Spring Break
BSO's program promises to delight
by Hannah Kirsch
Deputy Editor
Arts | 9/16/08
Posted online at 8:46 PM EST on 9/15/08
Bostonians and Brandeisians, mark your concert calendars now, for the Boston Symphony Orchestra continues to prosper under James Levine's directorship, and the first half of the 2008 to 2009 season promises further intriguing delights.
For me, one of the hallmarks of a truly great symphony season is the ingenuity of the programming, especially when it comes to the ensembles at the zenith of the musical hierarchy. Forgive me for being blasé, but I expect nothing other than impressive musicianship and nuanced conducting when attending a concert at Boston's Symphony Hall. As one of the top five symphony orchestras in the United States, the BSO will deliver quality and attract talented soloists. Thus, it falls to the programs themselves to shape a standout symphony experience.
I'm going to jump right to the end of the calendar year for the most exciting event of the season. Elliott Carter has long been a darling of modern music and only becomes more beloved with age. Along with his 100th birthday in December comes the Dec. 4 premiere of a much-anticipated work, Interventions, Symphony Hall with legendary pianist Daniel Barenboim as soloist. The program will open with Schubert's Fantasie in f minor for four hands and Beethoven's athletic third piano concerto and end with Stravinsky's Rite of Spring in what I predict and hope will be a delightful juxtaposition of dazzling classics with a 20th-century classic and an exciting newcomer. The program, which will be repeated four times in early December, will not be for the faint of heart; Carter's latest compositions have been lyrical, fluid, complex and completely atonal, and while the concert-closing Rite of Spring may turn out to be assonant in comparison, it is not what one might consider easy listening. But come snow or come finals, I recommend that every modern music aficionado or ingenue curious about new works attend at least one of these concerts.
Many of the BSO's other upcoming concerts feature similar interesting pairings of well-listened favorites with more recent or unusual choices, a hallmark of Levine's musical direction. The 2006 to 2007 season's Beethoven/ Schoenberg project was a success and an education all at once, which resounds in the inclusion of such disparate compositions as Beethoven's fourth symphony, the Stravinsky violin concerto and a second world premiere in André Previn's Owls. That program, beginning Oct. 3, sets an oft-neglected joy from a time-tested musical giant with an innovator's neoclassical concerto and a modernist's tone poem. And later in October, yet another world premiere will grace the Symphony Hall stage when the BSO performs The Forbidden, a new Leon Kirchner work, with Schumann's piano concerto and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6, "Pathétique", a piece that never grows stale no matter how many times it is played. In fact, the BSO performed both the latter pieces last year with a finesse that I can only hope will be repeated this season.
For me, one of the hallmarks of a truly great symphony season is the ingenuity of the programming, especially when it comes to the ensembles at the zenith of the musical hierarchy. Forgive me for being blasé, but I expect nothing other than impressive musicianship and nuanced conducting when attending a concert at Boston's Symphony Hall. As one of the top five symphony orchestras in the United States, the BSO will deliver quality and attract talented soloists. Thus, it falls to the programs themselves to shape a standout symphony experience.
I'm going to jump right to the end of the calendar year for the most exciting event of the season. Elliott Carter has long been a darling of modern music and only becomes more beloved with age. Along with his 100th birthday in December comes the Dec. 4 premiere of a much-anticipated work, Interventions, Symphony Hall with legendary pianist Daniel Barenboim as soloist. The program will open with Schubert's Fantasie in f minor for four hands and Beethoven's athletic third piano concerto and end with Stravinsky's Rite of Spring in what I predict and hope will be a delightful juxtaposition of dazzling classics with a 20th-century classic and an exciting newcomer. The program, which will be repeated four times in early December, will not be for the faint of heart; Carter's latest compositions have been lyrical, fluid, complex and completely atonal, and while the concert-closing Rite of Spring may turn out to be assonant in comparison, it is not what one might consider easy listening. But come snow or come finals, I recommend that every modern music aficionado or ingenue curious about new works attend at least one of these concerts.
Many of the BSO's other upcoming concerts feature similar interesting pairings of well-listened favorites with more recent or unusual choices, a hallmark of Levine's musical direction. The 2006 to 2007 season's Beethoven/ Schoenberg project was a success and an education all at once, which resounds in the inclusion of such disparate compositions as Beethoven's fourth symphony, the Stravinsky violin concerto and a second world premiere in André Previn's Owls. That program, beginning Oct. 3, sets an oft-neglected joy from a time-tested musical giant with an innovator's neoclassical concerto and a modernist's tone poem. And later in October, yet another world premiere will grace the Symphony Hall stage when the BSO performs The Forbidden, a new Leon Kirchner work, with Schumann's piano concerto and Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 6, "Pathétique", a piece that never grows stale no matter how many times it is played. In fact, the BSO performed both the latter pieces last year with a finesse that I can only hope will be repeated this season.
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