Last month, I posted my comments on a performance by the Boston Symphony Orchestra of Strauss's Elektra that I had recently attended at Carnegie Hall. I had been incredibly impressed by the conducting of Andris Nelsons who is now in his second season as the orchestra's music director. On the following evening, I heard a broadcast on WQXR of the same orchestra and conductor performing an all-Russian program that consisted of Prokofiev's Alexander Nevsky cantata and Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances, two masterpieces of twentieth century music. That broadcast can currently be heard on the radio station's website. A link is provided below.
The following week I attended a performance given by the London Symphony Orchestra led by Valery Gergiev at Geffen Hall. I later posted my comments on that concert as well. It was an all-Bartok program and featured the great pianist Yefim Bronfman in a stunning performance of the composer's Second Concerto. Coincidentally, I had heard the evening before on WQXR a broadcast from NJPAC of the same ensemble, this time performing a program that included both Bartok's Third Concerto and the Miraculous Mandarin Suite, the work I've always considered the composer's masterpiece. In addition, the second half of the program featured one of the best renditions I've heard of Stravinsky's complete ballet music for The Firebird. That archived broadcast can also be accessed on the station's website via the link below.
I don't know how long either broadcast will be available, but they're both certainly well worth hearing if one has the time.
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