MUSIC
WEDNESDAY, MARCH 20, 2019
8:00 PM

Thomas Adès: Piano Concerto
Boston Symphony Orchestra
Carnegie Hall
881 7th Avenue, Midtown, Manhattan

$15-$161
https://www.carnegiehall.org/Calendar/2019/03/20/Boston-Symphony-Orchestra-0800PM

Thomas Adès is a composer who shows there's still life left in mainstream classical music.  It's hard not to get excited about a new Piano Concerto from him -- especially when it was written for, and played, by no less a probingly intellectual virtuoso as Kirill Gerstein.   What's odd is that the rest of the program, conducted by composer Adès, comprises music that strikes me as affirmatively bad (the orchestral version of Liszt's Mephisto Waltz No. 1 and -- spare us -- Tchaikovsky's Fourth Symphony).  Which I guess shows that just because you like a composer, it doesn't mean you share his taste.  Maybe Adès is trying to make a point, in view of the reportedly intentional (and completely welcome) throw-back style of his new concerto.

MAKE A NIGHT OF IT:  After sitting through close to an hour of vulgar Russian self-dramatization, you deserve a good time:  the jolly Cuban bar and restaurant Guantanamera.