2021-2022 SEason News & Reviews
The Boston Musical Intelligencer: Western Civ Flourishes with Zander-Mahler
"Friday’s traversal by the Boston Philharmonic, lovingly prepared and superbly conducted by our own venerable Benjamin Zander, rose to something more than merely fabulous; it was superb in execution, expression, and faithfulness to Mahler’s specifically detailed intention...Benjamin Zander communicated it with perfect clarity; he brought all of it off, and he brought it home not only intact but glowing." -Mark DeVoto
Boston Classical Review: Despite distractions, Zander, Boston Phil wrap season with triumphant Mahler Third
"The BPO played with a rich, spacious tone in the devotional opening bars, growing in zeal and warmth as it continued. By the time the final peroration arrived, the ensemble and Zander were simply playing as extensions of one another: this was a Mahler performance of conspicuous emotional unanimity and musical intentionality." -Jonathan Blumhofer
Choristers of St. Paul's Choir School head to Symphony Hall April 8
Cambridge Day: Mahler to be heard Friday at Symphony Hall: Conducted by Zander, aided by St. Paul's Choir or read it on the Cambridge Day website
WBUR Radio Boston: Last concert of the season. Interview with Benjamin Zander Or read it on WBUR Radio Boston.org
Boston Musical Intelligencer: A Symphony Must Be Like The World
"Ben Zander’s lecture guide to Mahler’s Third Symphony is not only admirably thorough but also engaging in every one of its 76 minutes. My short first-person account will serve to point to that extended pre-concert guide to the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra’s concert at Symphony Hall on April 8th at 8:00." -Mark DeVoto. The Boston Musical Intelligencer
WBZ New England Weekend: Audio Interview with Benjamin Zander about the Boston Philharmonic's upcoming Mahler Symphony No. 3 concert
Boston Classical Review: Zander, Boston Philharmonic bring fresh vitality, insight to Beethoven's "Eroica"
"Zander has always had a singular way with Beethoven’s music. In his hands, its tempos tend to move flexibly, rhythms snap, and textures unfold transparently. ...this approach often helps revitalize Beethoven’s well-known themes and motives...it usually presents them in new-sounding contexts that shine lights on hidden aspects of form, structure, and phrasing. Sunday’s vigorously coherent rendition of the Third was largely in that tradition. Tempos drove from the first movement’s slashing downbeat yet everything was firmly controlled. The triadic main subject never lost its dancing impetus, while the music’s play of colors—especially the busy woodwind writing in the exposition and the sonorous horn scoring in the coda—shimmered.... Zander drew playing of real spirit from the BPO in the boisterous Scherzo, while the finale drove with swaggering character. The latter’s contrapuntal episodes, taken just this side of frenetic, revealed a turbulence that doesn’t always register in the movement. And the penultimate Adagio variation, unfolding resplendently, served as a majestic lead-in to the blistering, closing Presto." -Jonathan Blumhofer
"If the “Eroica” ended in a blaze of unconditional triumph, the BPO’s account of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 was, fittingly, more ambivalent...Ioniță effectively conveyed the music’s underlying sense of unsettledness... BPO provided an accompaniment that discreetly illuminated the music’s motivic organization. In particular, the woodwind and horn sections fired their interjections with immediacy and Zander’s direction of the Moderato’s hymn-like sequences glowed." -Jonathan Blumhofer
The Boston Globe Review: Zander and Boston Philharmonic take on Shostakovich and Beethoven
"Zander led the orchestra in an compellingly vigorous performance of Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony. For years the conductor has attempted to puzzle out Beethoven’s metronome markings, which are so notoriously perplexing that many interpreters don’t even bother. For this performance, Zander took a more flexible approach...The push and pull ultimately suited this music’s own combination of dignity and revolution. The outer movements and the scherzo zipped along, at times with crackling intensity, without ever tipping over into breathlessness, while the storied “Marcia funebre” benefited from a genuinely march-like rhythmic clarity. Zander of course is also known as a tireless champion of Mahler’s music, and listening to this slow movement, one couldn’t help but think of the conclusion of the latter’s Ninth Symphony...the music haunts us by gradually resigning itself to a silence that represents its own ending, and the idea of ours."-Jeremy Eichler
Boston Musical Intelligencer: Power, Wit, and Maybe Revelation
"Zander managed both power and wit... Sunday’s performance was headlong, with a sly opening take on the bass line and intense fugue sections... If the reading wasn’t a revolution, it was in many ways a revelation." -Jeffrey Gantz Read it on Boston Musical Intelligencer
WBUR Winter Classical Music Guide: Whether in-person or live streamed, catch these classical music performances this winter
"The online journal The Arts Fuse called Benjamin Zander’s Boston Philharmonic Bruckner Symphony No. 8 the classical Performance of the Year. I watched it, rapt, on my computer. I wouldn’t argue with that choice, though the BPO’s Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 2, with the astounding Stefan Jackiw, made me thoroughly reevaluate a piece that never got to me before. Zander’s heavenly Mahler Fourth (it literally ends up in Heaven), with the impressive Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra and Russian soprano Sofia Fomina, which I attended in person, is another contender for that “best of” accolade. During the pandemic, Zander had all the players learn how to conduct this score, and every single one of them seemed to be aware of what everyone else was playing — quite rare among orchestral performances.
Zander’s winter BPO program includes Mussorgsky’s gorgeous Prelude to “Khovanshchina,” Shostakovich’s First Cello Concerto, with the young Romanian cellist Andrei Ioniță (new to me) and Beethoven’s heroic Symphony No. 3 (Feb. 6). The BPYO concert (Feb. 27) will begin with Ravel’s “La Valse,” then move on to the Elgar Cello Concerto, with the American cellist Zlatomir Fung (also new to me), and Shostakovich’s popular Symphony No. 5." -Lloyd Schwartz
Read this on WBUR
The Arts Fuse: Top Classical Performances and Recordings of 2021
Performance of the Year
For the last couple of seasons, the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra has been the most consistent orchestra in town. Pretty much every concert they play is imbued with an excitement, drive, sense of discovery, and joy of sharing that is rare among orchestras, period, but especially professional outfits. While the shuttering of the Philharmonic for more than a year in, essentially, its glorious prime doesn’t rate with the countless human tragedies of this pandemic, it certainly ranks among the great local artistic losses of the last 21 months.
So how wonderful it was to have the BPO return to action with Anton Bruckner’s mammoth Eighth Symphony in October. This is a daunting piece in just about every way. But in conductor Benjamin Zander’s hands it all made astonishingly lucid sense: the 80-minute-long score may scale Alpine heights, but underneath it all beats a benevolent, approachable, profoundly human heart. Full review here. -Jonathan Blumhofer
Read it on The Arts Fuse
The Boston Globe Review: The theme of the night at Boston Philharmonic's second concert of the season? Excellence
"The program for the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra’s second concert of its 2021-22 season — Felix Mendelssohn’s “Hebrides” Overture, Sergei Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2, and Johannes Brahms’s Symphony No. 4 — didn’t have any obvious theme, but the excellence of the music making at Symphony Hall on Wednesday was such that none was needed. " -Jeffrey Gantz
Boston Classical Review: Zander, Jackiw imbue familiar works with fresh purpose
"His enthusiasm for making clear the music’s textural densities and expressive ambiguities was evident from the first movement’s downbeat: everything flowed. While Zander’s phrasings were flexible, the BPO’s playing was rhythmically tight and richly burnished...This was a Brahms Fourth of heroic, tragic proportions. Fittingly, it was received with thunderous applause." -Johnathan Blumhofer
Read it on Boston Classical Review
Boston Musical Intelligencer: Zander Leads BPO in Heaven-Storming Bruckner's Eighth
"Perhaps it was the 1892 score’s performance indications, but Zander seemed to have Mahler in mind as he created an unusually human Bruckner, channeling the composer who played fiddle for town dances, loved dancing himself, and fell in love more than once." -Jeffrey Gantz
Read it on Boston Musical Intelligencer
Arts Fuse: Classical Concert Review: Boston Philharmonic Orchestra Plays Bruckner's Symphony No. 8
"In the end, then, this was an epic performance of an epic piece. The night’s large, preternaturally attentive audience — there was nary a cough during any of the Symphony’s several luftpausen — intuited this. They rewarded the BPO’s effort with the rowdiest ovation I’ve heard at Symphony Hall since it reopened for concerts in September: rarely has the Eighth’s hard-won sense of perseverance and achievement seemed to fit a moment and resonate with the public so potently as it did on Friday." -Jonathan Blumhoffer
Read it on The Arts Fuse
Boston Classical Review: Boston Philharmonic opens season with heaven-storming Bruckner
"Bold and beautiful, this season-opening performance proved a Bruckner experience to relish... Zander’s reading ultimately oriented this religiously charged music to the sublime." -Aaron Keebaugh
Read it on Boston Classical Review
The Arts Fuse: Classical Music Preview: Catching Up and Looking Ahead with Benjamin Zander on the BPO/BPYO season
"Benjamin Zander is ready to go. After being largely homebound since March 2020, the irrepressible founder and conductor of the Boston Philharmonic (BPO) and Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestras (BPYO) can’t wait to return to the concert hall." -Jonathan Blumhoffer
Read it on The Arts Fuse
The Boston Globe: Back to the symphony, a deep dive into caves, and devices to keep you healthy on the go ...
Read it on The Boston Globe.com
Audio Interview: The Big Interview at The Monocle 21: Interview with Benjamin Zander October 1, 2021
WBUR Fall Classical Music Guide
"Benjamin Zander, music director of the Boston Philharmonic and the Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra, is surely the most charismatic classical musician in Boston. This year, we’ll find both orchestras at Symphony Hall. Both fall BPO concerts are prime Zander territory..." -Lloyd Scwartz. Read the full article on WBUR Fall Classical Music Guide
