The Boston Symphony Orchestra Bewitch Audiences

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Wednesday, 16 March 2022 13:59

Written by Jack Angstreich

Andris Nelsons (R) and Leonidas Kavakos (L) Photo by Chris Lee.

At Carnegie Hall, on the evening of Monday, March 14th, I had the pleasure of seeing a concert presented by the superb Boston Symphony Orchestra, under the stellar direction of the terrific Andris Nelsons, the first of two events on successive nights, the second being a performance of Alban Berg’s classic opera, Wozzeck.

The program opened compellingly with a haunting account of Charles Ives’s uncanny, modernistic The Unanswered Question, here led by assistant conductor Earl Lee in the original arrangement for chamber ensemble and with some of the musicians offstage. The outstanding virtuoso Leonidas Kavakos then took the stage to perform the New York premiere of the contemporary Korean composer Unsuk Chin’s Violin Concerto No. 2, Scherben der Stille, which was co-commissioned by this orchestra, along with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and  was written for the soloist. The piece conjures a very unusual sonic atmosphere—one can perceive the influence of György Ligeti, with whom the composer studied—and has power; while seemingly somewhat amorphous, it at times acquires a somewhat dramatic character and ends climactically. Chin joined the musicians onstage to receive the audience’s applause.

The highlight of the evening, however, was the second half of the concert, which consisted of a thrilling version of Hector Berlioz’s extraordinary, stunning Symphony fantastique. Berlioz, more than any other composer—even Carl Maria von Weber, who appears to be more of a transitional figure—is the fountainhead of musical Romanticism and this work, more than any other, announces and inaugurates that revolution. The opening Allegro, “Reveries, Passions,” is largely turbulent, after a suspenseful, introductory Largo section, but concludes serenely, while the second movement, “A Ball,” is a marvelous waltz with exuberant passages. The Adagio that follows, “Scene in the Country,” is evocatively bucolic for most of its length but not without darker, indeed portentous, moments, harbingers of the ensuing, enthralling, if utterly fatalistic, “March to the Scaffold” movement. Even more ominous is the Larghetto introduction to the finale, “Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath,” which transforms into an astounding, breathless Allegro. The artists earned an exceedingly enthusiastic ovation.

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