Saturday, September 26, 2026
8:00 PM
The Russian-born Sofia Gubaidulina was composing her Prolog, a BSO co-commission with the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, when she passed away in 2025. Eminent Russian composer Elena Firsova has completed it for performance. Also on the program is Mahler’s Seventh Symphony, the only Mahler symphony Andris Nelsons has yet to conduct with the BSO.
Andris Nelsons, conductor
Sofia GUBAIDULINA/Elena FIRSOVA Prolog for orchestra (Posthumous world premiere; BSO co-commission)
Gustav MAHLER Symphony No. 7
Learn more about the Boston Symphony Orchestra's 2026-2027 season on their site.
In an interview with CRB's Brian McCreath, BSO Concertmaster Nathan Cole describes how he and the orchestra prepare for a world premiere, especially when it expresses the unique musical voice of composer Sofia Gubaidulina, as well as the particular complications of performing Mahler's Symphony No. 7. To listen, use the player above, and read the transcript below.
INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT (lightly edited for clarity):
Brian McCreath I'm Brian McCreath at Symphony Hall with Nathan Cole, the Concertmaster of the Boston Symphony. Nathan, in the middle of a busy rehearsal week, thanks for a little of your time today. I appreciate it.
Nathan Cole Of course. Thanks for talking with me.
Brian McCreath This program starts with a world premiere, by Sofia Gubaidulina. As we are led to believe, and as Andris has even said to me and others, one of his favorite composers, and he's recorded her music before. But this is a world premiere, so nobody has played this before. From your perspective as Concertmaster and as an individual in the orchestra, tell me how you and the ensemble prepare for something that's never been heard before. What do you do to set your mind to tackle this piece where there's no context? Nobody has laid out a path for you to play this piece before.
Nathan Cole Well, it sounds a little glib, but YouTube is— well, it is just so much easier now than ever before to get a flavor of somebody's work, their language, their— nobody good has just one style, but at least to get a sense of how a piece might sound based on other pieces by that composer. And so even though Andris and the BSO have played a number of works by her, since I'm relatively new here, her music will be new for me here. And so that's what I've done besides studying the score for this piece and our own part for the violins.
Brian McCreath So it's basically, get a sense of what the sound world is or the sound possibilities, the ranges of any particular composer. Is there anything you can say about Gubaidulina and what you hear in the music that is interesting to you so far?
Nathan Cole Well, just, and I hope this doesn't sound too generic, but the clarity of the texture, the importance of atmosphere. And, you know, of course, unfortunately, she's not here for us to ask, but our part in this piece looks very busy on the page, but the way it will combine with the rest of the group, it shouldn't sound that way. And that's true of so many composers. And I can tell from listening to other works that she was masterful at blending all those voices.
Brian McCreath But that's so interesting that that's what you pick up on from the music that you've heard of her and how you've approached the score and your part, because that's so much a characteristic— you could say the same thing practically about Mahler and this huge orchestra that he uses for the 7th Symphony, but which he uses in such— I wouldn't say necessarily pointillistic because it's not quite that level, but in small sections. that combine, often for just moments, and then move on to different combinations. And as Concertmaster, part of your role is to maintain a cohesiveness in some way, you know, lead the— certainly the violins in the string section. Is it more difficult to maintain the communication across sections so that these moments seamlessly blend from one to the next?
Nathan Cole It is very difficult. This is a particularly challenging symphony for that because there are so few sections that just allow you to kind of ride the wave for a while. One section really butts up against the next. The ideas are constantly being interrupted. And not only that, but within a certain idea or a certain character, Mahler asks the different sections to oppose each other in terms of articulation, dynamic. For example, if you think about a crossfade, for example, where we're playing something important, but from our part it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. We still have the tune, but he's asking us to fade out entirely, and some other section fades in with that same idea. Or there's a woodwind section or soloist perhaps that's really playing the tune very loudly; we see we have the same tune. Naturally, we want to join in with that articulation, that style, that dynamic, but we have two or three P's [meaning very soft]. And so we're asked to just be a little shadow. And if you can really play what's in there, then it all can work and hang together. But right, as you mentioned, the communication, so difficult across the distance of even the same stage.
Brian McCreath Does this particular stage, Symphony Hall, have something to do to help that out?
Nathan Cole Well, sonically, I mean, I love— everybody loves Symphony Hall. I'm no exception there. Visually, because that can be an important part of how we communicate, since we're what's called "on the flat," basically. I mean, the stage has a little bit of a rake or a tilt to it, but we don't use risers. And so, you know, it's a lot of us on one level. And so sometimes it's just as simple as me positioning my chair. It has to be on a per-rehearsal and a per-concert basis sometimes, just to make sure that I can see some of my fellow principals.
Brian McCreath I love a couple of things that you said, though, about this piece. One is the idea of the crossfade, because in my world, in audio world, we do that with editing. We crossfade so that nobody can hear that we've done an edit, but maybe more popularly understood, we can think about movies when you literally see a crossfade visually from one scene to a next. Sometimes it's for a flashback, sometimes it's to say this is going on simultaneously, whatever. But I love that idea in this symphony because it does feel like that, that there are these moments that two ideas are happening simultaneously or in sequence, and they may not feel like they have anything to do with each other, but then eventually it all comes around to somehow make sense. The other thing I love that you said is "shadow," because this piece has such shadowy figures. There's shadowy textures. I think especially of this kind of horn / bells thing that happens in the second movement. There's shadows and light with that. How do you and the string players change and sort of transform your sound according to the light and shadow that might be called for in any moment of this symphony?
Nathan Cole There are technical things that we can do. I mean, any string players out there will know that you can put that bow, you know, closer to or over the fingerboard to get it away from the bridge, and that will— you use more and lighter bow and all that. But really, it has to come from within. And as long as you can hear the sound in your head that you want, then you can make it. That's always been our job. The problem with that is that the sound required, as we were talking about before, changes so often, and it doesn't always seem to correspond with the character of what you're playing. And so it's very schizophrenic. You have to be— you have to know what the sequence is going to be, really, because it doesn't feel intuitive or natural always.
Brian McCreath Well, and that's where the conductor comes in, because the conductor can make sense of this for players who may not understand the totality of the picture. And you've played Mahler 7 with other orchestras, probably some great conductors, I would imagine, and great orchestras. I mean, you've played with the Chicago Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic. These orchestras can handle Mahler as well as any. Tell me what it is that Andris is bringing that you're identifying that is a sort of signature, what he's bringing to this interpretation of Mahler 7 that does offer a cohesive vision.
Nathan Cole For me, he is a refreshing break from all of the markings that are in our parts in the score. For those who have played or have looked at a score of Mahler's, it's the very opposite, for example, of Bach or Mozart, where they're leaving just about everything to the intuition and the imagination of the performers. Now we still, of course, we need to bring imagination and intuition to this piece as well, but he took a lot fewer chances. Mahler was himself a conductor as well as a composer, and so the sorts of corrections that conductors will often put into pieces of, let's say, Schumann, where maybe the dynamics need some massaging to make a lot of sense, Mahler went ahead and put those in. So our part is just full of every— he writes in almost every nuance, every accent. And so it can feel overwhelming just to sort of do all the marks.
Brian McCreath Sometimes he writes complete sentences. I mean, there's whole sentences to say, this is how I want you to play this.
Nathan Cole Absolutely right. And in German. So we have to break out the musical dictionary. So, you know, Andris is there to sing and to remind us, "All right, this is what's written in there. Yes, we do it, but this is the effect. These are old soldiers reminiscing about times on the battlefield," for example. And then you sing it to yourself and, right, the markings that are in there, there are a lot of them, but now they make more sense.
Brian McCreath And Andris does do singing a lot in rehearsal. I mean, he's a trained singer to begin with, but he does offer that as a way of communicating with the orchestra, something that I'm not sure all conductors really do. Andris has a way of singing through parts that he's interested in rehearsing, and it sounds like that's a pretty effective communication, at least between this orchestra and Andris.
Nathan Cole Yeah, most conductors try. Most— and look, I try when I teach too, but I sing to myself in the practice room if I'm working on a violin piece. It's just that most of us are embarrassed to do it if we don't have trained voices. We're perfectionists in our playing. And so we just figure, well, I'm not going to bother singing because I can't do it perfectly. But we forget, or we deny ourselves the reality that vocalizing is just such a natural thing for humans to do. And it's a natural way for great music to sort of reveal itself. And so when Andris sings, right, it's— that accomplishes in just a few seconds what it would take paragraphs to say.
Brian McCreath And he's very unselfconscious about it. He doesn't mind when his voice breaks a little bit. He just keeps going.
Nathan Cole Oh, exactly. It's great. And then that in itself is a great reminder, you know, playing, self-conscious playing is never enjoyable for the audience.
Brian McCreath Nathan, it's great to talk with you. I really appreciate your time. I know we squeezed this in in your rehearsal schedule, but it's great to hear your voice and to have your thoughts about these two pieces. Thanks a lot.
Nathan Cole Oh, thank you, Brian. Always a pleasure.