Concert Review: Boston Symphony plays Williams, Bach, Montgomery, and Holst

By Jonathan Blumhofer

Jessie Montgomery’s Rounds is a testament to her impressive compositional chops. Let’s have more from her here, and often.

BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons conducts Holst’s “The Planets.” Photo: Aram Boghosian.

Andris Nelsons kicked off his ninth season as Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) music director Thursday night at Symphony Hall. The concert, a smattering of short pieces on the first half paired with Gustav Holst’s The Planets in the second, didn’t entirely cohere, but it brought out a good-sized crowd and showcased an orchestra that can make plenty of noise.

At times, maybe, too much of the latter: lack of dynamic contrasts in parts of The Planets gave this reading of Holst’s popular 1919 score a periodically one-dimensional quality. Yes, it calls for a Mahler-sized orchestra and six horns ought to make the floorboards shake. But the noble central theme in “Jupiter” should never sound shrill and “Mars” shouldn’t plod. Both did on Thursday.

Yet other spots were exquisite. “Mercury” danced with bracing agility, its dovetailing lines beautifully passed around the ensemble. The beguiling low woodwind writing at the beginning of “Saturn” was smartly balanced, as were the ethereal textures in the concluding “Neptune.” In the latter, too, the hypnotic off-stage choral contributions from Lorelei Ensemble were spot-on.

Would that the whole reading had been so keyed-in – in addition to the loud, lethargic “Mars,” “Venus” lacked mystery and “Uranus” swaggered a mite slowly – but the mixed-results were typical of Nelsons’ conducting of late: he can be interpretively brilliant and vexing, sometimes even in the same piece.

John Williams’ A Toast!, on the other hand, wanted nothing for crispness or good cheer. Written in 2014 in recognition of Nelsons’ appointment to the BSO, Thursday’s was the first public performance of this short curtain-raiser.

Pianist Awadagin Pratt and BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons Perform Bach. Photo: Aram Boghosian.

Also new to the BSO were J. S. Bach’s Piano Concerto in A and Jessie Montgomery’s Rounds, both of which featured Awadagin Pratt in his belated debut with the orchestra.

In the Bach, Pratt’s pearly tone provided a glowing counterbalance to the BSO strings’ lush contributions. Throughout, his articulations were pert, precise, and carefully balanced.

The orchestra, on the other hand, took some time to settle. First-movement textures were a bit thick and blurry, and the finale’s violin refrains a touch ragged (the musicians seemed to be playing with their ears rather than following Nelsons’ baton too closely). But the central Larghetto offered a welcome sense of repose.

Montgomery’s Rounds was the evening’s newest piece. Essentially a fifteen-minute-long rondo for piano and strings, it’s partly a celebration of her experiences as a chamber musician with Pratt (Montgomery’s an accomplished violinist). At the same time, the score is a distillation of the best elements of the 20th-century concerto tradition – the brashness of Prokofiev and Hindemith, the lush dissonances of Messiaen – channeled through a compelling contemporary voice.

Thursday’s performance was exhilarating. This is music of bold contrasts, motoric figures ceding way to moments of stasis and delicacy and vice versa, and Pratt, Nelsons, and the BSO were entirely simpatico. Indeed, the music’s expressive and structural clarity were at the forefront of this performance. Particularly striking was Rounds’ improvised cadenza, which somehow merged the music’s most serene thematic materials with its most bustling by way of what sounded like dissonant Rachmaninoff.

Any way you cut it, Rounds is a truly impressive score. That Montgomery can do and say so much in a piece like this – and without wasting a note – is a testament to her compositional chops. Let’s have more from her here, and often.


Jonathan Blumhofer is a composer and violist who has been active in the greater Boston area since 2004. His music has received numerous awards and been performed by various ensembles, including the American Composers Orchestra, Kiev Philharmonic, Camerata Chicago, Xanthos Ensemble, and Juventas New Music Group. Since receiving his doctorate from Boston University in 2010, Jon has taught at Clark University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and online for the University of Phoenix, in addition to writing music criticism for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.

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  1. […] Boston Concert Review: Boston Symphony plays Williams, Bach, Montgomery, and Holst Andris Nelsons kicked off his ninth season as Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) music director Thursday night at Symphony Hall. artfuse.org […]

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