BSO's Beethoven festival concludes with three hits and one miss

Boston Globe

27-01-2025

But though those numbers 1 through 9 may look neat when lined up, the symphonies didn't fit so into four programs. For example, Nos. 8 and 9 two were completed a decade apart. During that time, Beethoven's hearing loss intensified to the point where he was totally deaf, and he went through several periods of composing almost nothing, allegedly prompted by family troubles and chronic illnesses. Conversely, Nos. 5 and 6 were performed on different programs during the festival, despite receiving their world premieres on the same day.
Perhaps there wasn't an easy way to sort the pieces by where they actually occurred on Beethoven's timeline, rather than simply by number, but it would have added meaning had the symphonies been put in more context. The program book, with notes by Beethoven biographer Jan Swafford, pulled significant weight in that regard.
I will never truly be objective about Symphony No. 6, 'Pastoral.' It appears in some of my earliest memories, when my grandparents would put the final movement on the turntable and silence the looming grandfather clock in their living room to help me fall asleep at their house; when played well, to me it invariably sounds like what being loved and protected feels like. The BSO's 'Pastoral' on Tuesday night was achingly nostalgic, all clear water and golden light, a picture postcard of the Austrian countryside that Beethoven loved so much. The sweetness was almost oppressive, akin to a Thomas Kinkade painting, but lively accents kept it grounded enough. Principal clarinetist William Hudgins conjured waterfalls and leaping fish from his instrument, and the rustics' dance in the third movement began well-mannered before becoming satisfyingly rowdy.
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Symphony No. 7, the most sublime and ecstatic of Beethoven's symphonic scores, was substantial but strangely bland, as if someone had forgotten to add salt to it. The issue wasn't speed; there was plenty of that, especially during the third movement. Tuesday's performance also included some fine solo work, especially from principal flutist Lorna McGhee, who added the fiery edges of a Celtic dance tune to the first movement's flute solo. Still, the orchestra as a whole seemed to be on cruise control. The missing ingredient seemed to be Lust — in the German sense, with a capital L, not as a deadly sin but as an appetite for life.
Boston Symphony Orchestra music director Andris Nelsons leading the BSO in Beethoven's Symphony No. 7 on Jan. 18.
Winslow Townson
However, Friday afternoon's concert was an improvement. Symphony No. 8 was lithe and exhilarating, and Nelsons burgeoned with vitality on the podium as he drew out the piece's slapstick musical accents. In years past, when Nelsons would hang onto the podium's rail behind him, he seemed fatigued; these days, he still reaches for the rail, but in moments of high rather than low energy. At some points during the brief Symphony No. 8, it seemed to be the only thing keeping him from flying into the rafters.
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The BSO performs the Symphony No. 9 yearly at Tanglewood as the closing event of the summer in the Koussevitzky Music Shed, but the Symphony Hall performance of the same piece proved itself an entirely different experience. The acoustics of Symphony Hall allow softer and subtler nuances of the sound to come through, and the orchestra reveled in those. The introduction of the 'Ode to Joy' theme in the low strings came after a pronounced silence, and it was whisper-quiet but no less solid, which allowed it to gradually gather momentum and power as the other instruments joined in. Transitions between sections were also fluid and graceful. The moment after the finale's jangling military march section was calibrated so that when the Tanglewood Festival Chorus re-entered in joyous full cry, it all but shook the ground.
BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
At Symphony Hall, Jan. 21 and 24.
A.Z. Madonna can be reached at