Buon Compleanno, Luigi Boccherini
Evening Music | May 6, 2010
Luigi Boccherini is this evening Birthday Boy (1743), so we’ll say “Buon compleanno” and listen to two of his works, a short one very soon, and a longer one later.
The Swingle Singers—remember them?—sing Bach’s “Sleepers Awake” (and we hope you stay that way) before we listen to Europa Galante’s performance of the Minuetto from Boccherini’s String Quintet in E, Op. 11. Ned Rorem’s “Six Variation for Two Pianos” receives a robust rendering from the Clinton-Narboni Duo. As we continue to focus on American composers during our American Music Festival, we listen to the Piano Quintet in F-sharp Minor by one of our great women composers, Amy Beach. The performers are pianist Mary-Louise Boehm, violinists Kees Kooper and Alvin Rogers, violist Richard Maximoff, and cellist Fred Sherry.
Hour two’s major offering is the “Symphonic Ode” by Aaron Copland, a work from 1928-29, scored for a Mahlerian-sized orchestra. Koussevitsky conducted the Boston Symphony premiere in 1932, and it hardly ever saw the light of day again till Copland reworked it for leaner forces in 1955. It is that version that we hear this evening, with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the San Francisco Orchestra. As we head toward the back end of the hour, we return to Boccherini. Adrian Shepherd conducts the Symphony No. 3 in D Minor.
The Swingle Singers—remember them?—sing Bach’s “Sleepers Awake” (and we hope you stay that way) before we listen to Europa Galante’s performance of the Minuetto from Boccherini’s String Quintet in E, Op. 11. Ned Rorem’s “Six Variation for Two Pianos” receives a robust rendering from the Clinton-Narboni Duo. As we continue to focus on American composers during our American Music Festival, we listen to the Piano Quintet in F-sharp Minor by one of our great women composers, Amy Beach. The performers are pianist Mary-Louise Boehm, violinists Kees Kooper and Alvin Rogers, violist Richard Maximoff, and cellist Fred Sherry.
Hour two’s major offering is the “Symphonic Ode” by Aaron Copland, a work from 1928-29, scored for a Mahlerian-sized orchestra. Koussevitsky conducted the Boston Symphony premiere in 1932, and it hardly ever saw the light of day again till Copland reworked it for leaner forces in 1955. It is that version that we hear this evening, with Michael Tilson Thomas conducting the San Francisco Orchestra. As we head toward the back end of the hour, we return to Boccherini. Adrian Shepherd conducts the Symphony No. 3 in D Minor.
