The Boston Symphony Orchestra closed their fall season with Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition,” Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini,” and Elena Langer’s suite from “Figaro Gets a Divorce” on Nov. 25–26. As their last concert will take place over the holidays, here is a retrospective look over the end of their 2022 season.
Works written in the 20th century constituted 12 of the 25 pieces performed across eight programs, making it the most represented musical era. At six works performed, contemporary classical music came in second, and the classical era (1750–1830) trailed closely behind with four. Twenty composers were represented, with only works by Mozart, Bernstein and Shostakovich being played more than once. Of the 20 composers, 15 were men and five were women, with the women being all living contemporary classical composers. Of the men, only John Williams is living.
A holistic look at the BSO’s season produces the same message of their opening concert: They are progressive in their efforts to push the classical canon forward, but still refuse to go beyond that canon. Deceased composers overwhelmingly populate BSO concerts, but they are deceased people from the not-so-distant 20th century. The likes of Bach, Mozart, Haydn and Beethoven no longer hold a monopolistic grasp. The argument the BSO makes is for the current expanded canon to be 20th century works, with only the most vetted masterworks of previous eras being sparsely included. The inclusion of contemporary works, then, is a trial for their entry into the canon, with the successes hopefully enjoying continued performances by other orchestras, and the failures discarded. The model that emerges is to center performances on works of the previous century while starting to build the canon for the next century. While still a fundamentally conservative and historicist presentation, this approach ideally prevents the stagnation of classical music by having a forward-looking, linear attitude.
In this author’s opinion, the BSO’s Oct. 27–30 performances of Beethoven’s “Piano Concerto No. 5” and Shostakovich’s “Symphony No. 5” were by far their greatest, no doubt aided by the peerless Mitsuko Uchida on piano. In addition to flawless execution, the BSO delivered a rousing emotional interpretation that could compete among the best recordings. Conversely, their singularly uninspired rendition of Mozart’s “Symphony No. 40” proved their worst performance of the season.
Among the contemporary works, Jessie Montgomery’s “Rounds” and Elizabeth Ogonek’s “Starling Variations” stood out from a composition perspective. While Ogonek’s “Starling Variations” had great success in its attempted musical imagery and was among this author’s favorite pieces — in all fairness, Montgomery’s “Rounds” is likely the greater work. While both works hopefully have continued performances, “Starling Variations” was more of a successful musical experiment, and “Rounds,” as a more complete work, is more suited for the canon.
The BSO is now on a brief hiatus during December for the Pops’ season, but will return in January with Tchaikovsky, Beethoven and an American premiere written by Ella Milch-Sheriff, another contemporary female composer.
