a virtual journal and essential blog of the classical music scene in greater Boston
Lee Eiseman, publisher; Robert Levin, advisor; David Moran, assisting editor; Bettina A. Norton, emerita editor
Reviews
February 22, 2019
Opera Institute Plumbs Kitchen-Sink Verismo
by Lee Eiseman
For the rest of this weekend, BU’s Booth Theater will host family dysfunction at its most base in Stephen King’s Dolores Claiborne à la Tobias Picker. [continued]
February 19, 2019
Beethoven Propelled
by David Moran
Beethoven, Benjamin Zander, Robert Levin, and the Boston Philharmonic joined forces Saturday night at Jordan Hall for propulsive takes on familiar middle-period masterworks. [continued]
February 18, 2019
Gluck Tells Superb Tale of Seduction
by Steven Ledbetter
Odyssey Opera and its ever-curious conductor Gil Rose brought the inspiring Helen to Boston again last weekend. BMInt’s second take follows. [continued]
Gardner Breaks New Staging Ground
by David Patterson
Guest curator Helga Davis invited relaxed young women in street clothes to take the Gardner Museum well beyond Sunday afternoon expectations. In “The City of Women,” she presided over a comfortable, welcoming community. [continued]
February 17, 2019
Love’s Labored Lauds
by CJ Ru
Odyssey Opera claimed the Boston premiere laurels for Gluck’s Paride ed Elena at the Huntington Avenue Theater Friday night. The Gil Rose-conducted and Crystal Manich-directed show repeats on Sunday afternoon. [continued]
Weilerstein Summits Cello Kilimanjaro
by Julie Ingelfinger
Alisa Weilerstein’s “heroineiac” Celebrity Series traversal of all six Bach Cello Suites in a single span provided both a spectacle and spectacular gift. [continued]
February 15, 2019
Wang Ignites Schumann; Bruckner’s Lights Dimmed
by Jeffrey Gantz
The BSO celebrated Valentine’s Day with a pair of love letters: Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A Minor for his pianist wife Clara, and Bruckner’s unfinished final symphony, dedicated to his “beloved God.” [continued]
February 14, 2019
ACRONYM Restores Republic in Rare Scarlatti Gem
by CJ Ru
Love, mercy, and harmony triumphed over a corrupt, lustful tyrant in ACRONYM’s resuscitation of Alessandro Scarlatti’s La caduta de’ Decemviri (The Fall of the Decemvirs) a vocally uneven Boston debut at the ISGM Sunday. [continued]
February 12, 2019
On Blue Wings of Polyphony
by Laura Stanfield Prichard
Five rare early English Catholic a cappella votive antiphons from Blue Heron’s Gramophone Classical Music award-winning wowed a capacity crowd on Saturday night in First Church Cambridge. [continued]
February 11, 2019
Collage Moves Souls and Chairs
by Mark DeVoto
A small but receptive audience braved the cold weather for Collage New Music’s second concert of the season at Pickman Hall on Sunday. The evening’s main success belonged to David Rakowski, whose Dream Logic (2017), in seven short movements, revealed itself as the night’s most persuasively mature work. [continued]
Goldberg Derangement Syndrome Continues Apace
by Susan Miron
A Far Cry and pianist Simone Dinnerstein partnered terrifically at Friday at Jordan Hall in their au courant arrangement of BWV 988. [continued]
Confronting Miller’s Daughter in Taproom
by Lee Eiseman
At Aeronaut Brewery of Somerville we shared a heady taste of Frank Kelley and Joshua Rifkin on a soulful musical and poetical journey in Schubert’s Die schöne Müllerin last night. [continued]
Beyond Guitar Music
by Mark Small
The Great Necks Guitar Trio arranged works by Holst, Sibelius, Bach, Scriabin, and Márquez for their three-guitar format at First Lutheran Church on Friday. [continued]
Rewards From European Women Composers
by Julie Ingelfinger
Kudos to Cantata Chamber Series director Allison Voth for the profound and prodigious program of German, French and English songs by women composers which rewarded the listeners at a concert at the AAAS Saturday night. [continued]
February 9, 2019
Risky But Enlightening Program at BSO
by Mark DeVoto
In three works spanning eight decades of the 20th century, Andris Nelsons excited Central European hyper-impressionism, American neoclassicism, and American postwar expressionism to Symphony Hall Friday afternoon. [continued]
Fourteen Paragraphs on Hydrogen
by Brian Schuth
The music of Philip Glass felt agnostic alongside texts by Allen Ginsberg in Boston Conservatory’s Hydrogen Jukebox production at BoCo’s Center stage. The run continues through Sunday. [continued]
February 8, 2019
劉孟捷 鋼琴家 and Friends in Recital
by BMINT STAFF
Graceful chamber-music transcriptions of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 13 in C Major (K. 415) and 17 in G Major (K. 453) bookended pianist Meng-Chieh Liu’s tour-de force faculty solo recital at Jordan Hall last night. [continued]
February 7, 2019
NEC Composers Shine
by Ian Wiese
NEC composers past and present gave pleasing evidence of the faculty’s continuing innovativeness over a wide breadth of styles in the NEC Composers’ Series’ Arthur Berger Memorial Concert Monday at Jordan Hall. [continued]
February 3, 2019
Viva Defends Earth Under Attack
by David Patterson
Boston Music Viva enacted a virtual Saturday Night Live at Tsai Performance Center as Pittman and his Pierrot ensemble made up of some of Boston’s finest musicians took on the Patriot Act, NEA, the environment, and the moon. [continued]
Playful Gaiety Meets ¿Churlish Critique?
by CJ Ru
Lovers of the lower register flocked to Jordan Hall on Friday for a Celebrity Series winter warmer cheekily titled “No Tenors Allowed,” with baritone Thomas Hampson and bass-baritone Luca Pisaroni. [continued]
February 2, 2019
From Ashes to Comeuppance at Agassiz
by Mark DeVoto
Harvard College Opera’s glowing production Jules Massenet’s Cendrillon came across as a practical but satisfying take on a durable French repertory number; the run continues through February 10th at the Agassiz Theater. [continued]
February 1, 2019
Rachlin, Mena, BSO Bust the Chart
by David Patterson
The 43-year old Lithuanian-born Julian Rachlin, standing at 83rd among “The World’s Greatest Violinists,” should certainly rise in ranking after his appearance Thursday evening at Symphony Hall. Conductor Juanjo Mena’s organic approach lead to sound-structure substance. [continued]
January 30, 2019
H+H Does Right by Namesake Composer
by Susan Miron
Handel and Haydn Society’s Sunday afternoon concert at Symphony Hall had Harry Christophers leading a symphony and mass of Haydn, and a Mozart violin concerto with the enthusiastic Aisslinn Nosky; we very much enjoyed hearing three new superb principal players. [continued]
January 27, 2019
Huang Teamwork in the Highest
by Lee Eiseman
Saturday evening at Jordan violinist Paul Huang and pianist Helen Huang showed how it’s done, in every possible respect. [continued]
January 26, 2019
Heggie on AIDS’ Specter
by Laura Stanfield Prichard
Jake Heggie’s intimate chamber opera Three Decembers opened Friday night to an enthusiastic crowd at Boston Playwright’s Theater, where it runs through Sunday in a moving production has been developed by director Sharon Daniels for t.b.d. opera projects. [continued]