BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
131st season,
2011-2012
.
But first, dinner !
The start of an enjoyable evening in Boston began with dinner at
THE
CHATEAU
(Italian Family Dining since 1933)
535 John Mahar Hwy.
Braintree, MA
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The evening continued on to Symphony Hall, Boston:
This evenings performance with the
Boston Symphony Orchestra included works by
Beethoven & Rachmaninoff
JAAP VAN ZWEDEN conducting
BEETHOVEN:
PIANO CONCERTO NO. 2 IN B-FLAT, POUS 19
Allegro con brio
Adagio
Rondo: Molto allegro
EMANUEL AX
Ludwwig van
Beethoven was baptized in Bonn, Germany, on December 17, 1770, and died in
Vienna on March 26th, 1827.
His Piano Concert No. 2 had its origins in 1790,
in Bonn and was finished in 1798
The first American performance of Beethoven's piano concerto No.2 was given by the Brooklyn Philharmonic on January 21,1865, with Theodor Eisfeld conducting. B.J. Lang gave the first Boston performance at a Harvard Musical Association concert under the direction of Carl Zerrahan on February 1, 1867. The first Boston symphony performance of Beethoven's B-Flat Piano concerto was a single performance on February 17, 1948, in New Haven, with soloist Bruce Simonds.
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RACHMANINOFF:
SYMPHONY NO. 2 IN E MINOR, OPUS 27
Largo ---- Allegro moderato
Allegro molto
Adagio
Allegro vivace
Sergei Rachmaninoff was born in Semyonovo, district of Starorusky, Russia, on April 1, 1873, and died in Beverly Hills, California, on March 28th 1943.
He composed his Symphony No. 2 between October 1906 and April 1907, completing the orchestration in January 1908. The symphony was performed for the first time on January 26, 1908, is St. Petersburg, with Rachmaninoff conduction.
Of all of Rachmaninoff's works for orchestra, the Symphony No. 2 has always been one of the most popular with audiences. This large, lengthy, and unabashedly late Romantic symphony, overflowing wit memorable tunes and an ineffable sense of bittersweet nostalgia, was written relatively quickly and easily, between late 1906 and early 1908.
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A
brief History of the BSO
Now in its 131st season, the Boston Symphony Orchestra
gave its inaugural concert in 1881, realizing the dream of founder Henry Lee
Higginson, who envisioned a great and permanent orchestra in his hometown. Today the BSO reaches millions through radio,
television, recordings, and tours. It
commissions works from today’s most important composers; it helps develop
future audiences through BOS Youth Concerts and programs involving the Boston
community; and, during the Tanglewood season, it sponsors the Tanglewood Music
Center, one of the most important training grounds for young
professional-caliber musicians. The
Boston Symphony Chamber Players, made up of BSO principals, is known
world-wide, and the Boston Pops Orchestra sets an international standard for
performances of lighter music.
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Not just great music…
On Display in symphony Hall, this season’s BSO
Archives exhibit, located throughout the orchestra and first-balcony levels of
the building, displays the breadth and depth of the Archives’ holdings, which
documents countless facets of the orchestra’s history --- music directors,
players and instrument sections, and composers, as well as the world-famous
acoustics, architectural features, and multi-faceted history of Symphony Hall.
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Some little known facts :
In 1915 the
orchestra made its first transcontinental trip, playing thirteen concerts at the Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco.
In 1929 free
Esplanade concerts were inaugurated by Arthur Fiedler, a member of the orchestra
since 1915 and who in 1930 became eighteenth conductor of the Boston Pops.
Fiedler was Pops conductor for half a century, being
followed by John Williams in 1980 and Keith Lockhart in 1995.
1936 Koussevitzky led the orchestra’s first concerts in the
Berkshires. A year later, he and the
players took up annual summer residence at Tanglewood.
The first
American-born conductor to hold the position, James Levine was the BSO’s music
director form 2004 to 2011.
James
Levine taught at Tanglewood Music
Center, and in summer of 2007 led the BSO in an acclaimed tour of European
music festivals.
Make Symphony Hall your next destination for a GREAT Boston experience !
The museum was founded in 1870 and opened in 1876, with a large portion of its collection taken from the Boston Anthenaeum Art Gallery. It was originally located in a highly ornamented brick Gothic Revival building located on Copley Square in the Back Bay neighborhood of Boston. The museum moved to its current building in 1909 on Huntington Avenue, Boston's "avenue of the Arts". 
... mummies, sculpture, ceramics, and gold from ancient Egypt. 
The ancient treasures and delicate wonders of Asian art are unrivaled in size, scope, and distinction, and the serenity of the Japanese Buddhist Temple Room provides a welcome respite for those who seek it. 
