Thomas Adès conducts the Boston Symphony Orchestra in his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, March 7, 2019, at Symphony Hall, with soloist Kirill Gerstein. Winslow Townson photograph
2019 Performances
Re-examining a year’s worth of reviews, without the freshness of performance, reads like “exaggerated responses to great musicians.” Face it: almost every performance is exhaustively rehearsed, diligently thought-out, and executed with gusto. We’re in the excellence business. These musicians don’t even get to the stage without being superlative.
So hats off to every musician who spent hours rehearsing, and then realizing confident performances. Who weathered crisis after crisis of “Is it ready?” Who took the stage with knots in their stomachs, hoping that muscle memory wouldn’t vanish. For all the mistakes you might grimly remember, you’ve communicated successfully—and artistically—many more times.
This list of appreciations is determined by location—New England, with lots of Tanglewood, and some farther afield. I miss out on far more than I actually hear—something I can count as a blessing and a curse.
Of particular note from 2019: Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony—especially the first two movements—paired with Tan Dun’s “Secret of Wind and Birds,” in a startlingly robust performance to open the Cape Symphony Orchestra season in September. And while we’re recognizing regional orchestras, a performance of Swedish composer Andrea Tarrodi’s cello concerto “Highlands,” by the New Bedford Symphony Orchestra last January.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra programs that featured Shostakovich symphonies—part of the ongoing, multiple Grammy-winning recording project—always had extra energy, both from conductor Andris Nelsons and from his orchestra. The Fifteenth, in April—on a program with pianist Daniil Trifonov playing the Rachmaninov third concerto. The Twelfth, and Second, in November programs. And as an added Shostakovich bonus, the first piano concerto, with Yuja Wang and trumpeter Thomas Rolfs as soloists, in October.
BSO artistic partner Thomas Adès enhanced musical life in Boston and at Tanglewood this year. His “Concerto for piano and orchestra,” with soloist/soul mate Kirill Gerstein, was a March highlight. His autobiographical curation of this year’s Festival of Contemporary Music offered as many insights into his compositional mind as any one of his scores.
The opening of the Tanglewood Learning Institute added luster to that traditional summer idyll. The TLI’s events surrounding the performances of Wagner’s “Die Walküre,” and the fascinating performances themselves (Nelsons conducting the Tanglewood Music Center orchestra, with eminent soloists like Goerke, Amber Wagner, Rutherford, Blythe and Selig), were unforgettable assignments.
The Boston Lyric Opera’s stagings of Poul Ruders’ “The Handmaid’s Tale” had lots to like (the music, the singers) and hate (the venue: Harvard’s basketball court). A BLO run of Gregory Spears’s “Fellow Travelers” in November was a more uniform success.
Also noted: Violinist Philippe Graffin’s performance at the Rockport Chamber Music Festival of an Ysayë sonata that he re-discovered, in June. Summer performances in Vail by the Philadelphia Orchestra (“Tosca”) and the New York Philharmonic (especially with violinist Augustin Hadelich, setting Britten’s concerto afire) were memorable. The week-long Gewandhaus Orchester exchange with the BSO in late October—symphonic oddities, chamber music, pop-up concerts, general camaraderie—breathed life into the largely elusive notion that Boston is an an international city.
Reviewing can be the most fun, but previews made up more than half of the year’s assignments. Previewing events serves a broader purpose, and offers more challenges. Attempting to get the artists themselves to bring their work closer to the public, in their own words, mostly fails.
But of the dozens of interviews conducted during 2019, conversations with poet/artist Nadine Boughton, the cerebral pianist Wu Han, Curtis Stewart from PUBLIQuartet, and composer Eric Nathan stood out for their enthusiasm to explore how their work—created largely in solitude—intersects with their audience.
Sarah Shafer, who sings Princess Lyra in Poul Ruders’s “The Thirteenth Child,” on the cover of the Bridge Records disc. Andrew Bogard photograph
2019 Recordings
It was also a year with too many recordings, and too little time spent appreciating them.
The releases from BMOPsound, the perennially active extension of Gil Rose and his Boston Modern Orchestra Project, are a historic delight. Releasing a new disc every couple of months, BMOPsound added composer profiles for Michael Colgrass, Tobias Picker, Keeril Makan, David Sanford, Steven Mackey and William Schuman in 2019. Last year’s compendium for Lei Liang no doubt had some positive effect on his winning the Grawemeyer Award.
Reviewing BMOPsound discs would add nothing to the existing insights you’ll find in the program booklets themselves. Visit bmop.sound/audio-recordings to see how extensive and accessible these notes can be. Careful listening and consideration from writers like Robert Kirzinger, Frank Oteri, Alex Ambrose, with specialists like Steve Swain and Joel Fan, add immensely to understanding new compositions.
More than 60 composer compilations have already been issued, beautifully priced (mostly less than $20). In an era where recordings have less mass appeal than ever, they still hold great meaning for performers and composers (especially composers).
Gil Rose and his BMOP colleagues are not the only musician/entrepreneurs in the recording field. The Starobins, whose Bridge Records (bridgerecords.com) are equally dedicated, have more than 500 works in catalog. This year’s releases of the music of Poul Ruders—his opera, “The Thirteenth Child,” which premiered during Santa Fe Opera’s summer season; and volume 15(!) of the Ruders Edition—are beautiful additions. Discs from Quattro Mani (duo piano music of Stefan Wolpe) and Harry Partch’s “Sonata Dementia” added some crazy to this year’s listening.
Two Blue Heron (blueheron.org) releases—breathtaking madrigals of Cipriano de Rore, and the first volume of the complete songs of Ockeghem—continue the focused work of Scott Metcalfe’s ensemble. The Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra’s “American Rapture” (azica.com), including Jennifer Hidgon’s harp concerto, stayed on repeat for a shockingly long time.
So did BSO cellist Blaise Déjardin’s “Mozart: New Cello Duos” (with Parker Quartet’s Kee-Hyun Kim; opuscello.com), and “Concurrence” from the Iceland Symphony Orchestra (sonoluminus.com). Lucas Debargue’s Scarlatti Sonatas (sonyclassical.com), and the Escher Quartet/Jason Vieaux collaboration, “Dance” (azica.com), filled the listening room beautifully as well.