Boston Don

In this installment in 'an ongoing Shostakovich survey that has rightly won him three Grammy Awards' (New York Times), Andris Nelsons and the Boston Symphony Orchestra bookend the composer's brilliant, often turbulent symphonic career. Nearly half a century lies between Shostakovich's triumphant debut with the 'First', premiered before his 20th birthday, and the 'Fifteenth', an inventory of influences written under the shadow of his own mortality. Penned just two years earlier, the 'Fourteenth' is a symphonic song cycle, and the Chamber Symphony is a skillful adaptation of that tragic masterpiece, the Eighth String Quartet.

Boston Modern Orchestra Project and Gil Rose present the world premiere recording of The Lord of Cries, a breathtaking opera by John Corigliano and Mark Adamo. Telling the story of Euripides’s The Bacchae with the characters of Bram Stoker’s Dracula, the piece explores the power of sexual desire and humans’ need to blame and attack others for what they can neither resist nor accept in themselves. Corigliano returns to opera for the first time since his The Ghosts of Versailles, introduced by the Metropolitan Opera, made an international sensation in 1992. The brilliant cast—most of whom introduced their parts in the world premiere in 2021—is led by star countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo in the title role.

After rushing their second album Don't Look Back, Boston took eight years to complete the album Third Stage. The long delay is even more surprising considering that their sound didn't change at all; even though only songwriter/guitarist Tom Scholz and vocalist Brad Delp remained from the original lineup, they were the ones responsible for Boston's sound…

Tom [ Scherman, of the Little Orchestra Society ] came to me and said, “Hey Kubik, I’m being pestered all the time by the pianist in my orchestra, Frank Glazer, for a solo appearance, and by Bob Nagel, my trumpet player, and the principal violist [ Theodore Israel ] .” And so Tom, figuring to kill three birds with one stone said, “Can’t you write me a piece for piano, viola, trumpet, and orchestra, and I’ll have my three players do the solo parts and they’ll get off of my back?” I said, “Sure.” And since it came within a month or so after I’d finished recording the score to the film C-Man, which had exactly those three solo instruments, I just re-wrote it as the Symphony Concertante. Don’t do that thinking that you’re going to save time. It’s twice as hard, it’s ten times as hard, than to just write a new piece.

Seiji Ozawa conducts the most sensitive and emotional performance of Ravel I have ever experienced. I bought the record 30 years ago and nearly cried hearing it on CD all these years later. If you have not heard this, you have never heard Ravel.