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The Dragon of Wantley Breathed Comic Fire

The BEMF Chamber Orchestra and a small vocal ensemble shared an essentially faultless performance of Jonathan Lampe’s comic opera The Dragon Of Wantley at Jordan Hall last Sunday. Available online from December 9th through December 23rd HERE [continued]
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H+H Bestows Blessings

Amazingly, this musician [moi] had lived in Boston for 48 years before hearing Handel’s Messiah live. The renowned Handel and Haydn Society’s enduringly popular annual transversal rewarded the wait. [continued]
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Armenian National Orchestra Plays for Its People

A nattily dressed, largely Armenian crowd gathered Tuesday night at Symphony Hall for an extraordinary evening of music and kinship. I almost felt like I was crashing a huge family reunion. [continued]
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Two Firsts and Two Fanfares from BSO

Showers of fanfares rang out Friday afternoon as if to announce what surely could become one of most memorable of subscription concerts…and the sax abides. [continued]
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Another Concord Milestone

With wonderful hesitations, taffy-pulling,  short-runway take-offs, and a poetically engaged manner,  the Hermitage Trio fittingly concluded the Concord Chamber Music Society’s long run at  Concord Academy last Sunday. [continued]
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A Spectrum of Discoveries

The Spectrum Singers dished out the earliest Christmas program I’ve ever encountered on Saturday at First Church, Cambridge. As has been his practice for the last 45 years with the group, conductor John Ehrlich chose mostly short familiar and unusual pieces spanning the 16th century to the present. Even longtime choral connoisseurs could take pleasure in this Spectrum of discoveries. [continued]
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BPO Memorializes Roz Zander

Friday night’s Boston Philharmonic Orchestra performance of Britten, Bartok, and Shostakovich at Symphony Hall was a deeply personal one for conductor Benjamin Zander. [continued]
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Eliot Inspired Awadagin Pratt and A Far Cry

A Far Cry’s intensely thematic  “Four Quartets” took flight from the namesake poem of T.S. Eliot at Jordan Hall last Friday night. Awadagin Pratt participated as pianist and commissioner and Beethoven did his thing in wonderfully amplified quartet movements. [continued]
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Cappella Clausura Offer Fine Amalgam

Cappella Clausura interspersed choral selections from Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel and Clara Schumann among the12 solo-piano character pieces the constitute Hensel’s Das Jahr. Lois Shapiro performed it on Saturday night at Unitarian Universalist Church in Newton. [continued]
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Adès and Gerstein Celebrate Ligeti’s Centennial

The productive collaboration between Adès and  Gerstein and challenging programming made for an exciting  BSO concert last night. [continued]
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Rameau to Hammerklavier: Seatbelts Mandatory

Daniil Trifonov exceeded lofty expectations for his Celebrity Series  solo recital fast night at Symphony Hall, in a welcome milestone in Boston’s appreciation of the mighty virtuoso. [continued]
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Collage Held Forth at Killian Hall

Sunday night’s Collage New Music concert added two newcomers to the usual Pierrot ensemble plus percussion. [continued]
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The Stars Aligned at BoCo

Chabrier’s L’Etoile floated like a giggle of butterflies at the BoCo Theater over the weekend, but not without sensual stimulation and satirical sting. [continued]
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Lorelei, Christensen in Ligeti 100

The 15th and 20th centuries touched to celebrate György Ligeti with Lorelei Ensemble under Director Beth Willer and organist Heinrich Christensen jointly presented at St. Cecilia Roman Catholic Church in Boston on Sunday. [continued]
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A Graduate Recital at Tufts

Ronja Mokráňová, finishing a Master of Arts in music at Tufts University, gave an audience of about 50 in Distler Auditorium on Saturday night, a colorful sampling of her recent compositions, including vignettes for solo piano, and a major work for violin and piano. [continued]
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Hommage à Andras Schiff

Introducing selections from the stage, Andras Schiff acted as an engaging tour guide, music historian, and raconteur as well as pianist. His conversation with an alert and receptive crowd added much to the value of his Celebrity Series Recital at Jordan Hall last night. [continued]
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BSO Does Modern First Half

Hannu Lintu showed his skill as a conductor most strikingly in his able control of Peter Lieberson’s Drala and his carefully reserved support in the Alban Berg Violin Concerto (with Leonidas Kavakos), and the Schumann Fourth certainly got a rousing performance. [continued]
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Cinderella Without Perrault’s Pumpkin

Even with the intriguing updates, anyone familiar with the story could make sense of Boston Lyric Opera’s version of Rossini’s La Cenerentola (Cinderella) in the appealing new production at the Emerson Cutler Majestic Theater on Wednesday (and through Sunday). [continued]
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BSO Last Week Take Two

Boston Symphony Orchestra debuts of German conductor Joana Mallwitz and Russian pianist Anna Vinnitskaya rewarded a near-full Symphony Hall on Saturday night packed with a strikingly large proportion of young adults. [continued]
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Zander & BPYO Elevate Wagner, Hindemith, and Brahms

Boston Philharmonic Youth Orchestra’s Symphony Hall outing last Sunday found the players in exuberant and expressive top form. [continued]
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Liturgies of the Living and the Dead

Zachary Wadsworth’s haunting Faces of the Past premiered vividly alongside Duruflé’s contemplative Requiem. Among the hallowed trappings of Newbury Street’s Church of the Covenant, the Cantata Singers showed masterful virtuosity and expressivity through the conducting of music director Noah Horn last Sunday. [continued]
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The Last Transcendentalist

Bill Faucett’s delightful, sober, and beautifully researched “John Sullivan Dwight: The Life and Writings of Boston’s Musical Transcendentalist” has the merit of a good portrait. The subject comes vividly to life through careful contextualization but is not reduced to context or explained by context. The more we gaze, the more we are struck by the sitter’s personal idiosyncrasy and free agency. Take, for example, the portrait of the composer Christoph Willibald Gluck by Duplessis, painted in Paris in 1775, a copy of which hung in Dwight’s living room in the late years of his life. Gluck is firmly located in time and space by his clothes and harpsichord, but he gazes freely upward to heaven in a moment of timeless inspiration. Gluck’s soul seems to transcend circumstances, irreducibly personal and noumenal. Faucett does something analogous with John Sullivan Dwight. He provides abundant details that anchor Dwight solidly in his generation and in XIXth -century Boston, but he emphasizes the transcendent spirit that inspired him to act and the moral sense that guided him.

Like Duplessis with Gluck, Faucett coaxes Dwight to reveal himself. Consequently, we have a rich, full-bodied human story that grabs our attention without dulling our interest. Dwight’s very real importance as a key player in shaping the culture of classical music in Boston for a brief but decisive time frames Faucett’s narrative, but never overshadows the deeper story of a fellow human being grappling with life and death, beauty and meaning, passion and finitude. Mon semblable, mon frère – not in turpitude and guilt, as Baudelaire meant it, where we find a sort of perverse safety, but in spiritual yearning and idealism, where we are vertiginously exposed, vulnerable. “I simply preached the faith that was in me” Dwight declared. Faucett paints Dwight for us as uniquely combining self-drive and modesty — driven equally by his uncompromising love of music and distaste for all that dazzles without enlightening. The fact that so few of us know his name and must discover his ideas from scratch is subtly part and parcel of who he was. [continued]

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David Del Tredici, 1937-2023

A uniquely gifted American composer, David Del Tredici left us some remarkably rich music. “An experimentalist who leaned into New Romanticism,” an NY Times sidebar reads, referring to the frank and unabashed tonal lyricism of several of his works inspired by Lewis Carroll. He was the first West Coast composer I ever knew in person, a California native who had started out as a concert pianist. [continued]

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Saxophone Highlights Next BSO Concerts

Adolphus Sax

In the usually very popular post-thanksgiving subscriptions concerts (Friday afternoon and Saturday night), an instrument more associated with big bands takes pride of place on the Symphony Hall stage as BSO Assistant Conductor Earl Lee leads the sultry, atmospheric 1949 Saxophone Concerto by French composer Henri Tomasi; as soloist Steven Banks makes his BSO debut. The show opens with a very French symphonic poem, César Franck’s Le Chasseur maudit — “The Cursed Hunter” —based on a ballad about a man who commits the grave sin of hunting on the Sabbath and is doomed to be chased eternally by demons. The closer, Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4, opens with the famous “fate” motif, before composer’s great gift for beautiful melody sweetens it. Tickets HERE. Our brief discussion with Earl Lee follows.

FLE: Franck’s Le Chasseur maudit (Accursed Huntsman) surprisingly isn’t actually a BSO rarity. Starting with Gericke in 1901, it was done every ten years or so up through Monteux in 1920. Since then it’s been revived every 20-30 years or so. What accounts for its minor durability among the Franck symphonic poems? [continued]

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In Memory: John Heiss

Words cannot do justice to the long-time NEC composer-flautist-teacher-conductor-theorist-historian who died last July. The breadth of his experience and career far outweighs what I can put into words, even as someone who had the luxury of being so closely involved in his orbit. It is fitting, then, that New England Conservatory will be hosting a memorial concert for him on October 23rd, 2023, what would have been his 85th birthday, at 4 PM in Jordan Hall. Among the speeches, many of his works will be performed, including the poignant Serenade for flute and harp that he composed after the death of his beloved wife Arlene and several songs from his cycle Five Songs from James Joyce for mezzo-soprano, flute, clarinet, violin, cello, and piano (of which I will be conducting). His other composer interests, Ives, Schoenberg, and Stravinsky will be well-represented, too, along with other pieces of note that Mr. Heiss commented on at length at different times. This event promises to be NEC’s proper moving tribute to one of the most important and highly regarded professors to have ever graced the hall of Jordan Hall building. I am forever grateful, John Heiss. Know that, wherever you are. [continued]

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Will You Be There?

Early American music has been a part of The Boston Camerata’s repertoire since the beginning of its recording history. It is with a vivid interest and joy that we have, over the years, included our own North American musical heritage in our concerts and recordings. A recent Harmonia Mundi recording, Free America! Songs of Resistance and Rebellion, appeared in 2019. We’ll Be There, their newest Americana program, featuring Black- and White- American spirituals from 1800-1900, comes to Trinity Church in Copley Square on October 21st at 5:00 and to the Twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury on October 22nd at 4:00. Information and tickets HERE.

We’ll Be There moves chronologically and focuses most intensely on the African American presence in the repertoire. The rewards of such work are great, but the challenges are mighty. Because of terrible social inequities and injustices, early written musical sources of Black songs, prior to the choir arrangements of the late 19th century, are far too few. Thus the few precious written songbooks, as well as the collaborative memory and ongoing oral tradition of the Black community provided sources of some of the deepest regenerative forces in American musical life.  A program essay follows. [continued]

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Since 1815 Handel Has Delivered for H+H

Jonathan Cohen launches his first season as Handel and Haydn Artistic Director with Handel’s epic Israel in Egypt at Symphony Hall on October 6th and 8th Tickets HERE. We asked Cohen some questions such as “Why is this night different from all other nights?”

JC: The opening night of the season is a very special one for me as it is my first concert in my new capacity as Artistic Director of H+H. I chose this wonderful piece for several reasons; first the music is extraordinary, monumental Handel with double chorus and a colourful orchestral tapestry; second, we get to showcase our extraordinary home talent and can celebrate the wonderful strengths of the musicians and singers of H+H; third, Israel in Egypt (and Messiah) was highly likely heard in London by Haydn and served (in my opinion) as Haydn’s inspiration for his choral compositions, especially The Creation. Israel in Egypt is therefore a symbolic piece in the connection between Handel and Haydn. [continued]

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Gravity Waves and Curveballs: Sherman Remembered

Gravity abhors straight lines
Gravity abhors straight lines

We reprint our well-remembered 2016 feature and interview with Russell Sherman. He died last night at 93.

Russell Sherman’s eagerly awaited annual faculty recital on April 3rd at Jordan Hall will feature works long connected with him: Schoenberg’s Three Pieces for Piano, Op. 11, Beethoven’s Sonata for Piano  No. 21 in C Major, Op. 53 “Waldstein”, Debussy’s Préludes, Book 2, and  Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes (12) for Piano, S 139, No. 2 in A Minor: Molto vivace, No. 9 in A-flat Major “Ricordanza”, No. 10 in F Minor: Allegro agitato molto. He tells us he plays them differently each time. He can also imitate other famous pianists. He has lots to say in a free-form interview which follows the break. Youngish concertgoers and musicians who are not yet old will find it very difficult to imagine either the sea change that took place in the classical music environment in mid-1960s Boston, or the elevation of informed discourses thereon. The reason was the arrivals of accomplished musicologist Michael Steinberg at the Globe, then the working hornist, educator, and composer Gunther Schuller, who, as NEC president, engaged the serious piano prodigy (and Edward Steuermann student) Russell Sherman. Along with Brendel, Rosen, Kovacevich and a few others, Sherman opened our ears, hearts, and minds to fresh hearings of familiar classics, as well as to much new music. Soon after Sherman arrived, Steinberg wrote of his performance of the Beethoven Piano Concerto No. 5: [continued]

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Russell Sherman: 1930 – 2023

Russell Sherman died last night at 93. He was the piano guru of the Boston area for over 55 years, having arrived during that revolutionary decade which saw the comings of Gunther Schuller, Michael Steinberg, Victor Rosenbaum, Thomas Dunn, and others. Sherman’s playing at the time — he had been a prodigy long before, and had read literary criticism as a Columbia student age 15 — was grounded in strong, fearless, colorful technique and interpretation alike, his rangy imagination informed by great score fealty. Please also read our reprint of a fascinating interview with Russell Sherman from 2016 HERE.

Fortunately or unfortunately, Sherman became labeled a thinking man’s pianist, although never showing the sometime gray fussiness of Alfred Brendel or the sometime colorless drabness of Charles Rosen, his similar contemporaries. (I once arranged for the latter and Sherman to have dinner, after which Rosen opined, typically, “He is an extremely interesting pianist and musician not of the top tier.” To which Michael Steinberg retorted, “Ha, exactly as is Charles. Well, to have been a fly on that wall.”) [continued]

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Monkey, A Kung Fu Puppet Parable Previewed

“The family friendly transmedia opera combining Bunraku puppetry, computer generated images, and live opera. MONKEY is based on the Chinese quest saga, “Journey to the West,” rewritten to reflect contemporary issues from the multicultural mosaic of American life. Besides the two fundamental operatic elements of text and music, the three main characters — Monkey, Pig (Zhu), and Sandwoman (Sha) — are life sized Bunraku puppets. MONKEY delves into the world of computer generated technology through the use of CGI environs and avatars. Live singers on stage will be the voices of the puppets and avatars.” Continues tonight and tomorrow afternoon at the Emerson Paramount Center. Kathy Wittman’s rehearsal pictures appear below the break.  Tickets HERE. Our review is HERE. [continued]

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Just Arrived on the Shelves

“Robert Craft: The Complete Columbia Album Collection,” a handsomely produced set of 44 CDs issued by Sony Classical, includes a 123-page accompanying booklet beginning with my six-page essay, “A Tireless Worker for the Music of Our Time,” along with photographs and a comprehensive listing of performers and recording data. You can get the whole thing HERE for $5.45 per disc.

Much of this set brings back to an eager audience a recorded legacy of historic importance. It reissues on remastered CDs what many of us have still treasured in our collections of vinyl LPs for many decades, beginning with the pathbreaking four-LP set of the complete works of Anton Webern, opp. 1-31. Many of these pieces were known for years, but previously unrecorded, and in some cases unpublished in score. The legend is that all of Webern’s works for orchestra, from the Passacaglia, op. 1, through the Six Pieces, op. 6, to the final Cantatas opp. 29 and 31, were recorded in just two hours of leftover time from Stravinsky recording sessions. Webern’s many songs (opp. 3, 4, 8, 12-19, 23, and 25) were divvied up by sopranos Grace-Lynne Martin and Marni Nixon* (suppressed as and later famous as the singing voices of Audrey Hepburn, Deborah Kerr, Natalie Wood, Jeanne Crain and Marilyn Monroe), whose pitch accuracy Craft once described as “better than violin.” Another essential part of the Webern legend is that Craft’s four-LP set was the best-selling multiple-disc classical album ever, though it hardly seemed credible even in the early 1960s, when I heard the story from Milton Babbitt. [continued]