District audiences who have never had the pleasure of hearing the Boston Symphony Orchestra live now have that opportunity Saturday when the Washington Performing Arts Society welcomes them to the Kennedy Center for one special performance on the last night of a weeklong tour that began Tuesday at Carnegie Hall. The BSO (Boston’s other great team of players) comes bearing gifts in the form of a full and rich repertoire that features Haydn’s Symphony No. 93, Bartok’s Piano Concerto No. 3, (highlighting pianist Peter Serkin) and, for its grand finale, Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5. Maestro Roberto Abbado has been chosen to do the honor of conducting.
| Onstage |
| Boston Symphony Orchestra |
| Where: The Kennedy Center Concert Hall |
| When: 4 p.m. Saturday |
| Info: $48 to $125; 202-467-4600; 800-444-1324; kennedy-center.org |
“I have performed many times with the wonderful BSO,” said the Italian conductor, whose command of varied composers and styles has made him a favorite with orchestras, opera companies, musicians and audiences worldwide. “I am very happy and honored to join this wonderful group of musicians.”
“I’ve worked with Peter Serkin many times,” Abbado said. “But this is the first time we are together for the Concerto No. 3. It’s a wonderful [piece] that Bartok composed here in New York in the last months of his life.”
Bartok died in September 1945, with the concerto unfinished, and the difficult job of completing the work from Bartok’s notes was taken on by — among others — Eugene Ormandy, the Hungarian conductor, who premiered it a few months later in Philadelphia.
Haydn’s Symphony No. 93, written in 1771, is, according to Abbado, “a magnificent work that very few people know”. His music is “intellectual, but ironic … very accessible and alive.”
Beethoven’s Symphony No. 5 is one of the most popular and best known compositions in all of classical music. Few and far between are the people who don’t know the distinctive motif “da, da, da d-u-um,” which, appears frequently to this day in rock ‘n’ roll, disco, film and TV. Now, like fireworks, Symphony No. 5 is the grand finale to the BSO tour — a celebratory a way to return to Boston.
