Music in the Shadow of War
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Symphony Hall, Boston, MA
Eun Sun Kim, conductor
Inon Barnatan, piano
LIADOV The Enchanted Lake
BARTÓK Piano Concerto No. 3
-Intermission-
RACHMANINOFF Symphony No. 3
South Korean conductor Eun Sun Kim makes her BSO debut with a trio of pieces exploring innovation within tradition. Star pianist Inon Barnatan returns to Symphony Hall to take on one of Bartók’s final works, the Third Piano Concerto, a love letter to his wife and his home country. While living in poverty in New York having fled the onslaught of the Nazis into Hungary, Bartók’s creativity had stalled out, and his body was failing from a long illness. The concerto — not quite finished when he passed — is a more gentle and accessibly poetic work than his previous concertos, a summation of where Bartók’s style left him at the end of his life.
Thursday evening’s concert is generously supported by Ann and Michael Strem.
Saturday evening’s concert is generously supported by Ronald G. Casty and Susan Mendik.
Performance Details
Mar 8, 2025, 8:00pm EST
Featuring
Program Notes & Works
The Enchanted Lake
Anatoly Liadov's The Enchanted Lake, subtitled “Fairy Tale Scene,” evokes a mysterious, dreamlike world.
Piano Concerto No. 3
Béla Bartók wrote the Piano Concerto No. 3, one of his sunniest, most lyrical works, for his wife Ditta in hopes that her performances of the piece would provide a measure of financial stability after his death.
Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Opus 44
The refined and compact musical ideas in Rachmaninoff's Third Symphony result in an energetic and relatively transparent piece that still leaves room for passages of soaring and impassioned beauty.
