Andris Nelsons and John Williams conduct Beethoven, John Williams and Bartók featuring Anne-Sophie Mutter, violin
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Symphony Hall, Boston, MA
Led by both Music Director Andris Nelsons and Boston Pops Conductor Laureate John Williams, the BSO presents a special pair of concerts to welcome back live audiences to Symphony Hall after a nearly 20-month absence. Opening the concert, Mr. Nelsons leads Beethoven’s Consecration of the House Overture, the first work ever performed by the BSO in 1881. Mr. Williams then takes the podium for the first Boston performances of his own Violin Concerto No. 2, written for superstar violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter, which she premiered at Tanglewood in 2021. Completing the program is Bartók’s uniquely dramatic Concerto for Orchestra, one of the BSO’s most famous commissions, originally premiered by Serge Koussevitzky in 1944.
Performance Details
Sep 30, 2021, 8:00pm EDT
Program Notes & Works
Overture, The Consecration of the House
The first piece ever performed by the BSO in October 1881, the Consecration of the House Overture is one of only three orchestral works Beethoven composed in his final decade.
Violin Concerto No. 2
John Williams wrote his Violin Concerto No. 2 for violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter.
Concerto for Orchestra
So well loved is Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra in all parts of the world that it is hard now to imagine the hostility that greeted his music in the period between the wars, and the horror his music inspired both in concert audiences and in critics who should have known better.