a virtual journal and blog of the classical music scene in Boston
Robert Levin, editor; Bettina A. Norton, executive editor; Lee Eiseman, publisher
Reviews
February 4, 2012
Dutoit, BSO, and Debussy: Perfect Triad
by David Patterson
Debussy’s La Mer, Charles Dutoit, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra formed a perfect triad at Thursday evening’s Symphony Hall concert. Dutilleux’s Tout un monde lointain had young cellist Gautier Capuçon brooding against an orchestral backdrop of modern manifestations. Richard Strauss’s orchestral suite Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme opened the program in reserved as well as unreserved displays of the ridiculous and sublime. [continued]
February 2, 2012
Coriolanus Does Period Haydn Quartets
by Zoe Kemmerling
The sizeable audience at the Cambridge Society for Early Music’s January 30th offering proved an all-Haydn string quartet program on period instruments is about as good as it gets for an evening’s worth of chamber music. It was a pleasure to hear these works performed by the Coriolanus Quartet for their debut concert with such sincerity, investment, attention to detail, spirit, and variety. [continued]
February 1, 2012
Heloise and Abelard, Twixt Triumph, Dissipation
by Donna La Rue
A sung, orchestrated work based on a tale like that of Peter Abelard and Heloise d’Argenteuil at Harvard’s Memorial Church on January 29 had venerable precedent in the dramatic works of its agonists’ own time. Edward E. Jones conducted members of the Boston Modern Orchestra Project and the Harvard University Choir in a new work, composed by John Austin with a libretto by Christine Froula. [continued]
January 31, 2012
Complementary “Strange Bedfellows”
by Ben Houge
In a program entitled “Strange Bedfellows: Unexpected Concertos” last Friday, January 27, Boston Modern Orchestra Project, under the reliable baton of Gil Rose, presented a very well-attended program of mostly bleeding-edge concerti for unconventional instruments, remarkable not only for the intriguing premise but for the fact that the pieces complemented each other so well within what might have easily proven a mere affectation of programming. [continued]
NEC’s Worthy Tribute to Debussy, Massenet
by Cashman Kerr Prince
The 22nd New England Conservatory annual celebration of composers’ anniversaries on January 29, organized by pianist and faculty member Tatyana Dudochkin, focused on Claude Debussy and Jules Massenet. The marathon concert, hosted by Ron Della Chiesa, lasted almost three hours and highlighted NEC Preparatory School faculty, NEC Youth Symphony, and distinguished guest artists. [continued]
Anonymous 4 Give Voice to Calderwood Hall
by David Schulenberg
Anonymous 4, the vocal quartet specializing in Medieval European music, performed at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum’s new Calderwood Concert Hall on Sunday. Their program, called “Anthology 25,” comprised one item from each of their 23 CDs, plus two recent compositions, one of them a new work by David Lang. [continued]
Tragicomedia Unsurpassed in Handel Cantatas
by Sudeep Agarwala
Performances like Saturday’s remind us why Boston is a special place musically. The ensemble Tragicomedia — Stephen Stubbs and BEMF co-director Paul O’Dette, Erin Headley, and Kristian Bezuidenhout, in performance with soprano Shannon Mercer and bass-baritone Douglas Williams, presented an evening of early cantatas by Handel and his contemporaries on Saturday, January 28. [continued]
January 30, 2012
Callithumpians’ Spontaneity in the Details
by Peter Van Zandt Lane
Callithumpian Consort’s performance in Jordan Hall on January 25th featured an interesting mix of improvised and non-improvised performance. The composers represented on the program, Debussy, Nicholas Vines, Zorn, Murail, and Ikue Mori, represented a refreshingly wide array of styles and aesthetics. [continued]
January 29, 2012
de la Salle’s Interpretations Questionable
by David Patterson
Lise de la Salle’s Boston recital debut last night at Jordan Hall began with a genius at the keyboard expounding on Ravel’s Miroirs. Surprisingly and disappointingly, the same passion and personality that she brought to the Ravel she also brought, and relentlessly so, to a selection of Debussy’s preludes. Obviously, far too much power prevailed throughout the evening. [continued]
Dearth of Superlatives for Exsultemus
by Andrew Sammut
Before stereo speakers or multi-channel boards, composers mixed acoustic voices and produced music through divided vocal and instrumental choirs. The spatial and textural variety of these cori spezzati was the focus of Exsultemus’s similarly named program last night, when the historically informed choir was joined by a sextet of instrumentalists at University Lutheran Church in Cambridge. [continued]
January 28, 2012
BSO Rediscovers a Masterwork
by John Ehrlich
Last night the BSO presented but one work – the 10-movement Lobgesang, or “Song of Praise” op. 52 by Felix Mendelssohn. A more enriching experience at Symphony Hall would be hard to imagine. Two performances remain: one tonight, and one on Tuesday, January 31st. You should go. [continued]
Roby Lakatos Ensemble More than “Schmaltz”
by Cashman Kerr Prince
On Friday night, thanks to Celebrity Series of Boston, Sanders Theatre resounded with the Hungarian Gypsy music masters, the Roby Lakatos Ensemble. Musical selections ranged from traditional to popular to classical to musical and film soundtrack. The musicians reveled in their technical mastery of rapid passages and burnished lyricism. [continued]
January 27, 2012
Helios’s Elegant Expression in Charpentier
by Janine Wanée
For Zoe Weiss and Dylan Sauerwald, revising and writing continuo for a working edition of Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s David et Jonathas was a labor of love, and last night at the First Congregational Church in Cambridge, a lucky audience got to enjoy the fruits of those efforts. [continued]
Zaïde’s Ineradicable Impression at NEC
by David Patterson
From their very first notes sounded in unison, Quatuor Zaïde gripped a smallish yet discerning audience, thrusting it into that resonant and perfect space of New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall with miraculous coups via Mozart, Beethoven and Wolf — all with ineffable élan thoroughly meshed with astonishing poise. [continued]
Roving with Music and Art
by Susan Miron
Thursday night’s concert at the Community Music Center of Boston was part of event #2 of “The Year of Roving,” produced by New Gallery Concert Series’s director and gifted pianist Sarah Bob. Its offbeat theme was “DOODLE,” and the artwork by Tessa Day, was quite amazing to anyone whose children have ever tinkered with a Magna Doodle. Brava to Tessa Day!!! [continued]
January 25, 2012
Common Tones: Two Takes on Eternity
by Ben Houge
The program for the Cantata Singers’ “Astonished Breath” on January 21 at First Church in Cambridge, filled the sanctuary with an enthusiastic audience who had braved the first serious snowfall of the season to experience the Concerto for Choir of iconoclastic Russian composer Alfred Schnittke and the Berliner Messe by Estonian Arvo Pärt. [continued]
January 24, 2012
BSO Chamber Players Let Down Hair in Brahms
by Lee Eiseman
The BSO Chamber Players are always certain to make music on a very high level. Their execution is never less that super-refined. This year their programming is geographically themed, and on Sunday in Jordan Hall, we were serenaded in Austro-German style by works of Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms — not much of a geographic stretch! [continued]
Acoustics Vs Performance: Claremont Trio at ISGM
by David Griesinger
Last Sunday afternoon a sold-out crowd eagerly listened as Claremont Trio played in the new Calderwood Hall at the Gardner Museum. This article relates my experience listening to the performance from the first balcony in front of the musicians. My experience there was good – not great. Listeners in other areas of the first balcony had a much more variable experience, and on the whole they were disappointed. [continued]
Dinosaur Does Contemporary Aesthetics
by Stefanie Lubkowski
Dinosaur Annex’s ninth annual Young Composers Concert, on Sunday, at the Goethe-Institut, presented a curious cross-section of contemporary aesthetics. The concert began with Michael Ippolito’s Nocturne for flute, violin, and piano. From its initial chromatic rise and fall to its sparkling conclusion, his Nocturne traversed the various moods of night, from tranquility touched by dark dissonance to a scurrying, striving activity, accented by trills, and back to a heavy melancholy. [continued]
January 23, 2012
NEC Youth Phil Inspired Through Difficulties
by John Ehrlich
Difficult? Well, this January 20th concert’s breadth of challenges would faze almost any orchestra, but this wonderful NEC Youth Philharmonic soared past almost all of its technical issues. Inspired playing abounded. The difficulty was the missing presence of their mentor, the person who had rehearsed, encouraged and ultimately inspired them, their long-time leader Benjamin Zander. [continued]
Blowing Dust off Outcast Composers
by Geoffrey Wieting
Devotés of unjustly neglected music were given a belated Christmas present by the Boston Chamber Music Society at MIT’s Kresge Auditorium with Exiled to Hollywood: Outcast Artists in Southern California, featuring works by five such composers. The significant migration of artists and scholars who fled Fascism in Europe in the 1930s has been a hot topic of the last 20 years. [continued]
BYSO Shines in Verdi’s Shakespeare
by Mark DeVoto
Yesterday’s performance of Giuseppe Verdi’s Falstaff at Sanders Theatre in Cambridge was one of the most exciting musical events I’ve attended in years. All parts of this operatic performance were scintillating, but the most astounding aspect was the accomplishment of the Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras under Federico Cortese’s direction. [continued]
Shanghai Quartet Rewards Devoted Audience
by Cashman Kerr Prince
The Foundation for Chinese Performing Arts presented the Shanghai Quartet with pianist Hung-Kuan Chen in concert at Jordan Hall on Saturday 21 January at 8pm. The innovative program spanned Beethoven, Penderecki, and Brahms; a devoted audience braved the newly fallen snow and enjoyed the reward of a fine evening of music. [continued]
Pianist Le Transports Audience to Sunnier Climes
by Michael Rocha
On Saturday evening, January 21, a hardy band of music lovers trudged through a blanket of freshly fallen snow to take in a solo recital performed by the young American pianist Alexandria Le in the warm confines of Longy School’s Pickman Concert Hall. Less hardy souls had another option: this concert was also streamed live on the Web. Very 2012. [continued]
Emmanuel Music Delivers
by Susan Miron
For the fourth and last of this year’s concerts dedicated to Beethoven’s chamber music, Emmanuel Music presented some quite rarely heard works, all of which deserved a hearing. Four string players, two horn players, a baritone and a pianist took turns entertaining the full hall, and brought this series to an unusually delightful end. [continued]