Nelsons clocks up a Boston decade with summits of Vienna music
OrchestrasThe Boston Symphony has just rolled out the 2024-25 season, its tenth anniversary season with music director Andris Nelsons.
The highlights are a cycle of Beethoven symphonies, Mahler’s monumental Symphony of a Thousand and two concert performances of Korngold’s opera, Die tote Stadt. The Beethoven symphonies will be performed in order in consecutive concerts, a scheme last attempted by Serge Koussevitsky in 1927.
Forget consecutive concerts on different days – I heard Maazel conduct the 9 Beethovens in one day, albeit with 3 different orchestras. I went home and listened to Bach for a week after that.
LOL!
One can charge more for 9 concerts instead of 1.
In the parlor game of which “top-level” conductor or music director/principal conductor is most overrated, or has under-achieved, at least as discerned from commercial recordings, Andris Nelsons is competitive.
His Shostakovich symphony/orchestral works/concerto cycle has turned out to be — as most such projects do — a bit of a hit and miss affair. I believe that the cello concertos have been recorded with Yo-Yo Ma, but are yet to be released by Deutsche Grammophon. I think the violin concertos may have already been recorded? Was Baiba Skride involved in that project?
The Beethoven symphony cycle with the Vienna Philharmonic is the definition of dull, and, well, the Bruckner symphony cycle with the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra divides critical opinion, as most such Bruckner symphony cycles often do — Markus Poschner’s cycle on Capriccio is far more consistently interesting, even if it too is of course not entirely convincing. What conductor can identify completely with the sound worlds of all of the Bruckner symphonies in any case?
The most interesting purely orchestra program for the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 2024-2025 season is an old-school one: Alan Gilbert leading Haydn’s symphonies 48 and 99, with Isabelle Faust in Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto placed in between those two.
And as for Mahler’s 8th Symphony, well at this point we might as well get another DG recording to place against the DG ones with the LA Phil and Dudamel, and the Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick the professional hand model.
I have to disagree about his Beethoven in Vienna. It’s not revelatory, but I think it’s better than “dull.” It might not be saying much, but I prefer it to Thielemann and Rattle’s Vienna sets.
Completely agree on Poschner cycle, stimulating, Nelson’s cycle is a good reading but he doesn’t bring anything specific. His major mistake is to have done the Chosta with Boston, which is an absolute unfit choice, when the Bruckner would have brought something new because there’s no Bruckner cycle of the orchestra and I would be curious about it…the Leipzig cycle is just above Barenboim 2 last cycles. Doing Chosta with darker orchestral colour like Leipzig has would have been interesting too. Too bad. Thieleman lets the Wiener give their best and is an excellent recent option of glorious orchestral sound for Bruckner. Nelson’s Beethoven cycle was really disappointing, because never had the urge to listen to it again, you forget about it right away…. Nelson is still interesting to listen to live, he makes the orchestras sound good at least.
Yes, in retrospect it would have been far more fascinating to have had Nelsons do the Shostakovich cycle in Leipzig and the Bruckner cycle in Boston.
Why can’t Nelsons and the Boston Symphony plan and release anything anymore on the in-house label, BSO Classics? There even has been a release on Naxos. Why does Deutsche Grammophon have to control the commercial releases?
There are great live Bruckner recordings from BSO under Klaus Tennstedt and William Steinberg. There is even a studio Bruckner 6 from Steinberg and the BSO, but I don’t remember to be anything special, certainly not in the same class as Celibidache or Keilberth (my favorite recordings of the piece.)
Blomstedt conducting Schubert Symphony No. 6
Brahms Symphony No. 1 in February, a week before New York. (Maybe I should go to both.)
Actually, two weeks before NY. The week after Boston, the Philadelphia Orchestra plays under Luisi and the Pittsburgh Symphony presents Korngold’s symphony under Honeck.
Wish I had the time and resources for all of it.
Schubert’s Symphony No.6 seems to be a Herbert Blomstedt special. Its appearance in the US in the concert halls of major orchestras nowadays is quite uncommon.
My own local orchestra, the Utah Symphony, has finally scheduled it again on a program after it last appeared on a program about 20 or more years ago, but this time for the summer chamber orchestra series at St. Mary’s Catholic Church on the outskirts of Park City, Utah.
Chelsea Gallo, the Resident conductor of the Florida Orchestra, is scheduled to lead that Schubert symphony on a program that begins with Haydn’s Symphony No.61.
Do hurry!!!
I just look forward to the concerts.
Great to read about the Korngold. Can you believe that the Met has not done it since 1923.
Why wasn’t Die tote Stadt brought to Carnegie Hall?
Here are complete details of the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 2024-25 season:
https://app.box.com/s/55ffda5jn8xmkl8486p2in6tmjeb3l9n?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=BSO+Announces+2024-25+Symphony+Hall+Season+as+Andris+Nelsons+Celebrates+His+Tenth+Anniversary+as+Music+Director&utm_campaign=PRS+-+BSO+24-25+Season+Announcement
Levine scheduled a Beethoven symphony cycle with the BSO in October, November 2009.
Illness prevented him from conducting it, it was led by Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Julien Kuerti, and Lorin Maazel.
They were not in order, but with 1, 2, 5 then 4, 3, followed by 6, 7 concluding with 8 and 9.
If he had switched the Eroica with the 5th, then it would’ve been consecutive.
So KoussevitZky was indeed the last in consecutive order, commemorating the 100th anniversary of the composer’s death.
Ho hum. As much as I love Boston, the programming is mostly been there – done that. As much as I like the Korngold, it makes a better impact when staged. And rather than yet another Beethoven cycle, the BSO should do a festival of works written for the orchestra or at least with Boston roots – things they totally ignore. Like the Amy Beach symphony, the excellent works from George Chadwick and Howard Hanson and Walter Piston.
Wouldn’t that be marvelous?
The Beethoven cycle should be randomly played, even for the orchestra and conductor: right after lights are dimmed, right on the stage, the concertmaster picks a number out of a hat, and that’s what they play, from memory.
All numbers are thrown back into the hat for the next concert, so one could randomly pick the 1st symphony 9 times, but by God, by the ninth time, it will be the most spectacular Beethoven First you ever heard.
Why “Vienna music” rather than “Viennese music”?
“The Beethoven symphonies will be performed in order in consecutive concerts, a scheme last attempted by Serge Koussevitsky in 1927”
Anywhere in the world, or just in Boston? I’ve done it twice since 1927 (though not in Boston), and I’m pretty sure that I’m not alone…