Beethoven cycle with the Boston Symphony
The orchestra responded with complete commitment playing with fire and precision throughout the evening and with some of the most arresting soft playing ever heard.
“Nelsons raised his baton and the Boston Symphony snapped to attention. The Adagio introduction to the opening of the First with its harmonic head-fake unfolded like the cadence of some other unheard, dreamy movement, registering more like an end than a beginning until the Allegro con brio crept in then bolted. Nelsons set out the through lines of the evening: exuberance, urgency, brisk yet elastic tempi, rhythmic drive, contrapuntal clarity, foregrounding the call and response between sections, crescendos and diminuendos across a wide dynamic range (Nelsons often subsiding into a crouch, then uncoiling) and the inclusion of repeats. The orchestra responded with complete commitment playing with fire and precision throughout the evening and with some of the most arresting soft playing ever heard.”
“Nelsons’ attention to the score’s finer details resulted in a stirring reading, especially over the Andante.”
Boston Classical Review