Too rarely are true oddities mixed into the standard fare that characterize a “classical orchestra.” In the case of the Boston Classical Orchestra’s latest offering, on November 23, the mix was impressively odd —starting with the serpent. Gordon Bowie ‘s Old Dances in New Shoes for serpent and strings was billed as a neo-Baroque suite, but had more often the flavor of a set from the 1930s Dance-band Era. Anachronism continued after the intermission when Yeo returned to show off an early 19th-century brass instrument called the ophicleide in an aria from G.F. Handel’s early 18th-century masque Acis and Galatea. The concert opened with the three-movement Symphony No. 10 by F.J. Haydn. It seemed, however, that music director Steven Lipsitt decided to smooth out most of the musical dips and turns in favor of a general “gallantness” that at times sold the music short. This issue became even more apparent in the work that closed the concert, W.A. Mozart’s Symphony No. 29. In addition to the programmed works, the audience was treated to two unexpected gems: a cleverly written fugue by Lipsitt on the initials H.E.D. (for BCO founder Harry Ellis Dickson); and an arrangement of “Brother, Can you Spare a Dime?” for clarinet (played by Lipsitt) and strings, offered as the most convincing fundraising appeal I’ve ever encountered. [Click on title for full review.]

[continued]

How often does one hear a percussion ensemble in concert? Not very often. The NEC Percussion Ensemble, directed by Frank Epstein, first percussionist of the Boston Symphony, gave a fine demonstration of rich possibilities on Sunday night, November 16.

Sunday’s program led off with the slow movement of Saint-Saëns’s Third (“Organ”) Symphony – abbreviated by about two-thirds – played on five marimbas, alto, tenor and bass, by eight players. All that warbling tremolo aside, the sound achieved some fine depth,… My own contribution was of the third piece from Debussy’s En blanc et noir for two pianos, which I arranged for six mallet instruments – glockenspiel, xylophone, vibraphone, marimba, bass marimba, and tubular bells. I was delighted with the performance but after hearing it would want to make some changes, which shows at least how this composer has more to learn about percussion. A new piece by Joan Huang followed, Orphan San Mao, composed last year for solo violin with four percussionists variously playing mallet instruments and drums, augmented by toys and sound effects. A palette of unorthodox objects is employed, such as chopsticks, porcelain plates, steel bowls, bottles, automobile horns and police whistle.” Fred Lerdahl’s The First Voices, a recent commission, was the heavyweight piece on the program, one in which different kinds of drums — bongos, conga drums, tenor drums, tomtoms, tambourines, bass drums — were most prominently featured. [Click on title for full review] [continued]

How often does one hear a percussion ensemble in concert? Not very often. The NEC Percussion Ensemble, directed by Frank Epstein, first percussionist of the Boston Symphony, gave a fine demonstration of rich possibilities on Sunday night, November 16.

Sunday’s program led off with the slow movement of Saint-Saëns’s Third (“Organ”) Symphony – abbreviated by about two-thirds – played on five marimbas, alto, tenor and bass, by eight players. All that warbling tremolo aside, the sound achieved some fine depth,… My own contribution was of the third piece from Debussy’s En blanc et noir for two pianos, which I arranged for six mallet instruments – glockenspiel, xylophone, vibraphone, marimba, bass marimba, and tubular bells. I was delighted with the performance but after hearing it would want to make some changes, which shows at least how this composer has more to learn about percussion. A new piece by Joan Huang followed, Orphan San Mao, composed last year for solo violin with four percussionists variously playing mallet instruments and drums, augmented by toys and sound effects. A palette of unorthodox objects is employed, such as chopsticks, porcelain plates, steel bowls, bottles, automobile horns and police whistle.” Fred Lerdahl’s The First Voices, a recent commission, was the heavyweight piece on the program, one in which different kinds of drums — bongos, conga drums, tenor drums, tomtoms, tambourines, bass drums — were most prominently featured. [Click on title for full review] [continued]

The experience with Takács Quartet, Muzsikás, Sebestyén, and Bartók was long overdue. Not a graduate seminar by any means, their program led to summits of discovery through the act of showing rather than telling—as Bartók well might have had it. One of the earliest folk music archivists as well as one of the most original composers of the 20th century, Béla Bartók considered the folk melodies of his country’s villages as equal to the greatest works of music coming out of the tradition of Bach and Beethoven. For Bartók, folk music is not merely dressed up in art music; rather, the two breeds bond in a new, distinct voice to capture, on a very real and personal level, the feelings, atmospheres, and rituals of Hungarian life, those of the peasant in particular, the pure, which so appealed to him. [Click on title for full review] [continued]

The scheduled reviewer for the Radius Ensemble concert on Nov. 15 was unable to attend, at the last minute, but the concert was too good to leave unmentioned. So your editor, who was there, is tackling it. The program, which seems to be standard for Radius Ensemble, contained both earlier (18th- to 20th-century) and contemporary pieces. Listening to a performance of this quality testifies to the wisdom of a site like The Boston Musical Intelligencer. With it, the classical-music public can learn more about the superb musician pool we have in greater Boston and, it is hoped, be inspired to attend future concerts by them. [Click on title for full review] [continued]

Elliot Schwartz’s Chamber Concerto VI: Mr. Jefferson was filled with quotes of Revolutionary War marches and classical pieces from Jefferson’s personal collection. Most of these references, however, were too overt to be effective, so the result was less like creative integration and more like a game of “name that tune.”

And then there was a blood-curdling scream. Ken Ueno’s Talus, featuring violist Wendy Richman, received a few laughs after its over-the-top, horror-flick beginning but quickly demanded complete silence as the piece slowly unfolded from pitch-less textures to rich atmospheres of complex and beautiful sounds.

It would be safe to assume Erickson would have been nothing short of thrilled with Popper-Keizer’s performance of Robert Erikson’s Fantasy for Cello and Orchestra. Boykan’s Concerto remained engaging from beginning to end. But the Shoenberg Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra was generally disappointing. [Click on title for full review.]

[continued]

Despite a dubious use of the word “contemporary” (the newest piece dated from 1972), the recent program at the Goethe-Institut on November 13 was a stimulating presentation of underplayed repertoire. Surprising as it may sound, Floyd’s piece was the truly the most peculiar on the program. The passage of time has placed us in a world where Webern sounds like Schubert and avant-garde shock tactics are met with delight. Who in their right mind today would set out to write an extended soliloquy on the hardships of being Queen? [Click on title for full review] [continued]

The voices were glorious, the sets and costumes sumptuous, the choreography in perfect step with the action and the music, and the stage direction finely balanced between the comic and the serious. The opera has undergone a number of transformations. Stage director and choreographer Renaud Doucet, set and costume designer André Barbe, and conductor Keith Lockhart freely based their current production on the fine edition of Michael Kaye and Jean-Christophe Keck, with the goal of remaining as faithful as possible to Offenbach’s original intentions. [Click on title for full review] [continued]

Camerata’s most recent concert, “Land of Pure Delight: In Search of the American Soul” plumbed the depths of repertoire rarely heard in a full concert. Consistency was a hallmark of the program, and if it was sometimes difficult to follow the program and text, the charm, simplicity and excellent contrasts made it more than interesting and engaging at every moment. [Click on title for full review]
[continued]

We were fortunate to hear some of Haydn’s best movements for string quartet, as well as equally good ones by Beethoven and Mendelssohn, performed by the Tokyo String Quartet at Jordan Hall on November 1. In opus 76, no. 1, we find Haydn in full command of his genius and abilities, and the Tokyo String Quartet rose to the occasion. The quartet’s performance of the Beethoven was energetic and powerful, although a bit too straight-ahead for my tastes. The program concluded with a spirited performance of Mendelssohn’s String Quartet in D major, op. 44, no. 1, written in 1838. [Click on title for full review] [continued]

A three-day conference at Harvard on any subject is bound to be a fruitful occasion, unless, perhaps, the subject is economics. The one just concluded, CrossCurrents: American and European Music in Interaction, 1900-2000, Part 1 (1900-1950), on October 30 through November 1, was one of the best within recent memory. The exilic theme carried over into the two evening concerts. Thursday evening featured a fine saturation of two pianos, with a special premiere, Teletalks by American-French composer Betsy Jolas, who was jointly commissioned by the Crosscurrents conference and the Harvard Musical Association. The final event of Crosscurrents was a piano recital by Bruce Brubaker, head of the Piano Department at the New England Conservatory; he was assisted by two Harvard undergraduates, Konrad Binienda and Kenric Tam. [Click on title for full review]

[continued]

Once the diabolus in musica (the devil in music) during the late Middle Ages, the “tritone” takes on an entirely different meaning for the devout Catholic mystic, Messiaen. For him, it is the musical equivalent of the luminous multi-colored stained-glass windows in the great French churches. [Click on title for full review.]

[continued]

Opera Boston opened its season opened at the Cutler Majestic Theatre with Carl Maria von Weber’s Der Freischütz, locally absent for two dozen years. On the last night (October 21) Gil Rose led a rendition musically compelling enough to overlook some orchestral untidiness – though the key instrumental soloists all delivered – and to withstand director Sam Helfrich’s rather smirky staging. [Click on title for full review]

[continued]

Times, tastes, and training have all changed, of course; yet the notion that an orchestra comprising almost entirely underage players would attempt either the “Eroica” Symphony (No. 3) of Ludwig van Beethoven or the Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky is still remarkable. The Boston Youth Symphony under the baton of Federico Cortese chose to present both these pieces on the same program. [Click on title for full review] [continued]

It hardly needs saying, to a Boston audience that knows them so well, that the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra under Benjamin Zander is much more than a simple alternative to the Boston Symphony under James Levine. In 30 years it has proved itself to be a first-rate ensemble worthy of comparison, in discipline and cohesiveness, to any professional orchestra in America…[Click title for full review] [continued]

Will the Mahler revival ever ever end? Fifty years on, the music has become (and stayed) more than just popular: it’s inescapable, so always-with-us, such a cultural “given” that, some will say, that none of us can hear – that is, really hear – his music any more. [Click title for full review] [continued]

Today, concerts more often than not come with program titles which are meant to inform and even pique the curiosity of the concertgoer. The Chameleon Arts Ensemble’s program title, “transcendent music I have heard,” puzzled me. [Click title for full review] [continued]

New Music veteran Boston Musica Viva, in celebration of its 40th anniversary, performed a mix of 20th-century chamber works and two premieres of mini-operas at Boston University’s Tsai Performance Center last Friday evening. [Click title for full review] [continued]

The New England String Ensemble delighted the audience with the first concert of their 15th season’s opening program, featuring Boston’s beloved violinist, Irina Muresanu. Performing string ensemble works by Schubert, Lutoslawski, and Enescu, NESE apparently opted for eclecticism over cohesiveness. [Click on title for full review]

[continued]

Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes represent some of the most technically challenging works in the repertory. It is always an event to hear just a few of them, and a tour-de-force for any pianist to play all in a single evening. Russell Sherman did just that in Jordan Hall last Thursday, and he brought with him his formidable arsenal of fingers and probing musicianship for the occasion. [Click on title for full review] [continued]

The Concord Orchestra, Alan Yost, conductor, plays the Mozart Horn Concerto No. 2, Kathryn Denney soloist; Debussy’s Syrinx for solo flute with Susan Jackson and Sacred and Profane Dances for Harp and String Orchestra with Emily Halpern Lewis; 3 Poems of Mallarmé with soprano Sarah Telford; and Ravel’s Pavane for a Dead Princess. [Click on title for full review] [continued]