Crystal Pite’s The Seasons' Canon, a sinuous roller-coaster of human forms, at the Opera House in Boston Ballet’s season-opening program Oct. 24. Rosalie O'Connor photograph
I loved Hannah Kendall’s O flower of fire at the BSO the last week of October, a commission originating with the London Symphony Orchestra. Antonio Pappano conducted both the premiere in 2023 and last month’s BSO subscription concerts. Kendall has had two previous concert openers with the BSO in recent seasons.
In ambition, Kendall’s piece is more than an overture and less than a tone poem. Most interestingly, she alters pitches and instruments for both symbolic and sonic effect. Harmonicas invoke the sound of the African diaspora; hair clips and picks are used on the harps, recalling the passengers of those travels. Creolization of the work, Kendall calls it, which in her specific case means music blended with her Guyanese and Wembley (north London) influences.
It worked. The bold piece—beautifully orchestrated, lush writing for the brass and winds—did more than offer symbolic social comment. With the prepared instruments and techniques (lots of mouthpiece playing, music boxes) contributing to an old-timey sound, O flower of fire achieved a unique orchestral blend—slightly off-center, but expansive and creative throughout the sections.
Harpists using hair picks in Hannah Kendall’s O flower of fire, a BSO performance Oct. 24. Winslow Townson photograph
Thanks also to Boston Ballet for having me last month, for a quartet of works including Crystal Pite’s amorphous The Seasons’ Canon, with Max Richter’s inventive electronics synthesizing Vivaldi’s familiar music.
One other late note: the Boston Symphony Chamber Players feel revitalized this season, with two new principals and new-found stability after several seasons of retirement, injury and transition. A program Oct. 27 in Jordan Hall was a stylish representation of what the Chamber Players can be—an introspective investigator into treasures in the corner of the repertory. The audience who heard the three late Poulenc sonatas (for flute, oboe and clarinet, with Lorna McGhee, John Ferrillo and Wiliam R. Hudgins respectively, accompanied by Jean-Yves Thibaudet) will likely concur.
This week: the BSO brings Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki in for Mozart 20, and the chamber players have another intriguing program with Britten, Puts, Copland and a world premiere from Kevin Siegfried (Shaker songs). Pianist Randall Hodgkinson and sopranos Corrine Byrne and Sophie Michaux join.
Sorry to miss: repeat performances of the John Musto/Mark Campbell Later the Same Evening at NEC; the Seeger/Ives festival (composer/artist Raven Chacon has been in town) at NEC as well; Cappella Clausura’s programs this weekend; Marc-André Hamelin with Concord Chamber Music Society.