“Many performing arts organizations in New York City had opted to go dark on election night, citing low ticket sales in the past,” writes Zoë Madonna in Wednesday’s (11/9) Boston Globe. “The Boston Symphony Orchestra launched a two-week Brahms marathon, which will feature both Brahms piano concertos with Hélène Grimaud and all four Brahms symphonies, complemented by two world premieres.… The first half kicked off with the cinematic fanfare that began the world premiere of Eric Nathan’s ‘the space of a door.’ Nathan’s music is often inspired by place, and this work was inspired by the Providence Athenaeum library as much as it was by Brahms’s Symphony No. 2, with which he requested it be programmed. The short piece shimmered in sweeping gestures.” The November 8 concert closed with Brahms’s First Symphony, led by BSO Music Director Andris Nelsons. “It sang of Brahms’s victory over the ghosts of his past, and ours, just for the space of a few breaths, over the uncertainty that encroached on us. In that moment, it mattered not what kind of world awaited us outside the space we chose to share that night, for it was clear that as long as we are together—in joy or grief, ease or hardship—there are some lights that will never go out.”
Posted November 10, 2016
