphony No. 6, the central work in a kind of trilogy formed by the instrumental symphonies nos. 5, 6, and 7. This intensely emotional symphony, written in 1903-04, is arguably Mahler's most heartfelt symphonic statement.
Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Ron Della Chiesa.
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October 2-7, 2008 Previn, Stravinsky and Beethoven Sir André Previn returns to the Boston Symphony podium to conduct a new work of his own commissioned by the BSO, a tone poem called Owls. The piece is an orchestral nocturne, mostly ruminative but also suggesting the night's unwitnessed activity. Violinist Gil Shaham plays Stravinsky's neoclassical Violin Concerto. Beethoven's high-spirited, gregarious Symphony No. 4 closes the program.
Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, narrated by Ron Della Chiesa.
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WGBH's Brian Bell with André Previn Sir André Previn's subscription concerts open with a world premiere: a BSO commission written by himself titled Owls. Though he had just a few minutes to look at the score before speaking with the composer last August, Brian Bell couldn't pass up the opportunity to speak to André Previn about it.
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September 26-27, 2008 Brahms A German Requiem A German Requiem, Brahms's largest work, originated with music he wrote following Robert Schumann's attempted suicide in 1854 as well as music composed at the time of his own mother's death. The result is an utterly personal response to the Requiem text, employing soprano and baritone soloists, chorus, and orchestra.
Audio Concert Preview by Richard Dyer, recorded by Ron Della Chiesa
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Podcast Exclusive: "From The Archives: Brahms, A German Requiem" By Matt Heck.
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Opening Night At Symphony - September 24, 2008 Glinka, Tchaikovsky, and Mussorgsky Opening Night at Symphony is one of Boston's premier social events. This year's Opening Night will take place on Wednesday September 24, 2008, beginning with a gala cocktail reception at Symphony Hall at 5:30 pm. Maestro James Levine will then lead the BSO in a Russian-themed program featuring soprano Maija Kovalevska.
This is a one-night-only program featuring Glinka’s Overture to Ruslan and Ludmila, the Letter Scene from Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin, and Ravel’s orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition.
WGBH's Brian Bell on Eugene Onegin Not familiar with the action of the Tchaikovsky opera Eugene Onegin? Listen to a two minute musical tour of the action put together by Brian Bell of WGBH Radio.
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WGBH's Brian Bell on Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition Scored for piano by the composer, BSO Music Director Serge Koussevitzky commissioned Maurice Ravel to orchestrate Pictures, leaving us with one of the great symphonic showpieces of all time. Brian Bell provides you with a guided tour through the Exhibition.
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2007 - 2008 Season BSO Podcasts October 4, 2007 - May 4, 2008 The 07/08 BSO Audio Concert Previews are hosted by our Publications Office including Marc Mandel, Robert Kirzinger, and Eleanor Hayes McGourty.
April 22 - May 4 Berlioz The Trojans The Roman poet Virgil’s epic Aeneid served as the basis for Berlioz’s equally epic, five-act opera Les Troyens (The Trojans), the ultimate magnum opus of a composer who wrote a very many large-scale works. In these unprecedented concert performances by the BSO, each of the opera’s two parts will be performed in separate concerts; then both parts will be performed in the space of a single Sunday, with a dinner break in between. Part I, "The Capture of Troy", depicts the fall of Troy; Part II, "The Trojans at Carthage", depicts Aeneas at the court of Queen Dido in Carthage, their love affair, and his departure for Italy (leaving Dido emotionally shattered) to fulfill his destiny of founding Rome.
Audio Concert Preview by Marc Mandel, BSO Director of Program Publications
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Podcast Exclusive: Berlioz "The Trojans" Includes an interview with John Oliver, Tanglewood Festival Chorus Director.
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April 17 - 18 Harbison and Mahler James Levine conducts the third world premiere of the 2007-08 season, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Harbison’s Symphony No. 5 for mezzo-soprano, baritone, and orchestra, based on the story of Orpheus and Eurydice and featuring Kate Lindsey (in her BSO debut) and Nathan Gunn. Also on the program is Mahler’s symphony-like Das Lied von der Erde (“The Song of the Earth”), a setting for mezzo-soprano and tenor of German versions of Chinese poems on the broad subject of life and death as described through imagery and music prosaic and sublime.
Audio Concert Preview by Robert Kirzinger, BSO Publications Associate
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Podcast Exclusive: John Harbison "Dramatic Composer" Harbison's style, is at least in part, rooted in music as a form of dramatic expression.
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Podcast Exclusive: John Harbison "From Division to Inclusion" The history of music in the United States is a history of pluralism, and no more so than in the past few decades.
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Podcast Exclusive: John Harbison "Prolific Composer" Diotima was the first of Harbisons works to be performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The orchestra has since commissioned several pieces from Harbison...
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Podcast Exclusive: John Harbison "Stravinsky and Bach" As a teacher, Harbison has taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1969. In addition Harbison has been on the faculty of the Tanglewood Music Center, and director of Tanglewood Festival of Contemporary Music.
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Podcast Exclusive: John Harbison "Sessions and Piston" Born in Orange, New Jersey, on December 20, 1938, grew up surrounded by creative and intellectually curious people. His mother was a writer, and his father, a professor at Princeton.
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Podcast Exclusive: John Harbison "An Interview With John Harbison" Watch an Interview with composer John Harbison.
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Podcast Exclusive: John Harbison "John Harbison Symphony No. 5 (Analysis)" John Harbison wrote his Symphony No. 5 on commission from the Boston Symphony Orchestra, James Levine Music Director.
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April 8 - 12 Brahms Russian-born pianist Evgeny Kissin joins James Levine and the BSO for both of Brahms’s piano concertos—the Concerto No. 1 on April 11 and 12 and the Concerto No. 2 on April 8 and 9. The stormy and brooding Concerto No. 1 was in part triggered by the attempted suicide of Brahms’s mentor Robert Schumann in 1854 and was brought to fruition only after years of struggle. Finished in 1881, his Piano Concerto No. 2 is a magisterial, far-ranging work of symphonic proportions. The most tightly constructed of his symphonies, the Third Symphony features some of Brahms’s loveliest and most poetic moments.
Audio Concert Preview by Marc Mandel, Director of Program Publications
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March 27 - 29 Bartók and Schubert For the second of BSO Conductor Emeritus Bernard Haitink’s two programs of the 2007-08 season, he and the orchestra are joined by Hungarian pianist András Schiff for Béla Bartók’s scintillating Piano Concerto No. 3. Also on the program is Franz Schubert’s triumphant Symphony in C, The Great, the composer’s last and biggest symphony and his greatest achievement in the genre.
Audio Concert Preview by Eleanor Hayes McGourty, BSO Publications Coordinator
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March 20 - 22 Bach Johann Sebastian Bach’s St.Matthew Passion is one of the supreme works of Western art. He wrote it for St. Thomas’s Church, Leipzig, in the late 1720s. Bach’s great work interleaves text from the Gospel of Matthew in Martin Luther’s translation, presented by soloists in highly expressive recitative and aria, with choral passages whose style is that of church hymns. This is a rare opportunity to hear the BSO perform this work, which will be lead by BSO Conductor Emeritus Bernard Haitink.
Audio Concert Preview by Robert Kirzinger, BSO Publications Associate
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March 13 - 15 Schumann and Shostakovich Italian conductor Daniele Gatti and American pianist Garrick Ohlsson collaborate in Schumann’s exciting and lyrical Piano Concerto, a piece that took Schumann several years to bring to its final state. Shostakovich’s Fifth Symphony, probably the composer’s best-known and most popular work, was a success from the beginning. The Fifth poses questions and evokes struggle in its course, but is ultimately heroic and powerfully optimistic.
Audio Concert Preview by Matt Heck, Marketing Projects Coordinator of the BSO
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March 6 - 11 Knussen, Dvořák and Beethoven Canadian-born conductor Julian Kuerti, in his first season as an assistant conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, makes his BSO debut in these concerts. He is joined by renowned American pianist Leon Fleisher for Beethoven’s magisterial Piano Concerto No. 5, Emperor. Also on the program is Dvořák’s great, Brahms-influenced Symphony No. 7. The brief and clever The Way to Castle Yonder by English composer Oliver Knussen comes from Knussen’s children’s opera Higglety Pigglety Pop!
Audio Concert Preview by Eleanor Hayes McGourty, BSO Publications Coordinator
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Podcast Exclusive: "From The Archives: Beethoven and Dvořák" By Matt Heck.
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February 28 - March 1 Schubert and Bolcom The German bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff joins the BSO and James Levine in familiar Schubert Lieder orchestrated by later master composers Anton Webern, Max Reger, and Jacques Offenbach. Schubert’s Symphony No. 4 is an earlier work that shows the evolution of his own symphonic style in a genre dominated by his Viennese predecessors Beethoven, Haydn, and Mozart. Closing the program is the premiere of a BSO 125th Anniversary Commission, American composer William Bolcom’s Eighth Symphony, a setting of texts by William Blake for chorus and orchestra.
Audio Concert Preview by Marc Mandel, BSO Publications Director
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Podcast Exclusive: William Bolcom Biography "Bolcom The Composer" A native of the pacific north west, William Bolcom has become one of the most well known and most performed of all American composers.
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Podcast Exclusive: William Bolcom Biography "Bolcom The Performer" As important as Bolcom's academic and compositional accolades over the years was his ceaseless activity as a performer.
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Podcast Exclusive: William Bolcom Historical Context "American Eclectic" Although Bolcom himself dislikes being called a composer of so called classical music, certain aspects of his highly successful career correspond neatly to the generally held meaning of such a descriptor.
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Podcast Exclusive: William Bolcom Historical Context "Ragtime Revival: The Juxtaposition of High and Low" Born of the music of African Americans the peculiarly upbeat syncopated sound of rag time roared through the entire nation in the first years of the twentieth century.
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Podcast Exclusive: William Bolcom Analysis "Eighth Symphony for Chorus and Orchestra" William Bolcom's Eighth Symphony for Chorus and Orchestra, on William Blake's prophetic books is the second of his symphonies to include a vocal element.
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Podcast Exclusive: William Bolcom "An Interview With William Bolcom "
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Podcast Exclusive: William Blake Biography William Blake, one of England's great poets, was born in London, 1757, for a little musical context, that's the year after Mozart was born in Austria.
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February 20 - 26 Mozart, Berg and Brahms James Levine and the BSO are joined by longstanding BSO guest soloist Peter Serkin and, in her BSO debut, German violinist Isabelle Faust for Alban Berg’s vibrant, energetic Chamber Concerto. Mozart’s delightful Symphony No. 29 opens the program. Brahms’s Serenade No. 2 is substantial in length but generally light in mood, like the Classical-era serenades that were his models.
Audio Concert Preview by Robert Kirzinger, BSO Publications Associate
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February 14 - 16 Sibelius and Shostakovich The English conductor Mark Elder and the Russian violinist Vadim Repin collaborate with the BSO in Sibelius’s uniquely beautiful Violin Concerto. Sibelius’s deep knowledge of and love for Finnish folk music is evident here, as is his love for the violin, his own instrument. Shostakovich’s rarely heard Symphony No. 4, a powerful work long overshadowed by his Fifth Symphony, received its only previous BSO performances under the direction of Gennady Rozhdestvensky in spring 1978.
Audio Concert Preview by Marc Mandel, BSO Publications Director
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Podcast Exclusive: Shostakovich, Symphony No. 4 By Matt Heck.
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February 6 - 12 Martin, Prokofiev and Saint-Saëns Young German violinist Viviane Hagner makes her BSO debut in these concerts, performing Prokofiev’s light and lyrical Violin Concerto No. 1. Swiss conductor Charles Dutoit opens the program with a work by his countryman Frank Martin, his neoclassical Petite symphonie concertante for harp, harpsichord, and piano. To close the program, organist James David Christie gives the recently refurbished Symphony Hall organ the spotlight in the familiar and uplifting Organ
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NEW! Classical Companion Featuring Harbison and Mahler >![[Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos]](/images/musicians/Fruhbeck_d_Burgos_w_BSO_95.jpg)
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