Let’s Call This …

The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) just finished a series of performances featuring BSO Conductor Emeritus Bernard Haitink, with music from Claude Debussy, Jacques Ibert, and Johannes Brahms. Flutist Sir James Galway performed Ibert’s Flute Concerto No. 1, an interesting piece featuring an instrument that for me has a pretty limited role in the orchestra and a limited dynamic range. While I was glad to hear a new piece highlighting the flute as the solo instrument, I was not particularly excited by the piece, admittedly. I am sure that others, especially fellow flute players, can appreciate the virtuosity in the performance, though the audience reception was surprisingly tepid. About half the audience rose in ovation at the conclusion of the piece, and while there were no audible appeals for the encore, one was performed anyway — the first encore I’ve ever witnessed at Symphony Hall in a year. Regardless, Galway’s distinguished and long career and his 70th birthday were no doubt causes for celebration.

I didn’t like the Debussy Nocturnes for Orchestra. I associate him with Clair de Lune and have not as yet explored his work as a serious composer, though this was a disappointing introduction. I liken the nocturne or other symphonic songs and tone poems as somewhat free form, unstructured compositions. They’re a half-step sharper than modern art whose only rules often seem to be that there are none. But within the relatively few rules of the forms of symphony, sonata, or concerto, to name a few, such richness can be explored. I admit fully that this statement makes me wary, as I am not claiming something regal about the currently existing forms, and I do not at all exclude the possibility of there being a modern piece that I find intriguing; however I have yet to hear one. I also have had limited exploration in songs/tone poems, so perhaps I just haven’t come across enough yet.

I sat through these pieces as an entrance fee to Brahms’ Symphony No. 1 in C Minor, Op. 68. Often it is noted that the use of C minor was homage to the great symphonist Ludwig van Beethoven. I talk a lot about the Beethoven egg that amusingly adorns the Symphony Hall stage, but again I couldn’t help but think that the performance of large scale symphonic works marked the grandest of the BSO repertoire. Their ability to move from the softest of single pizzicato notes to the full forte of the percussion-weighted orchestra conveys a passion and expressiveness that only music can bring to me. I’ve enjoyed few pieces by the BSO more than this, and it reminds me that no electronically reproduced music will ever fully capture the experience of listening to a live group.