Boston Philharmonic Orchestra: Elgar / Holst

Purcell, arr. Britten: Chacony in G Minor

Elgar: Cello Concerto, Alexander Baillie, cello

Holst: The Planets. Benjamin Zander, conductor

Renowned cellist Alexander Baillie returns to Boston and to the Boston Philharmonic to play Elgar's Cello Concerto. 

Holst’s The Planets hardly needs an introduction. Some years back it was voted the second most popular piece of classical music – narrowly nudged out of first place by the Beethoven Fifth. Holst used the astrological associations of the planets as a kind of program – or rather pretext – for the work, but the real substance is its range of sounds, the huge spectrum of orchestral timbres and combinations (how often does one get to hear a bass oboe?), from the grandiose to the eerie, culminating in a wordless, almost inaudible women’s chorus way in the distance, as if from the farthest reaches of the solar system.

-Benjamin Zander