Reviews

November 17, 2018

Machover Imagines Beautiful Mountain

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Tod Machover’s Schoenberg in Hollywood teleported us from the Emerson Paramount into the composer’s mind, Thursday night, showing his struggle to find creative meaning in the wake of brutal and personal loss. The Boston Lyric Opera run concludes Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.    [continued]

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November 16, 2018

All-Stars: Nelsons, BSO, Gruber, Mahler

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With Andris Nelsons playing his original instrument (in the company of trumpet soloist, Håkan Hardenberger), this weekend’s Austrian BSO show pairs Mahler’s Fifth Symphony with HK Gruber’s 1999 trumpet concerto Aerial, which made a strong bid to be the highlight of the BSO’s season.    [continued]

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Showcasing Guitar Music from Japan

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At his November 3rd concert at the First Lutheran Church of Boston, Japanese classical guitar virtuoso Kazuhito Yamashita offered music by composers from his homeland.    [continued]

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November 12, 2018

Joy Alloyed With Sadness

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In Back Bay Chorale’s season opener, “Caroline Shaw: Seven Joys,” at Emmanuel Church Saturday night, the namesake composition along with six other works inspired mostly quiet contemplation on the meanings of joy.    [continued]

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Reveling With Astonishing Clarity

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Heroic Beethoven and sublime Schubert thrilled at the Handel and Haydn Society’s season-opening weekend at Symphony Hall, where British conductor Richard Egarr led the period instrument orchestra and fortepianist Robert Levin.    [continued]

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November 11, 2018

Russian Themes Course Through Fenway

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The Lydian Quartet treated last night’s delighted Seully Hall audience to two important 20th Century Russian works along with Beethoven’s first Razumovsky.    [continued]

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BCC Sings in Nine Languages

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Alternating Native North American and Bantu languages with Slovenian and even English, the Boston Children’s Chorus returned to the Gardner Museum Saturday with “CHOREGIE, theater of voices or vocal theater in multi-disciplinary art form.”    [continued]

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November 10, 2018

Gounod/Molière Comedy Delights

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Le Médecin malgré lui (The Doctor in Spite of Himself) appeared on the BU Theater stage last night to rapturous response. Odyssey Opera’s final performance runs on Sunday at 2 pm.    [continued]

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Audubon Choral Premiere Soars

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Jamie Kirsch led CpM, the masterful baritone Sumner Thompson, and a reliable orchestra yesterday evening at Jordan Hall in an emotive debut of James Kallembach’s fresh oratorio.    [continued]

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November 9, 2018

Nelsons Again Shows Shostakovich Mastery

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The BSO continued its focus on the music of northern Europe, this weekend playing the Latvian Andris Dzenītis’s Māra, Shostakovich’s First Symphony, and a BSO rarity, the second act of Nutcracker.    [continued]

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November 8, 2018

Britten Mini-Festival Concludes

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Tenor William Hite and the Lydian Quartet highlighted the third installment in Emmanuel Music’s three-part Britten invention.    [continued]

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Berlin’s Soldier Show Rolled Along

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Last weekend American Classics offered Sgt. Irving Berlin’s soldier 1918 show Yip Yip Yaphank in Bedford and Cambridge as part of a season exploring the period of World War I and just after.    [continued]

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November 5, 2018

Armory Hosts New Music

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Peridot Duo and Box Not Found provided a great variety of new works at the Somerville Armory yesterday.    [continued]

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Boston Civic Symphony Invigorates

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Francisco Noya led Jennifer Higdon’s blue cathedral, Hungarian violist Máté Szűcs in Walton’s concerto and a bravura La mer yesterday at Jordan Hall.    [continued]

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November 4, 2018

Betrothal of Bach and Harbison

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The establishment institutions of Bach, the nearly 80-year-old John Harbison, and the 55-year-old Cantatas Singers shared the Jordan Hall stage for a memorable Saturday evening which placed the Boston composer’s Sacred Trilogy (together for the first time) in company with one of the Leipzig master’s Lutheran cantatas.    [continued]

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Divine Seraphim

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Beginning with God Speaks to Each of Us, Gwyneth Walker’s 1999 setting of a poem by Rilke, “Divine Encounters” brought to First Church Cambridge Saturday an atmosphere of excellence, discovery, and beauty that is the hallmark of Seraphim Singers’ concerts.    [continued]

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At Play in the Fields of Time

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A few hours ago, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum presented cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras in recital with the odd-numbered solo Cello Suites by J. S. Bach.    [continued]

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Folksy Goings-Around Via Radius

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Radius Ensemble imbibed folkish ways and hues for Dohnányi, Janáček, and Mazzoli while its Crumb choice focused on the decaying ambit of autumn on Saturday night at Pickman Hall.    [continued]

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Britten’s Pure Admiration for Purcell

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Yesterday’s second concert in the Emmanuel Music’s Britten festival rewarded with the Arneis Quartet’s fine performance of Britt 3 and a dramatic traversal of the Holy Sonnets of John Donne by tenor Charles Blandy and pianist Linda Osborn.    [continued]

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November 3, 2018

Chamber Brittenica

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Emmanuel Music kicked off its Benjamin Britten tribute series in reliable style Friday evening. Continuing Saturday and Sunday at 3:00.    [continued]

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Pianist Shares Schubert’s Hidden Meanings

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Charles Fisk’s all-Schubert piano recital last night in Houghton Memorial Chapel revealed a deep and sympathetic grasp of the emotional structure beyond the works’ simple outlines.    [continued]

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A Hallows’ Eve in Jordan Hall

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A capacity crowd at Jordan Hall on All Hallows’ Eve witnessed NEC Philharmonia, under Hugh Wolff  finding connections to Bernstein and transcendental, spiritual subtexts in Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Helix (2005) and Mahler’s epic Fifth Symphony.    [continued]

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November 2, 2018

Nelsons Shows English Affinities

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The BSO’s London-themed and soloist-free subscription concert also found celebratory connections in works of Haydn, Turnage, and Elgar.    [continued]

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November 1, 2018

Neverendingly Currying Fauvel

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Boston Camerata’s outing of Fauvel’s tale on Sunday afternoon at the First Church in Boston reminded us that avarice is everywhere; four other musical numbers described bad kings and bishops.    [continued]

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October 31, 2018

On Fourth Try, Church Gets Right Organ

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Organist Ken Cowan helped welcome the distinguished new Schoenstein & Company’s Opus 172 at the Church of the Redeemer, Chestnut Hill to the ranks of the already numerous fine instruments in our midst, masterfully displaying the instrument’s impressive range of colors and dynamics as well as his own ease in multiple styles and periods.    [continued]

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