Programming: Know your audience

The Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra held a concert on Sunday in Symphony Hall. The orchestra is made up of teens and young adults studying throughout New England. These prodigies exhibit the highest levels of musicianship with adventurous repertoire. Here was this afternoon's program:

Shostakovich: Festival Overture

Dvorák: Cello Concerto in B minor

– Intermission –

Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra

This follows a typical format: a short stirring piece to kick off the concert; [brief pause to seat latecomers]; something to feature a guest artist; intermission; a large work to show off the orchestra.

Children should be seen and not heard

The BPYO concerts give family and friends an opportunity to see the young musicians perform in the Big House. Of course, "family" means that some parents will bring infants and toddlers. This wasn't a problem during the lively Festival Overture, but quieter passages of the Cello Concerto were accompanied by cooing, fussing and non-descript gutteral sounds. After the first movement conrductor Benjamin Zander turned to the audience and said, "I love children ... but perhaps they would be happier outside." Nobody moved, and the slow second movement was augmented by more of the same. After that movement an usher escorted a parent and vocal child out of the auditorium. Just as the conductor raised his baton for the third movement, another squall threatened in the balcony. Zander turned with a warning finger, then gave the downbeat.

The folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary used to save their hit "Puff, the Magic Dragon" till the end of their concerts. When they eventually realized that most of the children were asleep by that point, they started playing the song earlier in their shows. I can understand why the BPYO put the Bartók concerto at the end of the concert; it's rousing finale made a matching bookend to the whirlwind Shostakovich overture. But the Bartók had more energy to withstand a restive audience than the Dvorák did.

By intermission many parents realized their children had had enough, and they took them home. A more pragmatic sequence for the afternoon would have been:

Shostakovich
Bartók
– Intermission –
Dvorák

The guest soloist for the Cello Concerto was Natalia Gutman. This 72-yeal-old Russian cellist is a living link to musicians of the Soviet era such as Mstislav Rostropovich and Svatislav Richter. It would have been more respectful of her artistry and interpretation to give her the quieter audience of the second half. Regardless, it was lovely to hear her encore of the bourées from Bach's Cello Suite No 3 in C major, BWV1009.