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A Month of Music from the Gardner
By Benjamin K. Roe
Managing Director of Classical Services
Perhaps the best description of Isabella Stewart Gardner’s personality came
in a letter from her cousin: “You must have a double [personality], one
devoted to society, music, admiration, and pearls, and the other sterner sister
given to labor and duty: a kind of Aphrodite with a lining of Athene.”
Certainly Gardner’s devotion to music has been a part of the fabric of
her museum since its opening 110 years ago, on January 1, 1903, when the
noted Boston arts patron invited her friends at the Boston Symphony
Orchestra to perform at her Italian villa-turned-art museum in Boston’s
fashionable Fenway neighborhood. A couple of decades later, the Gardner’s
musical activities were formalized with the launch of a Sunday afternoon
concert series in the museum’s elegant Tapestry Room. Those Gardner concerts
soon became a staple of Boston’s concert life, frequently featuring
members of the BSO in intimate chamber-music performances.
Last year, the tradition of great music at the Gardner entered a new era
with the opening of Calderwood Hall, the stunning new performance space
that is the jewel in the crown of the museum’s $114 million renovation
designed by noted architect Renzo Piano. Calderwood has been described
as “Italian form blending with Japanese function,” a 300-seat “theatre in the
square” that at once harkens back to an intimate Italian teatro communale
opera house of the 18th century, yet boasts the cool angular lines and
modern features that could only be of our own time, made of wood,
brushed steel, and topped by a massive trapezoid of glass.
This month Classical New England will celebrate the best of both the
old and new traditions at the Gardner. Sunday afternoons, we’ll bring you
performances from the acclaimed Sunday Concert Series from the new
Calderwood Hall, expertly curated by artistic director Scott Nikrenz. These
performances will feature such ensembles as A Far Cry, (the Gardner’s resident
orchestra) the Borromeo String Quartet and the Chamber Music Society of
Lincoln Center. The series will kick off on February 3 with an encore presentation
of the very first public concert from the new space: Classical New
England’s January 2012 live broadcast featuring the Claremont Trio.
Symphonies We Love
By Cheryl Willoughby
Classical New England Music Director
There are symphonies about love, such as Karl Goldmark’s folksy Rustic
Wedding Symphony, or Beethoven’s iconic ode to brotherly love, Symphony
No. 9. And then there are the symphonies we love: you, me and every other
appreciator of classical music we know.
This month Classical New England invites you to play your part as we
feature the Symphonies We Love. Which is your favorite Do you have a
special memory or some sentimental connection to a particular symphony
Do you go out of your way to experience live performances of your favorite
My own answers to the above questions are: Dvořák’s “New World”
Symphony No. 9; yes, I have a special memory; and yes again that I go out of
my way to explore live performances. In fact, the last two answers are related.
When I was a young music student playing with the Denver Youth
Symphony Orchestra, I studied privately with the principal horn player of the
And during the evenings, host James David Jacobs will revisit performances
from WGBH’s vast archive of recorded concerts from the Gardner’s
venerable Tapestry Room. Many of these concerts, not heard on the air in
decades, will feature some of our region’s most storied performers, including
former Boston Symphony concertmaster Joseph Silverstein, violinist Roman
Totenberg, clarinetist Harold Wright, flutist Doriot Anthony Dwyer, and the
Concord String Quartet.
From the historic Tapestry Room in the original palazzo, to the futuristic
design of Renzo Piano, join us for a month of music from the Gardner.
Sunday Concert Series
Sun 2/3, 2/10, 2/17 & 2/24 at 3pm
Classical Music with James David Jacobs
Mon–Fri at 9pm
The Gardner’s Calderwood Hall
Denver (now Colorado) Symphony Orchestra. Once a year the principal
players in the youth symphony joined the professional symphony in playing
a large-scale work. My opportunity came in 1984 during the Denver
Symphony’s golden anniversary season. The concert’s feature piece was
Dvořák’s 9th and I had the immense privilege of playing the majestic fourhorn
soli in the last movement—with my teacher and two of his colleagues
to a full house at Boettcher Concert Hall.
There are more recordings of Dvořák’s 9th Symphony in my personal
collection now (14 to be exact) than any other single piece. I love every one
of them for their own unique qualities. And I will always go out of my way
to hear that symphony performed live because of that one spectacular
chance I had to play it myself in concert.
Dvořák’s 9th is my choice for Symphonies We Love. What’s yours, and
why Leave a comment for us on Facebook or Twitter, or drop us a note at
classicalnewengland.org—and listen in all this month as we share the
symphonies we love.
Schedules, program info, playlists: classicalnewengland.org 27