In Friday’s (1/6) Boston Globe, David Weininger writes about the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s January 12 world premiere of John Harbison’s Symphony No. 6, which Weininger describes as “the brainchild” of James Levine, the BSO’s former music director. “Harbison was in the midst of writing the Sixth Symphony when Levine stepped down from the BSO. The composer’s approach to the new work began to evolve. … The piece is not, strictly speaking, a portrait of Levine. Rather, Harbison explains, ‘it was a piece that began initially as something he was going to conduct, and then it kind of transformed itself into something in which I felt like I was tracking something about his situation, or something about how difficult it was for him to be separated from what he has to do.’ Conducting the first performances of the Sixth next week will be David Zinman, who is not only a veteran conductor and frequent BSO guest but also another strong supporter of Harbison’s music … In a way, the symphony was marked by absence from the start. Harbison began with a sketch that contained his basic harmonic and motivic ideas. But early on in the process he misplaced the sketch. … Weeks later, he found the sketch: It had fallen into his piano.”
Posted January 6, 2012
