Alan Gilbert conducts Bernard Rands, Debussy and Beethoven featuring Joshua Bell, violin
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Symphony Hall, Boston, MA
Superstar violinist Joshua Bell joins conductor Alan Gilbert for Beethoven’s expansive Violin Concerto, one of the most popular violin concertos of all time. Composed almost simultaneously with his opera Leonore, the concerto features some of the composer’s warmest and most lyrical music. Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Bernard Rands’s music has been championed by the BSO over the course of his career; the orchestra most recently premiered his Concerto for Piano with soloist Jonathan Biss in 2014. The premiere of his Symphonic Fantasy was originally scheduled for summer 2020. Completing the program is Claude Debussy’s picturesque, symphony-like masterpiece La Mer, in which the composer paints a musical picture of the sea’s many moods and colors. The BSO gave the American premiere of La Mer in 1907.
Featuring
Program Notes & Works
Symphonic Fantasy
Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Bernard Rands wrote his Symphonic Fantasy in One Movement as a response to Jean Sibelius’ one-movement Symphony No. 7. The BSO and BBC Radio 3 (for the BBC Symphony Orchestra) co-commissioned the work in celebration of his 85th birthday year.
La Mer
Part symphony and part tone poem, Debussy’s innovative La Mer is one of the most influential pieces of the 20th century and has been as an audience favorite for more than a hundred years. La Mer was premiered in 1905 and the BSO gave the American premiere in March 1907.
Violin Concerto
Ludwig van Beethoven wrote his lyrical Violin Concerto in 1806 for the outstanding violinist Franz Clement, one of several major pieces he completed in quick succession during that period. It did not become a repertoire staple until an 1844 performance led by Felix Mendelssohn in London.
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