BSO 2012/13 Season - Concert Previews

Listen to the concert preview for this series! Bernard Haitink returns to the podium to lead the BSO's final concerts of its 2012-13 season, featuring the compelling Danish violinist Nikolaj Znaider in Brahms's soaring Violin Concerto. Mr. Haitink and the orchestra then end the season in grand fashion with Schubert's Symphony in C, The Great-the composer's ultimate (in both senses of the word: it is his biggest and last word in the genre) symphony-famously praised for its "heavenly length" by Robert Schumann, who observed also that it "transports us into a world we cannot recall ever having been before."

Download the program notes for this series! Bernard Haitink returns to the podium to lead the BSO's final concerts of its 2012-13 season, featuring the compelling Danish violinist Nikolaj Znaider in Brahms's soaring Violin Concerto. Mr. Haitink and the orchestra then end the season in grand fashion with Schubert's Symphony in C, The Great-the composer's ultimate (in both senses of the word: it is his biggest and last word in the genre) symphony-famously praised for its "heavenly length" by Robert Schumann, who observed also that it "transports us into a world we cannot recall ever having been before."

Download the program notes for this series! BSO Conductor Emeritus Bernard Haitink-who was the Boston Symphony's principal guest conductor from 1995 to 2004-takes the helm for the last two weeks of the 2012-2013 season, beginning with a program of Schubert and Mahler symphonies. The teenaged Schubert composed his Symphony No. 5, a bracingly youthful work suggestive of Haydn and Mozart, in just a few weeks in the summer of 1816. After intermission, Swedish soprano Camilla Tilling is soloist in Mahler's mellifluous Symphony No. 4, a musical journey from earth to heaven.

Listen to the concert preview for this series! BSO Conductor Emeritus Bernard Haitink-who was the Boston Symphony's principal guest conductor from 1995 to 2004-takes the helm for the last two weeks of the 2012-2013 season, beginning with a program of Schubert and Mahler symphonies. The teenaged Schubert composed his Symphony No. 5, a bracingly youthful work suggestive of Haydn and Mozart, in just a few weeks in the summer of 1816. After intermission, Swedish soprano Camilla Tilling is soloist in Mahler's mellifluous Symphony No. 4, a musical journey from earth to heaven.

Listen to the concert preview for this series! Following the great success of the Boston Symphony Orchestra's "members-only" concerts in January 2012, the individual sections of the orchestra again take the stage conductor-less to perform Britten's Fanfare for St. Edmundsbury, Mozart's Serenade No. 11 in E-flat for winds, K.375, Dvořák's Serenade for Strings, and Tippett's Praeludium for brass, bells, and percussion.

Download the program notes for this series! Following the great success of the Boston Symphony Orchestra's "members-only" concerts in January 2012, the individual sections of the orchestra again take the stage conductor-less to perform Britten's Fanfare for St. Edmundsbury, Mozart's Serenade No. 11 in E-flat for winds, K.375, Dvořák's Serenade for Strings, and Tippett's Praeludium for brass, bells, and percussion.

Listen to the concert preview for this series! The distinguished British composer/conductor Oliver Knussen leads his own Violin Concerto (2002) with soloist Pinchas Zukerman, for whom the piece was written. Then, making her BSO debut, English soprano Claire Booth takes center stage for Knussen's 1992 Whitman Settings, for soprano and orchestra. The program opens with the Symphony No. 10 by the early 20th-century Russian composer Nikolai Miaskovsky and closes with Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition in a rarely heard orchestration by Leopold Stokowski.

Download the program notes for this series! The distinguished British composer/conductor Oliver Knussen leads his own Violin Concerto (2002) with soloist Pinchas Zukerman, for whom the piece was written. Then, making her BSO debut, English soprano Claire Booth takes center stage for Knussen's 1992 Whitman Settings, for soprano and orchestra. The program opens with the Symphony No. 10 by the early 20th-century Russian composer Nikolai Miaskovsky and closes with Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition in a rarely heard orchestration by Leopold Stokowski.

Listen to the concert preview for this series! Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos leads a program bookended by two works tied to the history of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The program begins with Hindemith's Konzertmusik for Strings and Brass, commissioned by Serge Koussevitzky and the BSO on the occasion of the orchestra's 50th anniversary in 1931. Bartók's ingeniously kaleidoscopic Concerto for Orchestra, a Koussevitzky commission premiered by the BSO in 1944, brings the concert to a close. Between these two works, the great American pianist Garrick Ohlsson in Rachmaninoff's ever-popular Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.

Listen to the concert preview for this series! For his third program of the season, Daniele Gatti conducts Mahler's multi-faceted and emotionally wide-ranging Symphony No. 3, a work notable for its length, difficulty, and overwhelming cumulative impact. For this performance, the expanded ranks of the BSO are joined by the eminent Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, the women of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, and the boys of the PALS Children's Chorus. Across its nearly 100-minute length, the broad musical canvas of Mahler's Third Symphony incorporates a full range of musical and emotional expression.

Listen to the concert preview for this series! Daniele Gatti talks with Brian Bell about the Mahler 3rd, and the tempo of the last movement.

Download the program notes for this series! For his third program of the season, Daniele Gatti conducts Mahler's multi-faceted and emotionally wide-ranging Symphony No. 3, a work notable for its length, difficulty, and overwhelming cumulative impact. For this performance, the expanded ranks of the BSO are joined by the eminent Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, the women of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, and the boys of the PALS Children's Chorus. Across its nearly 100-minute length, the broad musical canvas of Mahler's Third Symphony incorporates a full range of musical and emotional expression.

Download the program notes for this series! Conductor Daniele Gatti, mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung, and the BSO celebrate the bicentennial of Wagner's birth with selections from five of the composer's operas, encompassing the themes of love, identity, and redemption that pervade his works.

Listen to the concert preview for this series! Conductor Daniele Gatti, mezzo-soprano Michelle DeYoung, and the BSO celebrate the bicentennial of Wagner's birth with selections from five of the composer's operas, encompassing the themes of love, identity, and redemption that pervade his works.

Daniele Gatti explains to Brian Bell his reasoning behind this revised all-Wagner program.