BSO 2016/17 Season - Concert Previews

Download the Program Notes for this series. Spanish conductor and frequent BSO guest Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos leads the second BSO-commissioned work and first world premiere of 2013-14: American composer Marc Neikrug's Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra, composed for the BSO and the orchestra's principal bassoonist, Richard Svoboda. Well-known as a pianist, Neikrug is also artistic director of the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, an innovative symphonic depiction of a day in the country, begins this program, and Manuel de Falla's suites from the scintillating, Spanish-flavored ballet "The Three-cornered Hat", a Frühbeck specialty, concludes it.

Listen to the Audio Concert Preview for this series. Spanish conductor and frequent BSO guest Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos leads the second BSO-commissioned work and first world premiere of 2013-14: American composer Marc Neikrug's Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra, composed for the BSO and the orchestra's principal bassoonist, Richard Svoboda. Well-known as a pianist, Neikrug is also artistic director of the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival. Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, an innovative symphonic depiction of a day in the country, begins this program, and Manuel de Falla's suites from the scintillating, Spanish-flavored ballet "The Three-cornered Hat", a Frühbeck specialty, concludes it.

BSO Principal Bassoonist Richard Svoboda speaks with Brian Bell about the Bassoon Concerto by Marc Neikrug, which receives its world premiere by the BSO on November 21st, 22nd, and 23rd, 2013. Musical examples performed by Richard Svoboda, bassoon, and Deborah Emery, piano.

Listen to the Concert Preview for this series. Greek-born violin virtuoso and conductor Leonidas Kavakos returns in that dual role for Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 4, composed in 1775 and considered a signpost of the precocious composer's high maturity. Kavakos then leads Serge Prokofiev's delightful, Mozart- and Haydn-inspired Classical Symphony, one of the last pieces he finished in Russia before leaving his homeland for more than a decade. Closing the program is Robert Schumann's Symphony No. 2, composed in 1845 after a bout of deep depression, but ultimately, even miraculously, optimistic and affirmative in character.

Violinist/conductor Leonidas Kavakos speaks with Brian Bell about the BSO concerts of Nov. 14, 15, 16 and 19, 2013.

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.