436 stories by "Jonathan Blumhofer"
Three new classical music albums: two are superior, one is a bit of a mixed bag.
My snoring neighbor left during intermission (he was roused a bit when the musical vigor picked up in the finale of the Mozart).
The upcoming season, as you will see (or may already know), is a remarkably robust one in terms of the variety of offerings and the quality (and number) of participating ensembles.
And yet, for all the violence of his youthful polemics and his unflinchingly-held beliefs, Pierre Boulez was neither demagogue nor ideologue.
Beethoven's Mass in C is the highlight. Would that the San Francisco Symphony's performance of the Third Concerto had more electricity.
Kurt Masur leaves behind a complex legacy, one that's not neatly (or easily) summed up by the caricature of a stern, conservative, Old World German maestro.
This is truly exciting, world-beating Beethoven, played with gusto and a kind of musical intelligence that you simply can't take for granted.
Of course, it's a tricky business to summarize a classical music scene as busy and wide as Boston's.
For classical music recordings it has been a remarkably rich year, especially over its second half.
Andris Nelsons possesses a clear fondness for Slavic music and his Tchaikovsky performances in Boston have become can't-miss events.
As a composer, Gunther Schuller's legacy is complex and has yet to be settled. Sorting through it all will constitute a great, welcome adventure.
Andris Nelsons drew playing from the BSO that reveled in Alban Berg's sense of color and musical drama.
The biggest takeaway from the evening was the superb quality of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra's playing.
If you like good, smart singing, tenor Jonas Kaufmann's Nessun Dorma:The Puccini Album disc is for you.
By any measure, this is an impressive orchestra, as technically accomplished as any number of professional ensembles, domestic and international.
Soprano Elizabeth Watts' voice is as clear as crystal in every musical context and texture.
I've rarely heard the Boston Symphony Orchestra playing with greater color, pliancy, or controlled energy as they delivered on Saturday night.
James MacMillan is one of the few contemporary composers who has embraced elements of the avant-garde and still found a wide audience.
Michael Lewin's new album must surely rank among the most poetic and sensitive Debussy recordings of recent memory.
The truth is that the music of this most politically aware and morally astute of composers needs " and deserves " much wider currency.
Night Ferry
The BSO has had a well-deserved couple of weeks off following their late-summer tour of Europe and, on Thursday, they took some time to regain their sea-legs.
It's one of the enduring ironies of classical music that so much of today's repertoire was written by such a small number of people..
Even if it's a mite inconsistent, Anthracite Fields is a fully deserving Pulitzer winner.
Just about anything Isabelle Faust touches these days is gold " she's one of the finest violinists out there
