BSO 2016/17 Season - Concert Previews

Download the Program Notes. French conductor Stéphane Denève, a frequent BSO guest in recent seasons, leads this diverse program including John Williams's Violin Concerto, a soaring and heartfelt work that has been championed by Gil Shaham-and which he recorded with John Williams and the BSO. Opening the program is music by another American composer, Pulitzer Prize-winner Jennifer Higdon, whose colorful, atmospheric tone poem Blue Cathedral is her most frequently performed orchestral work.

Listen to the Concert Preview! French conductor Stéphane Denève, a frequent BSO guest in recent seasons, leads this diverse program including John Williams's Violin Concerto, a soaring and heartfelt work that has been championed by Gil Shaham-and which he recorded with John Williams and the BSO. Opening the program is music by another American composer, Pulitzer Prize-winner Jennifer Higdon, whose colorful, atmospheric tone poem Blue Cathedral is her most frequently performed orchestral work.

Listen to the Concert Preview! Swedish conductor Herbert Blomstedt returns to Symphony Hall for this Beethoven pairing. American pianist and audience favorite Garrick Ohlsson performs Beehoven's C major concerto-which shows the composer clearly moving beyond the models of Haydn and Mozart but still maintaining the clarity and balance of Viennese classicism. The beloved Seventh Symphony features a remarkable blend of lyricism and rhythmic drive.

Download the Program Notes. Swedish conductor Herbert Blomstedt returns to Symphony Hall for this Beethoven pairing. American pianist and audience favorite Garrick Ohlsson performs Beehoven's C major concerto-which shows the composer clearly moving beyond the models of Haydn and Mozart but still maintaining the clarity and balance of Viennese classicism. The beloved Seventh Symphony features a remarkable blend of lyricism and rhythmic drive.

Listen to the Concert Preview! For Charles Dutoit's second week of concerts this season, the Swiss conductor leads three Spain-centered works. Maurice Ravel's delightful one-act comic opera L'Heure espagnole, presented here in a concert performance, details the amorous intrigues of a clockmaker's wife (mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack as Concepción) and her gentleman friends. Rapsodie espagnole balances impressionistic atmosphere with Spanish dances.

Download the Program Notes! For Charles Dutoit's second week of concerts this season, the Swiss conductor leads three Spain-centered works. Maurice Ravel's delightful one-act comic opera L'Heure espagnole, presented here in a concert performance, details the amorous intrigues of a clockmaker's wife (mezzo-soprano Daniela Mack as Concepción) and her gentleman friends. Rapsodie espagnole balances impressionistic atmosphere with Spanish dances.

Download the Program Notes! Charles Dutoit returns to the BSO podium for two weeks in the 2015-2016 season. In this first program he leads two Berlioz works for chorus and orchestra: the major, wide-ranging, and highly dramatic Te Deum, featuring solo tenor Paul Groves, and the lesser-known Resurrexit, a movement from a Missa solennelle complete Mass setting from 1824. Henri Dutilleux's masterful Timbres, espace, mouvement continues the BSO's recognition of the 100th anniversary of the composer's birth.

Listen to the Concert Preview! Charles Dutoit returns to the BSO podium for two weeks in the 2015-2016 season. In this first program he leads two Berlioz works for chorus and orchestra: the major, wide-ranging, and highly dramatic Te Deum, featuring solo tenor Paul Groves, and the lesser-known Resurrexit, a movement from a Missa solennelle complete Mass setting from 1824. Henri Dutilleux's masterful Timbres, espace, mouvement continues the BSO's recognition of the 100th anniversary of the composer's birth.

Download the Program Notes! In a concert of distinctly opposed moods, Russian conductor Vladimir Jurowski leads two rarely heard works of Haydn's. His three-movement Symphony No. 26, Lamentatione, takes its nickname from its use of a Gregorian chant melody linked to the Lamentations of Jeremiah.

Listen to the concert preview! In a concert of distinctly opposed moods, Russian conductor Vladimir Jurowski leads two rarely heard works of Haydn's. His three-movement Symphony No. 26, Lamentatione, takes its nickname from its use of a Gregorian chant melody linked to the Lamentations of Jeremiah.

Download the Program Notes! Completing the BSO's three-program celebration of Shakespeare's work, Andris Nelsons and BSO English horn player Robert Sheena give the world premiere of New York-based composer George Tsontakis's Sonnets, Concerto for English horn and orchestra, inspired by several of Shakespeare's poems. Tsontakis's music is dynamically expressive and architecturally satisfying. Shakespeare's tragedies inspired the other three works on the program. Tchaikovsky's alternately aggressive and love-struck Romeo and Juliet needs no introduction; much less familiar is Strauss's overtly dramatic Macbeth, the composer's first tone poem. Dvořák's Othello Overture conveys the passions of love and its darker emotions.

Listen to the Concert Preview! Completing the BSO's three-program celebration of Shakespeare's work, Andris Nelsons and BSO English horn player Robert Sheena give the world premiere of New York-based composer George Tsontakis's Sonnets, Concerto for English horn and orchestra, inspired by several of Shakespeare's poems. Tsontakis's music is dynamically expressive and architecturally satisfying. Shakespeare's tragedies inspired the other three works on the program. Tchaikovsky's alternately aggressive and love-struck Romeo and Juliet needs no introduction; much less familiar is Strauss's overtly dramatic Macbeth, the composer's first tone poem. Dvořák's Othello Overture conveys the passions of love and its darker emotions.

Listen to the Concert Preview! Continuing the BSO's survey of Shostakovich's Stalin-era symphonic works, as well as a three-week focus on works influenced by Shakespeare, Andris Nelsons leads the composer's rarely heard, emotionally charged and evocative incidental music for Shakespeare's Hamlet. His countryman Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet ballet score was one of that composer's most popular works. In between comes a recent work by the Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen, whose wide-ranging, imaginative, and beautifully poignant let me tell you (2014) is based on Paul Griffith's atmospheric novel told from the perspective of Hamlet's Ophelia.

Download the Program Notes! Continuing the BSO's survey of Shostakovich's Stalin-era symphonic works, as well as a three-week focus on works influenced by Shakespeare, Andris Nelsons leads the composer's rarely heard, emotionally charged and evocative incidental music for Shakespeare's Hamlet. His countryman Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet ballet score was one of that composer's most popular works. In between comes a recent work by the Danish composer Hans Abrahamsen, whose wide-ranging, imaginative, and beautifully poignant let me tell you (2014) is based on Paul Griffith's atmospheric novel told from the perspective of Hamlet's Ophelia.

Listen to the Concert Preview! Three weeks of BSO concerts-January 28 through February 13-led by Andris Nelsons focus on music inspired by the work of William Shakespeare, commemorating the 400th anniversary of the Bard's death. This program's focus is the great comedy A Midsummer Night's Dream. Although Weber's German magical-romantic opera Oberon wasn't based specifically on Shakespeare, it shares its subject matter and sense of mystery. More explicit is Henze's Symphony No. 8, a BSO centennial commission premiered here in 1993. The symphony aims to illustrate certain moments of the play. Mendelssohn's Incidental Music to A Midsummer Night's Dream includes his youthful Overture-the play in a nutshell-as well as the familiar Wedding March, the most famous music Mendelssohn ever wrote.