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Pops' Bernstein tribute only taste of his legacy
Leonard Bernstein is in many ways the perfect subject for a Boston Pops tribute program - the local boy (Lawrence-born, Boston Latin- and Harvard-educated) who made good, and who wrote some of the most famous and best-loved music in the history of the Broadway stage.
BMOP/sound makes auspicious debut
The news these days about the classical music recording industry is almost always bleak, so it's a pleasure to report a bright spot on that landscape: the Boston Modern Orchestra Project has finally launched its own record label called BMOP/sound.
A cellist with fervor, and maturity beyond her years
Like many sons and daughters of entrepreneurial parents, Alisa Weilerstein has gone into the family business. That business happens to be classical music-making at a distinguished level. Her father, Donald Weilerstein, was the founding first violinist of the Cleveland String Quartet, and her mother is the pianist Vivian Hornik Weilerstein.
From early Verdi, muscular music of stark power
The fortunes of early Verdi rise and fall but his testosterone-laced 1844 opera "Ernani" is having a moment in the sun this season. The Met revived its staging from the mid-1980s in March, and the adventurous Opera Boston, in what the company says was a complete coincidence, has had a production of its own on the books.
BSO delivers sweeping tour of Berlioz
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is ending its current Symphony Hall season with a grand tour. The destination is the ancient world of Virgil's "Aeneid." The vehicle is Berlioz's epic five-act opera "The Trojans" spread out over two weeks of concerts.
Graupner opera 'Antiochus' among BEMF new season offerings
The Boston Early Music Festival has announced a raft of new programs for the 2008-09 season, including "Antiochus und Stratonica" by the German composer Christoph Graupner as the operatic centerpiece for its biennial festival, to take place in June 2009.
BSO delivers sweeping tour of Berlioz
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is ending its current Symphony Hall season with a grand tour. The destination is the ancient world of Virgil's "Aeneid." The vehicle is Berlioz's epic five-act opera "The Trojans" spread out over two weeks of concerts. Last week, in Part I, the orchestra played as Troy burned. This week, for Part II, the action has moved ...
Japanese violinist shines with Philharmonic
CAMBRIDGE - Big-name soloists these days command truly astronomical fees, placing them beyond the reach of a semi-professional orchestra like the Boston Philharmonic. Conductor Benjamin Zander has therefore had to be creative with his choices of whom he brings to appear with the group. He has a good track record of recruiting once-eminent players who still have plenty to say ...
Return to Messiaen's cosmos
CAMBRIDGE - The much-admired but long-defunct ensemble known as Tashi recently answered the trumpet call of the Messiaen centenary by reviving itself for a handful of concerts, including a brilliant appearance on Friday night before a packed audience at Harvard's Paine Hall.
Biss, Bostridge, Ma, and more
The London Symphony Orchestra will perform Prokofiev and Beethoven in Symphony Hall under the volatile baton of Valery Gergiev March 25, an appearance that should be a highlight of the 2008-09 Celebrity Series of Boston season, details of which were announced today.
Classical picks
Tonight, Boston Lyric Opera presents Mozart's "Abduction From the Seraglio" at the Shubert Theatre. . . . Tashi plays Messiaen at Harvard's Paine Hall. . . . The Boston Chamber Music Society appears in Jordan Hall. . . . Ensemble Caprice performs in First Church in Cambridge . . . and Guerilla Opera presents Andy Vores's "No Exit" at Boston ...
A Berlioz epic lumbers to life at the BSO
Reprinted from late editions of yesterday's Globe When it comes to Berlioz, the Boston Symphony Orchestra has a performance tradition that few ensembles could rival, but even with that rich history, the BSO had never performed more than excerpts of the most ambitious and grandly conceived work in the composer's catalog: namely "The Trojans," his sprawling grand opera based on ...
Glimpses of fire, passion at Symphony Hall
When it comes to Berlioz, the Boston Symphony Orchestra has a performance tradition that few ensembles could rival, but even with that rich history, the BSO had never performed more than excerpts of the most ambitious and grandly conceived work in the composer's catalog: namely "The Trojans," his sprawling grand opera based on Virgil's "Aeneid."
BSO tackles Berlioz's 'Les Troyens'
Beginning Tuesday, the Boston Symphony Orchestra will devote the remainder of its Symphony Hall season to concert performances of Berlioz's monumental opera "Les Troyens." The BSO has a rich Berlioz tradition and has played portions of this score in the past, but these will be its first complete performances of what is generally considered to be the composer's greatest work, ...
Symphonies of songs: Harbison and Mahler at the BSO
Last night in Symphony Hall, James Levine led the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the premiere of John Harbison's Symphony No. 5, and Mahler's "Das Lied von der Erde." The pairing made for an exceptionally well-integrated program, as the two halves of the evening seemed to be speaking to each other.
Domingo picks up a mantle (sort of)
Placido Domingo has no shortage of channels through which he can connect with his adoring public. But the tenor seems at least partly inclined to pick up the populist mantle of Pavarotti, and he has now embarked on an "Around the World" tour. In truth, it's more like a scattering of occasional solo concerts in various cities that Domingo will ...
Gandhi at the Met, Glass in transition
NEW YORK - The chugging, burbling music of Philip Glass is so ubiquitous today that it takes some effort to picture him in his rough-and-tumble artistic youth, a time when his compositions, now the stuff of Hollywood film scores, were truly radical in the boldness of their simplicity. Glass's breakout work for musical theater was the audacious, prism-shifting "Einstein on ...
Parker Quartet makes classical kid-friendly
Because the Parker Quartet routinely plays for children, its members have learned a couple of important things. First, little kids never get the memo that says that classical music is for adults only. Second, they have wonderfully open ears and can respond to a vast range of music without prejudice.
Levine, Kissin, and Brahms at BSO
Reprinted from late editions of yesterday's Globe It was heartening to see a sold-out house at Tuesday night's Boston Symphony Orchestra performance in Symphony Hall. In fact, all four concerts this week are sold out as the program seems to have found that box office sweet spot with its combination of admired performers (James Levine is on the podium, with ...
Levine leads BSO, Kissin in all-Brahms evening
It was heartening to see a sold-out house at last night's Boston Symphony Orchestra performance in Symphony Hall. In fact, all four concerts this week are sold-out as the program seems to have found that box office sweet spot with its combination of admired performers (James Levine is on the podium, with Evgeny Kissin as the piano soloist) and much-loved ...
At the Gardner, a European quartet on the rise
One sees and hears plenty about the bumper crop of talented young American string quartets, but who are the newly emerging leaders of the chamber music scene in Europe? Two young ensembles, the Berlin-based Artemis Quartet and the London-based Belcea Quartet come immediately to mind as having consistently impressed in recent years with a steady stream of first-rate recordings. Neither ...
Reclaiming a namesake with wit, vigor
Sir Roger Norrington returned to the Handel and Haydn Society this weekend to wrap up its season with a pair of all-Haydn concerts in Symphony Hall. These days Norrington is serving as artistic adviser to the organization and seems to be the most active behind the scenes among its current trio of artistic leaders (the others are Grant Llewellyn and ...
Helmut Lachenmann composes music that is disquieting yet beautiful
One day in the dark winter of 1942, as the Battle of Stalingrad raged to the east, an 8-year-old German boy sat at home in Stuttgart, huddled with his family by the radio. He listened as the Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels extolled the sacrifices of German soldiers who had fought bravely for the Fatherland. They were, Goebbels said, helping ...
Classical picks
Tonight, the Beaux Arts Trio 's farewell tour pulls into Jordan Hall . . . Sir Roger Norrington conducts the Handel and Haydn Society in Symphony Hall . . . and vocal students perform Mozart's "Cosi Fan Tutte" at the Boston Conservatory Theater. . . . Sunday, Emmanuel Music 's Schumann chamber music series continues . . . violist Marcus ...
A BSO season of Messiaen, Mozart
The Boston Symphony Orchestra continues its recent tradition of presenting opera in concert next season with three performances of Verdi's "Simon Boccanegra" conducted by music director James Levine. It is one of the most ambitious programs of the 128th season, details of which the orchestra announced today.
Dashing across the violin literature with Gil Shaham
One of the pleasures of the Celebrity Series season is the occasional chance to hear top-tier soloists in the intimate and acoustically welcoming setting of Jordan Hall. Sunday's recital by violinist Gil Shaham sold out weeks ahead of time.
At the BSO, Bartok's late spring and Schubert's 'Great' symphony
A Bartok scholar once confessed to me that she could not bring herself to read the composer's correspondence from his late period in America. It was simply too heartbreaking, she said, to witness at close distance the slow expiring of one of the century's great composers, displaced by exile, dismissed by his adoptive public, his health deteriorating, his finances in ...
Classical picks
Tonight, the Boston Classical Orchestra , with guest soloists Lucia Lin and Peter Zazofsky , offers Mozart and Haydn at Faneuil Hall . . . and the Boston Chamber Music Society performs at Jordan Hall . . . Tomorrow, the Boston Modern Orchestra Project performs new music by Lisa Bielawa and several others at Jordan Hall . . . and ...
Schubert's 'Great' symphony, Bartok's late spring
A Bartok scholar once confessed to me that she could not bring herself to read the composer's correspondence from his late period in America. It was simply too heartbreaking, she said, to witness at close distance the slow expiring of one of the century's great composers, displaced by exile, dismissed by his adoptive public, his health deteriorating, his finances in ...
H&H led fluently by one of its own
Daniel Stepner is a well-known and highly valued violinist on the local scene. He can be spotted, depending on the day, in the first violin chair of the Lydian String Quartet, or as the calm, grounding presence at the front of the first violin section of the Handel and Haydn Society, where he has been concertmaster for more than two ...
Lisa Bielawa makes most of musical collaborations
One warm late-summer afternoon last year on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, a cellist sat down on a bench in front of a public library and began to play. No one paid much attention, but about two minutes later, a violinist walked up and joined him. Then suddenly, with surgical precision, musicians began appearing out of nowhere, instruments at ...
Haitink returns to BSO with Passion
The Boston Symphony Orchestra does not often throw its collective weight behind the music of Bach, in part because the early music movement has staked its claim so decisively and influentially on this turf. The last time the composer's massive "St. Matthew" Passion appeared on a BSO program was 1998, under Seiji Ozawa, and one friend of mine still recalls ...
Haitink returns to BSO for his first 'St. Matthew' Passion
The Boston Symphony Orchestra does not often throw its collective weight behind the music of Bach, in part because the early music movement has staked its claim so decisively and influentially on this turf. The last time the composer's massive "St. Matthew" Passion appeared on a BSO program was 1998, under Seiji Ozawa, and one friend of mine still recalls ...
Paging Tristan, encountering Grimes
NEW YORK - The Metropolitan Opera has become a less predictable place these days. Drop by one night and it feels like old times, while the next evening there's a fresh spring in the institution's step and a less predictable audience in its seats. That was the case this week when Dieter Dorn's 1999 production of Wagner's "Tristan und Isolde" ...
A Shostakovich chestnut? The Fifth Symphony returns.
All composers have their greatest hits, even - once enough time has passed - those who toiled in the dangerous and ideologically charged atmosphere of Stalin's Russia. Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony is by far the composer's most popular orchestral work, performed so often, as with all classical greatest hits, that it risks becoming domesticated. Last night it was played by the ...