Andris Nelsons conducts Maskats, Elgar, and Brahms

Boston Symphony Orchestra Andris Nelsons, conductor Yo-Yo Ma, cello Arturs MASKATS Tango ELGAR Cello Concerto      intermission BRAHMS Symphony No. 4 

In this season-opening concert, Andris Nelsons and Yo-Yo Ma collaborate with the BSO in Edward Elgar’s monumental Cello Concerto, a powerful late work thought to be Elgar’s response to England’s loss of innocence following the devastation of World War I. Equally solemn is Brahms’s final symphony, by turns contemplative and stormy. Nelsons and the BSO recorded the entire cycle of Brahms’s symphonies, music at the center of his work with the orchestra.  

The prominent Latvian composer Arturs Maskats was a mentor for Andris Nelsons early in the conductor’s career and was one of the composers jointly commissioned by the BSO and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig (his “My River runs to thee...”). With his brief Tango, Maskats aimed to do for the Tango what Ravel did for the waltz—create personal, historic orchestral portrait of the sultry dance.