Kevin Wells

2 weeks ago | bachtrack.com | Kevin Wells

Reinhard Keiser’s 1705 Octavia (or to give it its full title, The Roman Rebellion or the Noble-Minded Octavia) is the fifth Hamburg opera to open the biennial Boston Early Music Festival since 2003. So the peculiarities of the Gänsemarkt Theater operas – many dictated by the fact that it was the first public opera house in Germany – should by now be familiar to frequent festival-goers.

Mar 11, 2025 | bachtrack.com | Kevin Wells

Eun Sun Kim, Music Director of San Francisco Opera, made her Boston Symphony debut in scintillating fashion with late works by three composers – Lyadov, Bartók and Rachmaninov – spanning the first four decades of the 20th century. In the case of the latter two, the compositions were their last or next-to-last, and not among their most popular until fairly recently. Stravinsky once referred to Lyadov as a “pianissimo composer”.

Feb 17, 2025 | bachtrack.com | Kevin Wells

After last month’s Beethoven Festival, this week’s Boston Symphony program featured two composers who felt the shadow of his symphonies as a burden. Schubert never lived long enough to completely answer the question he reportedly asked himself in his teens, “Who can do anything after Beethoven?” Brahms was 43 years old before he finally formulated an answer and finished his First Symphony. This program also marked the return of Herbert Blomstedt to Symphony Hall.

Jan 27, 2025 | bachtrack.com | Kevin Wells

Beethoven has been central to the Boston Symphony’s identity. His name looms large over the center of the proscenium. The orchestra’s first home boasted his life-size statue center stage. Its first conductor, George Henschel, programmed all nine symphonies in each of the orchestra’s first three seasons. A steady succession of German conductors continued to cement that identification through the first 37 years.

Jan 13, 2025 | bachtrack.com | Kevin Wells

It is rare for Beethoven’s Third Symphony to end up overshadowed by any other work programmed with it, let alone the composer’s own first two symphonies, but such was the case Saturday night at Symphony Hall. The First and Second Symphonies, often treated like a throat clearing before the creative outburst of the Eroica, took up the first half and made such an impression that each movement garnered applause. Nelsons raised his baton and the Boston Symphony snapped to attention.