1) Beethoven's 8th Symphony: the shortest Beethoven symphony, with performances running around 25-26 minutes, is rarely disliked but not much loved. It's eclipsed by the colossal Fifth, Fantasia-famous Sixth (Pastoral), big Seventh, and of course the Ninth. Burgos conducted this in November at the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the LA Times reported what we can probably expect:
There were no slavish period-performance conformities in Frühbeck de Burgos’ Beethoven Symphony No. 8 — just vigorous, big-orchestra sonorities, rounded phrasing, tempos right on the dot. He tried something really different in the finale, slowing the tempo each time Beethoven prepares for his humorous discord, and then holding the misbehaving note out for maximum effect.
2) Édouard Lalo - Symphonie espagnole: never heard this before although a couple recordings are in print (Sarah Chang, Itzhak Perlman, Anne-Sophie Mutter). Nice to see something less well-known and Andres Cardenes, long-time PSO concert master, always delivers the goods. Mark Kanny at the Trib has some background on the piece and comments by Mr. Cardenes.
3) Ravel - Bolero: a crowd pleaser than always pleases. Not sure what Burgos can really do with this one.
