a virtual journal and blog of the classical music scene in Boston
Robert Levin, editor; Bettina A. Norton, executive editor; Lee Eiseman, publisher
Reviews
May 6, 2012
Teeters in Farewell Stimulating as Always
by Steven Ledbetter
Donald Teeters chose to end his decades-long term with Boston Cecilia, not with one of those great and underperformed works that he has opened up to Boston audiences over the years, but rather with contemporary works with Boston connections providing a wonderfully stimulating buffet of little-known music (including two premieres by Scott Wheeler) that also showed Cecilia’s impressive musicality. [continued]
Spectrum Singers: Brahms’s Richness
by Susan Miron
If you love the vocal and choral music of Brahms, Spectrum Singers’ concert on Saturday night was the place to be. Spectrum’s John Ehrlich (also a contributor to BMInt) is a terrific choral conductor. The chorus sings with impeccable intonation and impressively controlled dynamics. This program showed them off to excellent effect. [continued]
May 4, 2012
Stravinsky Shines in BSO Season Finale
by Joel Schwindt
Beethoven’s immortal ninth symphony runs in the blood of every symphony orchestra, and Stravinsky’s Symphony of Psalms comes from the heart of the BSO’s repertoire, as a work commissioned by the organization for its 50th anniversary. Last night, the BSO ended its season in a performance of both. Performances for tonight and tomorrow night are sold out. [continued]
Saariaho’s Compositions Brought to Life
by Cashman Kerr Prince
Last night the International Contemporary Ensemble presented Music of Kaija Saariaho at the Gardner Museum as part of the Avant Gardner series. The concert presented a snapshot of the last 20 years of compositional activity of the Finnish composer, who was present for the occasion. The magisterial performance brought his unique soundscape to palpable life. [continued]
May 2, 2012
Memorable Experience from Bashmet, Maisky
by Cashman Kerr Prince
Maestro Artist Management presented Yuri Bashmet conducting and playing viola with the Moscow Soloists Chamber Orchestra in Symphony Hall on Sunday. Mischa Maisky, cello, joined the ensemble for a Tchaikovsky Nocturne and a highly Romantic take on the Haydn Cello Concerto No. 1. Bashmet gave a gorgeous and persuasive reading of the Brahms Quintet in B minor, op. 115. [continued]
May 1, 2012
Fabulous Instrumentalists, Less Musicality
by Lawrence Franko
The Boston Chamber Music Society concert on Sunday featured two old friends: the Janáček Violin and Piano Sonata as well as the Brahms Piano Quintet and one potential new friend, the Britten Second Quartet, which I had never before heard live. The program said You Must Go! First the positives: five fabulous musicians. But musicality … not so much. [continued]
At Memorial Church, the Choir Rocked More
by David Moran
The final installment of the inauguration of Harvard Memorial Church’s new pipe organs, the Fisk opus 139 in the rear gallery and its pal, the 1929 Skinner opus 793 in the Appleton Chapel in front, rang out last Sunday afternoon. It was a splendid, polished event, comprising a variety of genuinely stimulating music, something that cannot always be said of musical events in a church. [continued]
April 30, 2012
Dinosaur Annex: Tonal Music Anything But Extinct
by Michael Rocha
Toes were tapping, fingers flying, hearts palpitating, and synapses firing at the Goethe-Institut Boston last night, as the Dinosaur Annex Music Ensemble presented a chamber-music program consisting entirely of pieces composed within the last 20 years. Entitled “Alive and Kicking,” this thought-provoking performance showcased contemporary works created with tonal vocabularies, a sub-genre that is most definitely alive and well. [continued]
BMV’s Challenging Program Explores the World
by Sudeep Agarwala
Boston Musica Viva provided a challenging program on April 27th, at BU’s Tsai Performance Center. Music Director Richard Pittman led both ensemble and audience through contemporary works that aimed at a synthesis of multicultural “concepts and motives” — all somehow presented in the sound-world of the canonical Western chamber instruments and musical forms. [continued]
Meat and Potatoes from Marlboro
by Susan Miron
Marlboro Music Festival takes its touring program seriously. Sunday they sent six excellent musicians to the Gardner Museum for a meat-and-potatoes program featuring Mozart’s String Quintet in E Flat Major, Schumann Piano Quintet, and Bartók’s String Quartet No. 6 — the last string pieces of Mozart and Schumann, and the last string quartet of Bartok. [continued]
Mahler’s Problem Child from Boston Philharmonic
by Leon Golub
Mahler’s Seventh Symphony is a vast and complex work. In his pre-concert talk before yesterday’s performance by the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra at Harvard’s Sanders Theatre, conductor Benjamin Zander promised finally to solve the problem of the last movement, which has seemed to many to be excessive. As it turned out, he delivered, with a Finale a vindication of Enlightenment. [continued]
April 29, 2012
Heart-Pounding Passion from Harvard
by David Patterson
Heart-pounding passion engulfed in a French nature-scape was in near complete reach of Harvard-Radcliffe Orchestra and the four organizations of the Holden Choirs: Harvard Glee Club, Radcliffe Choral Society, Harvard-Radcliffe Chorus and Harvard-Radcliffe Collegium Musicum on the Sanders Theatre stage this past Saturday night. [continued]
Joseph Silverstein “Welcome Home”
by Zoe Kemmerling
The Boston Conservatory’s String Masters Series event on April 24 honored violinist Joseph Silverstein, longtime Boston luminary who recently joined the faculty. Silverstein performed three chamber works with a rotating cast of faculty and students. The musicians’ respect for Silverstein created a performance that far overcame with emotional power any disparities in age, experience, or skill. [continued]
April 28, 2012
Unsurprising Excellence from Emerson Quartet
by Susan Miron
For us who have loved the Emerson String Quartet for 36 years, last night’s elegantly, insightfully played Celebrity Series concert at Jordan Hall was unsurprisingly as excellent as all the Emerson’s others. Two of the pieces were the last full quartets Haydn and Beethoven wrote. Adès’s lovely, quite accessible The Four Quarters had its Boston premiere. [continued]
Versions of Pastoral Under Beethoven’s Shield
by Cashman Kerr Prince
Yesterday, Bernard Haitink led the BSO in an evocative, colorful reading of Debussy’s Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune and a fine interpretation, perhaps a bit short on the craggy, of Beethoven’s Sixth Symphony. Till Fellner gave a wonderfully insightful performance, of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 22, filled with pathos, a wide range of dynamics, and a broad palette. (repeating tonight) [continued]
April 26, 2012
Stunning Transcription: Mahler 5 by Briggs on Fisk
by Joyce Painter Rice
The two-week appraisals of the new Fisk organ at Harvard’s Memorial Church, good though they were, fell away in David Briggs’s recital last Tuesday, when he played his own transcription of Mahler’s Symphony No. 5. The organ emerged as a living maker of sound in Briggs’s stunning performance. Harvard, and thereby all of Boston, has a new giant. [continued]
April 24, 2012
BSCP’s Travelogue in Latter-Day England
by Vance R. Koven
The Boston Symphony Chamber Players concluded their season-long travelogue with a program of English music at Jordan Hall on April 22. Representing Old Blighty were works of Adès, Britten, Elgar, and Gordon Jacob — interesting choices not least for the fact that the oldest work on the program dated from 1892, with the next-oldest 40 years more recent than that. [continued]
High-Octane Playing from Claremont Trio
by Zoe Kemmerling
Sunday’s Gardner concert at Calderwood Hall featured the resident Claremont Trio, which responded to the 360-degree attention with warmth and enthusiasm. Despite the disparity of the source pictures and their sonic realizations, Helen Grime’s Three Whistler Miniatures and its performance were tasteful, engaging, and accessible. Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel’s Piano Trio in D minor finally gave the trio a chance to let loose with its romantic fervor. [continued]
Finehouse Uses Historic Tröndlin for Romantics
by Marvin J. Ward
For his third appearance on the Frederick Collection’s Historical Piano Concerts Series, Constantine Finehouse chose the collection’s ca. 1830 Tröndlin, in works by Schumann, Chopin, and Beethoven that well showed off the instrument. Finehouse played the entire program from memory and rewarded the audience with an encore of an entirely different sort: Russian. (He was born in St. Petersburg.) [continued]
April 23, 2012
Ashkenazy, EUYO Over the Summit
by John Ehrlich
The Celebrity Series of Boston brought a powerhouse ensemble of youthful performers aged 14 to 24 to Symphony Hall Friday April 20th, and those present were witnesses to amazing feats of virtuosity. On the podium was the famous pianist Vladimir Ashkenazy. The Franz Liszt Piano Concerto No. 2 in A was played with power, panache and clear-headed virtuosity by Yefim Bronfman. [continued]
Those Amazing Mendelssohns
by Liane Curtis
Is the music of Fanny Hensel (née Mendelssohn, 1805-1847) finally gaining its rightful place? It might seem that her time has come, to look at the programming that took place this weekend. The Boston Classical Orchestra featured her Overture on a program at Faneuil Hall on April 21st with two works by her brother Felix, and the Claremont Trio was performing her piano trio in a sold-out concert on Sunday at the Gardner Museum’s Calderwood Hall. [continued]
Harmonic Framework in Heller’s Bach & Brahms
by Jan Walker
Fifty souls gathered Saturday night at First Parish Church Lexington to hear a somewhat informal, thoughtful piano recital of Bach and Brahms presented by Diran Heller, piano teacher, church musician, and accompanist in and around Boston, who undertook an ambitious recital program of five preludes and fugues from both books of the Well Tempered Clavier and the eight Klavierstücke of Brahms. [continued]
Comments Off
April 22, 2012
Pro Musicis Winner Staupe at Longy
by Andrew Sammut
Last night Pro Musicis presented one of its 2011 International Award winners, Andrew Staupe, at Longy’s Edward M. Pickman Concert Hall. In a recital that spanned the Baroque to the present day, the young pianist displayed some unevenness during the first half of the program, but overall offered an expressive Boston debut. [continued]
Comments Off
New and Old from BSO Brass Quintet
by Lyle Davidson
Special moments were plentiful on Friday evening at the Shalin Liu Performance Center as the BSO Brass Quintet, now in residence at Boston University, offered a program nicely balanced with music old (Farnby) and new (Ivan Jevtic), plus Bernstein and Schuller. The evening was filled with well-chosen selections, virtuoso musicianship, warm camaraderie, and moments of laugh-out-loud humor. [continued]
Comments Off
Exsultemus Features Eton Choirbook
by Virginia Newes
A spectacular six-voice Stabat Mater by the little-known composer John Browne was featured in a program of music from early Tudor England performed by singers from Exsultemus at Christ Church, Cambridge, on April 16th. The remainder of the program was devoted to works on English texts, decidedly less compositionally ambitious than the rarified polyphony of the Eton Choirbook. [continued]
Comments Off