Boston Symphony Orchestra musicians and conductor Ken-David Masur rehearse in Symphony Hall for the orchestra’s new “Music in Changing Times” digital concerts. Photo by Aram Boghosian
“After losing its spring season, its summer season, and now the entirety of its 2020-21 season, the BSO is taking emergency measures to stay connected with its subscribers, with plans to record a total of 15 performances this season and release them,” writes Jeremy Eichler in Friday’s (11/20) Boston Globe. The first video in the series, “entitled ‘Music in Changing Times,’ … recently posted on the BSO’s website … begins with ‘The Unanswered Question’ by Charles Ives [which] feels almost made to order for this surreal moment…. Ken-David Masur … leads a poised, poetic performance…. Dvořák’s ‘New World’ Symphony … is here given a robust, purposeful account…. Violinists Xin Ding and Catherine French, violist Daniel Getz, and cellist Mickey Katzall offer up a vibrant, compelling account of Florence Price’s two-movement Quartet in G from 1929.… This work by a pioneering Black composer sounds a bit like Dvořák’s own chamber music.… The works on this initial program are interspersed with … an informative introduction to the life of Price and a brief history of the BSO…. This of course comes at a time when classical music institutions are increasingly called upon to … begin grappling … with their own contributions to broader legacies of exclusion.”
