90 stories by "David Rohde"
There's no business like show business, but does that include opera? If in a few years people finally agree that opera is genuinely another form of musical theater, it may be because of the …
Lord knows there are a lot of young string quartets out there trying to make an impact on both classical music and the cultural scene generally. They even have their own competitions to try …
Picking through bombastic music to extract the musical message and leave a lingering impression of something other than bombast is a skill to be cherished among pianists on the international…
Something of a high-stakes atmosphere pervades this week's concerts by the National Symphony Orchestra. It's performing an all-Russian program, always a touchstone harking back to the reign …
A huge profusion of classical trios, quartets and quintets is now hunting for audiences around the country. I'll bet all of them would kill to get on one concert series in particular, and I …
Weaving together the strands of a full opera in a concert setting has to be one of the biggest challenges around for presenters and audiences. Over the past year the Washington area has seen…
The Czech Republic is a small country with a big impact on music. It's a good thing they don't just churn out mere virtuosos, of whom the world has plenty. Instead the best of the lot harnes…
Serendipity counts in music as in anything else. A year and a half ago I recommended two outstanding debut albums by artists with local connections. Soprano Danielle Talamantes, a Northern V…
Here's an idea: Let's change the name of Bach's Mass in B Minor to the Mass in D Major. Just because convention calls for a piece to be named after its beginning key doesn't mean that the en…
The Music Room at the Phillips Collection is such a distinctive and up-close venue to hear performers that you can forget how momentous the events there can turn out to be. That may well hav…
Who needs to skip around musical history in a concert? A hundred years ago the musical world was in ferment, with shocking new developments right before and after World War I. The Montreal S…
When Andrew Lloyd Webber recently told a group of teenage rock musicians on Broadway that he wanted to talk about the music of Sergei Prokofiev rather than his own musicals, he was the lates…
The musical imagery of the material presented by Washington's Russian Chamber Art Society is so distinctive that its substantial audiences actually crave the work that goes into listening to…
If there is a spiritual content to music " music by itself, no lyrics, just abstract sound " then many listeners down through history have claimed to hear it in the final works of great comp…
Given a choice between the intellectual and the emotional, most concert-goers, in their heart of hearts, will want to hear something that moves them. They got their wish on Sunday afternoon …
Songs you've never heard of in a foreign language you rarely hear, performed by two artists who started rehearsing them two days earlier. What kind of a formula for success is that? This kin…
They say the show must go on, and a set of unusual circumstances is bringing together two of Washington's most distinctive classical performers this Saturday evening for a special concert at…
The Barber of Seville turns 200 years old in two months. Performing it in English translation works best when it helps show American audiences how similar the elements of effective comedy ar…
Composers wrote great ballet and opera music for two reasons. The first was to help dancers and singers to portray characters and tell their stories. The second was to have the music led in …
The predominance of voice in the operatic tradition usually doesn't change the need for effective staging to put the full point across. Washington Concert Opera showcased at least one except…
Cellist Amit Peled is one of those practitioners of "serious" music who brings a kind of pizzazz that's probably needed in the 21st century world of what's generically dubbed classical mu…
The National Symphony Orchestra is doing one of its best guest conductors, Jiri Belohlavek, mostly proud this week with music from his Czech homeland. In the first of its three concerts this…
The operas of early 19th century master Gioachino Rossini play a big part in the life of The artistic director of Washington Concert Opera is preparing for the company's performance this …
Dreamy music about the memories of childhood and a virtuoso spin through the themes of one of history's greatest operas are the stuff of which great piano recitals are made. But it's a mark …
If you believe that a good way to judge music is on whether it sounds good and moves you, then you have a friend in international concert pianist Olga Kern. The Russian-bred, New York-based …
