Best Recordings of 2012 (#4)

Time for a review of classical CDs that were outstanding in 2012. My lists for the previous years: 2011, (2011 – “Almost”), 2010, (2010 – “Almost”), 2009, (2009 – “Almost”), 2008, (2008 - "Almost") 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004.
# 4 - New Release
F.Schubert, Fanatsie in C, Rondo in b, Sonata in A, Carolin Widmann, Alexander Lonquich, ECM 1648702




Schumann, Fanatsie, Rondo, Sonata
C.Widmann,

Read More

Ionarts-at-Large: HJ Lim, Ken Masur, and Hints of Scriabin

HJ Lim is best known for a marketing blast by EMI, eager to promote the young Korean pianist’s recording of the (almost*) complete Beethoven sonatas which was given away for a tenner on iTunes: An audacious undertaking, accompanied by cringe-worthy high-falutin’ ‘chapter-titles’ into which Lim divided the sonatas. The accompanying essays fluctuate between astute observation and reinforcing the

Read More

Classical Music Agenda (January 2013)

Happy New Year to all of our readers! Now that we have nearly put 2012 in the rear view mirror, it is time to think about the ten concerts we most want to hear in the coming month. Hope to see you at some of these performances!

VIRTUOSOS:
The last Sunday of the month features an impossible pileup of top-notch performers, all of whom we want to hear. Violinist Rachel Barton Pine will perform all

Read More

Ionarts-at-Large: Mahler in Frankfurt

The same Frankfurt Opera & Museum Orchestra—if not the identical personnel—that had performed L’étoile and Pelléas et Mélisande on the Saturday and Sunday before returned on Monday to Frankfurt’s Old Opera—remodeled in the 80s to become a concert house*—for Gustav Mahler’s Third Symphony.

To meet Mahler’s immodest demands on the orchestra, MD Sebastian Weigle picked 22 students from the

Read More

Best Recordings of 2012 (#5)

Time for a review of classical CDs that were outstanding in 2012. My lists for the previous years: 2011, (2011 – “Almost”), 2010, (2010 – “Almost”), 2009, (2009 – “Almost”), 2008, (2008 - "Almost") 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004.
# 5 - New Release
Max Richter / Antonio Vivaldi, Recomposed - The Four Seasons, D.Hope, André de Ridder, Konzerthaus CO, DG 1748602



M.Richter, Recomposed / Four Seasons

Read More

In Brief: Sixth Day of Christmas Edition

Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to online audio, online video, and other good things in Blogville and Beyond. (After clicking to an audio or video stream, press the "Play" button to start the broadcast.) It is a full selection that should divert you all week.


For your extended holiday listening, sacred music by Bach performed by Nikolaus Harnoncourt and Concentus Musicus

Read More

Best Recordings of 2012 (#6)

Time for a review of classical CDs that were outstanding in 2012. My lists for the previous years: 2011, (2011 – “Almost”), 2010, (2010 – “Almost”), 2009, (2009 – “Almost”), 2008, (2008 - "Almost") 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004.
# 6 - New Release
August De Boeck, Piano Concerto, Theroigne De Mericourt Prelude, Francesca Orchestral Suite, Jozef de Beenhouwer, Ivo Venkov, Janácek Ph.O., Phaedra 92071

Read More

Ionarts-at-Large: The Domestication of Pelléas and Mélisande

There they stand like two lonely snowmen: Christiane Karg’s Mélisande and Christian Gerhaher’s Pelléas at the opera’s end, as if they had never done anything else. And in truth, they hadn’t… such is the strangely intoxicating stasis of Debussy’s only opera.

Pelléas et Mélisande glides along at a tranquil pace on the deep black waters of Debussy’s music, an endless instrumental parlando

Read More

Classical Month in Washington (January)

Last month | Next monthClassical Month in Washington is a monthly feature. If there are concerts you would like to see included on our schedule, send your suggestions by e-mail (ionarts at gmail dot com). Happy listening!

January 4, 2013 (Fri)
8 pm
U.S. Navy Band [FREE]
GMU Center for the Arts

January 5, 2013 (Sat)
2 pm
Brian Ganz, piano [FREE mini-concert]
Music by Chopin
JCCGW

January 5,

Read More

Best Recordings of 2012 (#7)

Time for a review of classical CDs that were outstanding in 2012. My lists for the previous years: 2011, (2011 – “Almost”), 2010, (2010 – “Almost”), 2009, (2009 – “Almost”), 2008, (2008 - "Almost") 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004.
# 7 - New Release
Hans Pfitzner, Palestrina, K.Petrenko, Frankfurt Opera & Museum Orchestra and Chorus, Oehms OC 930



Hans Pfitzner, Palestrina
K.Petrenko / Frankfurt Opera &

Read More

Best (and Worst) of 2012

It is time to take stock of the year that was, with a list of the ten best concerts I heard here in the Washington area. These are in no particular order of preference, listed simply in chronological order. A few honorable (and dishonorable) mentions, in various categories, and a remembrance of some of the artists we mourned in 2012 are added at the end. Happy New Year to all our readers!

Read More

Best Recordings of 2012 (#8)

Time for a review of classical CDs that were outstanding in 2012. My lists for the previous years: 2011, (2011 – “Almost”), 2010, (2010 – “Almost”), 2009, (2009 – “Almost”), 2008, (2008 - "Almost") 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004.
# 8 - New Release
L.v.Beethoven & A.Berg, Violin Concertos, Isabelle Faust, Claudio Abbado, Orchestra Mozart, Harmonia Mundi 902105


>
L.v.Beethoven, A.Berg, Violin Concertos,

Read More

Best Recordings of 2012 (#9)

Time for a review of classical CDs that were outstanding in 2012. My lists for the previous years: 2011, (2011 – “Almost”), 2010, (2010 – “Almost”), 2009, (2009 – “Almost”), 2008, (2008 - "Almost") 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004.
# 9 - New Release
A.Diepenbrock, Orchestral Works, Symphonic & Orchestrated Songs, Missa in die festo, et al., Various artists, et'cetera KTC1435



A.Diepenbrock, Collected

Read More

Best Recordings of 2012 (#10)

Time for a review of classical CDs that were outstanding in 2012. My lists for the previous years: 2011, (2011 – “Almost”), 2010, (2010 – “Almost”), 2009, (2009 – “Almost”), 2008, (2008 - "Almost") 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004.
# 10 - New Release
E-P. Salonen, Violin Concerto, Nyx, Leila Josefowicz, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Finnish RSO, DG 1752102



E-P.Salonen, Violin Concerto, Nyx,
L.Josefowicz /

Read More

Merry Christmas 2012: The Lord Said to Me

NEW HEAVEN, NEW WARRE

Come to your heaven, yowe heavenly quires!
Earth hath the heaven of your desires;
Remove your dwellinge to your God,
A stall is nowe His beste abode;
Sith men their homage do denye,
Come, angells, all their faults supply.

His chilling could doth heate require,
Come, seraphins, in liew of fire;
This little ark no cover hath,
Let cherubs' winges his body swath;
Come,

Read More

High Camp With Elegance: Alden’s Fabulously Entertaining L’étoile

Emmanuel Chabrier’s opéra bouffe L'étoile is very light stuff. The music is fluffy enough to make Wodehouse seem somber reading in comparison. But as with Wodehouse, the craftsmanship is audible, the ingredients refined, and the outcome of the kind of pretty sophistication that belies its superficial simplicity.

There’s plenty of dialogue in the opéra bouffe which raises the question of whether

Read More

À mon chevet: Robert Southwell

À mon chevet is a series of posts featuring a quote from whatever book is on my nightstand at the moment.

Benjamin Britten chose poetry by the Elizabethan poet Robert Southwell for two of the movements of his Ceremony of Carols. Heard in a recent performance, Southwell's words have been haunting me for the last few days. His poetry was published posthumously, and he wrote most of it while

Read More

In Brief: Advent IV Edition

Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to online audio, online video, and other good things in Blogville and Beyond. (After clicking to an audio or video stream, press the "Play" button to start the broadcast.)


From the Pesaro Festival, Ewa Podles and Michael Spyres star in Rossini's Ciro in Babilonia, conducted by Will Crutchfield last August. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]

Read More

'Hansel and Gretel'

Sarah Mesko (Hansel) and Emily Albrink (Gretel),
Washington National Opera (photo by Scott Suchman)
When Washington National Opera inaugurated a new family opera tradition with a production of Engelbert Humperdinck's charming opera Hansel and Gretel at the Lincoln Theater in 2007, we were charmed. The tradition, it turned out, took a while to take root, but after a five-year hiatus, the company

Read More

Ionarts-at-Large: A Blend of Riccardo Muti

Riccardo Muti gets bravos just for bowing before the concert. He does it so stylishly, granted. He bows, moves, even stands, certainly conducts with grace, aloof dignity. The crease of his trousers always seems to fall just right. It’s magical. Much like his hair. He’s the master of the gorgeously homogenized blend (vowel interchangeable, on occasion), and creates great nuance within that broad

Read More

'Screwtape Letters' at the Lansburgh

C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (1942)
C. S. Lewis was one of the important Christian apologists of the last century, although criticism has been chipping away at his reputation. His delightful series of Narnia books for young adults is perhaps the most influential example of this side of his work, but he also wrote a number of works that put a modern spin on many facets of Christianity. One

Read More

The M-Word

Charles T. Downey, Rolf Beck leads NSO, soloists in a workmanlike version of Handel’s ‘Messiah’
Washington Post, December 21, 2012


T. F. Kelly, First Nights: Five Musical Premiers (including Messiah) (2001)
Handel’s “Messiah” is a remarkably sturdy piece of music. How many other works could stand up so well to so many years of far too many performances?

The National Symphony Orchestra, for

Read More

Brassy Christmas

Charles T. Downey, At Strathmore, Washington Symphonic Brass sound their holiday horns
Washington Post, December 20, 2012
One of the benefits of life in Washington is a surfeit of talented brass players, employed by the area’s orchestras and military service bands. Many talented musicians from the Army and Marine bands, and some from farther away, were featured in the Washington Symphonic Brass

Read More

Ionarts-at-Large: Maazel's Warhorses

Every praise of Maazel from city or orchestra officials smacks of desperation, full of preemptive retaliatory barbs against Christian Thielemann; coded in language that stresses—beyond breaking point—the variety of repertoire that Maazel brings to the Munich Philharmonic. A worthy cause, variety, but undermined by programs like this:

Wagner: Tannhäuser Overture, Debussy: La Mer, Stravinsky: Le

Read More

Folger Consort's Trecento Natale

Laudario di Cortona: A Medieval Mystery, Ensemble Organum, M. Pérès (1996)
[Listen]
The Folger Consort's annual Christmas Concert has been on an international tour for the last several years: Spain (2011), England (2010), Germany (2009), and Spain again (2008). The ensemble, which has won the coveted Ionarts Christmas Concert Award more than once, took us to Italy this year, with a program

Read More

Ionarts-at-Large: Penderecki's New Double Concerto

On November 15th and 16th, under the eyes of the composer, Julian Rachlin and Janine Jansen gave the German premiere of Krzysztof Penderecki’s brand new Double Concerto which had received its world premiere in Vienna just a few weeks earlier. The last time I heard Julian Rachlin première a work it was Giya Kancheli’s Ciaruscuro for Soloist, a concerto for violin and viola, but, as the name

Read More

20th-Century Christmas

J. Deak, The Passion of Scrooge, or A Christmas Carol, W. Sharp, 20th Century Consort (2000)
This review is an Ionarts exclusive.

The competition for the "coveted" Holiday Concert Award here at Ionarts gets stronger each year. I have listened to many Christmas concerts over the years, and most of them fall into the dreaded chestnut category. There is obviously a market for that kind of program

Read More

Ionarts-at-Large: Mariss Jansons' Beethoven Cycle

I have lost track of Mariss Jansons’ Beethoven Cycle with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. It started some time in 2008 and was—and continues to be—spiced up with world premieres especially commissioned for the occasion. I remember Symphonies Three, Seven, Eight, and Nine (see sidebar); not the others. Either I missed them and their respective commissioned works, or they are being

Read More

Ionarts-at-Large: Marc-André Hamelin at the Herkulessaal

Ferrucio Busoni
Ten years ago, no one would ha ve wanted to hear Marc-André Hamelin in Debussy, and rightly so. Now he’s among the best in that sort of repertoire. The transformation of Hamelin from piano-pyrotechnician to musician with great tonal control and a splendid legato is remarkable. He proved that with ease and a gorgeous tone from his Fazioli piano in a recital at Munich’s half-filled

Read More

In Brief: Advent III Edition

Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to online audio, online video, and other good things in Blogville and Beyond. (After clicking to an audio or video stream, press the "Play" button to start the broadcast.)





To mark the passing of soprano Lisa della Casa, a selection of her performances of music of Strauss, Mozart, Schubert, Wagner, and Othmar Schoeck. [Österreichischer

Read More

Matthias Pintscher Portrait at the Phillips

Sought after by the world’s top orchestras for both his compositions and his conducting, Matthias Pintscher (b. 1971) fit the bill for the Phillips Collection’s Leading European Composers series. His music, brought to life Thursday night with intimacy and precision by members of the International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), displayed a subdued fragility that belied its creator’s star power. The

Read More

Bach and Violinists

The Art of Instrumentation: Homage to Glenn Gould, G. Kremer, Kremerata Baltica
(released on September 25, 2012)
Nonesuch 528982-2 | 57'49"


The Music I Love, R. Podger (compilation)
(released on October 9, 2012)
CCS SEL 6212 | 2 CDs


Bach and Beyond, Part 1, J. Koh
(released on October 30, 2012)
Cedille CDR 90000 134 | 78'35"
Gidon Kremer once described the works of Bach for unaccompanied

Read More

Fine Arts Quartet @ KC

E. Zimbalist, String Quartet (inter alia), Fine Arts Quartet (2012)


Haydn, String Quartets, op. 77, Quatuor Mosaïques (2001)


Schubert, String Quartet 14 ("Death and the Maiden"), Quatuor Mosaïques (2010)
The Fine Arts Quartet, founded in 1946, is in a transitional phase at the moment. The group's pedigree is perhaps greater than its current cachet, with the two veteran violinists learning

Read More

London Town: A Sibelius Lover's Frozen Dream

A program of the Sixth and Seventh Symphonies and the Violin Concerto is the stuff dreams are made of. A Sibelius lover’s dream, that is… and certainly when the performers are the LSO (Sibelius being perhaps the only composer these all-rounders can take specialist-credits for), Leonidas Kavakos as the soloist, and conductor Osmo Vänskä.

The latter, in turn, is one of the very few replacements

Read More

London Town: Too Beautiful Beethoven

The Philharmonia Orchestra put on two shows while I stayed in London: the Kurt Sanderling Centenary Concert (a Beethoven-Brahms program with prior outings in Leicester and Bedford) and a Prokofiev-Tchaikovsky night the following Saturday. Preferring contemporary performers, I skipped the Lorin Maazel-led concert and missed, by trustworthy accounts, a sad performance of the Second Prokofiev

Read More

KC Chamber Players in Terrace Theater

This review is an Ionarts exclusive.

On Sunday evening in the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater, the Kennedy Center Chamber Players, all principals of the National Symphony Orchestra, presented a polished program of music tied loosely together by the theme of contrast between sacred and profane.

The program began with Darius Milhaud’s four-movement Suite for Violin, Clarinet, and Piano, op.

Read More

Chantry's Palestrina Christmas

This review is an Ionarts exclusive.



Palestrina, Missa Benedicta es,
Tallis Scholars (1996)
Ah, it is December again, and the sounds of Christmas are all around us: the rhymed Latin poetry, the theological explications of the mystery of the Virgin Birth, the Propers of the Dies natalis Christi, the complex six-voice polyphony. At least these were the sounds of the season at the Palestrina

Read More

London Town: The LSO, Vengerov, and the Queen

As my colleague-friend-mentor Bob Reilly and I approached the air-raid shelter masquerading as a cultural center under the name “Barbican Hall”, a motorcade skipped by… tiny, by Washington DC / Presidential standards. Thirty feet further, amid a handful of enthusiast bystanders, it spilled its contents—chiefly a little white haired woman—into the Barbican, blocking the entry for a couple minutes

Read More

In Brief: Advent II Edition

Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to online audio, online video, and other good things in Blogville and Beyond. (After clicking to an audio or video stream, press the "Play" button to start the broadcast.)

Listen to a performance of Wagner's Lohengrin from La Scala, with Jonas Kaufmann, Anja Harteros, Evelyn Herlitzius, Tomas Tomasson, René Pape, and Zeljko Lucic, with Daniel

Read More

Notes from Istanbul: Tricontinental Dvořák with Borusan Quartet

The Borusan Quartet consists of four former first chairs of the Borusan Philharmonic: Esen Kivrak and Olgu Kizilay (violins), Efdal Altun (viola), and Çağ Erçağ (cello). Some time into their chamber music exploits they gave up performing in the orchestra and focused on the quartet entirely. A wise decision: All too often chamber-music-as-a-side-project produces horribly mediocre results. And

Read More

Yuja Wang's Polished Performance with the NSO

Fantasia, Y. Wang (2012)


Rachmaninoff, Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini / Piano Concert No. 2, Y. Wang, Mahler Chamber Orchestra, C. Abbado (2011)The National Symphony Orchestra is performing its last major program of the year, not counting the annual Messiah, heard on Thursday night at the Kennedy Center. Hans Graf, returning to the NSO for the first time since 2008, led a program unified

Read More

Ballet West's 'Nutcracker'

Utah's Ballet West was invited to the Kennedy Center Opera House this year in the revolving series of December performances of The Nutcracker, and it was an easy choice for our December picks. After a musically disappointing return visit to the Washington Ballet's version of this holiday favorite this weekend, Miss Ionarts and I had high hopes for the Ballet West production, especially since

Read More

Simón Bolívar Symphony

The last time we reviewed the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela, they still styled themselves as a youth orchestra, the top-level ensemble of the country's famed music education system, El Sistema. As such, they are a high-energy ensemble, a vast number of musicians, mostly young and avid, who piled onto the stage of the Kennedy Center Concert Hall on Tuesday night, at the invitation

Read More

Yo-Yo Ma's Om

Bach, Solo Cello Suites, Yo-Yo Ma
Washington Performing Arts Society presented cellist Yo-Yo Ma in an exclusive solo recital at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall on Monday night. It was the first such local performance since 2006, not counting a duo recital with Kathryn Stott, and it also featured three of Bach's solo cello suites. It is a rare thing to see a single classical musician -- a man, a

Read More

Anderszewski @ Shriver

Charles T. Downey, Pianist Piotr Anderszewski makes Shriver Hall debut
Washington Post, December 4, 2012


Bach, English Suite No. 6 (inter alia), P. Anderszewski (2004)


Schumann, Humoreske (inter alia), P. Anderszewski (2011)Polish-Hungarian pianist Piotr Anderszewski is on a U.S. tour this month, making his first return to the Washington area since a recital at the National Gallery of Art

Read More

Washington Ballet 'Nutcracker'

Septime Webre's choreography of The Nutcracker, made for Washington Ballet and presented each December at the Warner Theater, will always be associated with good memories. Webre reimagined the famous story as taking place in Washington, with Clara receiving the present of a nutcracker from her eccentric godfather at a Christmas party in Georgetown, seeing the dance of the snowflakes with the

Read More

'Die Fledermaus'

Charles T. Downey, Virginia Opera's "Die Fledermaus" at George Mason University
Washington Post, December 3, 2012


J. Strauss, Die Fledermaus, E. Schwarzkopf, N. Gedda, Philharmonia Orchestra, H. von Karajan
The Virginia Opera’s 2011-12 season was marked by daring programming and innovative staging, a gutsy move for a company that has just undergone a crisis in leadership. But it was a

Read More

New Music Triple Bill at the Atlas

In back-to-back concerts Friday night, the Atlas Performing Arts Center presented three of New York’s hottest new music ensembles, cementing its own reputation as one of the finest venues for contemporary music in Washington, D.C.

First, in the main theater, Sō Percussion played an assemblage of works by John Cage and more recent composers. The pieces were played seamlessly alongside and atop

Read More

In Brief: Advent I Edition

Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to online audio, online video, and other good things in Blogville and Beyond. (After clicking to an audio or video stream, press the "Play" button to start the broadcast.)
Listen to the world premiere of Pierre Henry's new piece Le Fil de la vie, performed in September at the Cité de la Musique. [France Musique]

Here is a performance of Wagner's Die

Read More

Interview with Kaija Saariaho

Video and transcript/translation of Johannes Baumann’s interview with Kaija Saariaho in Istanbul at the Borusan Arts & Culture Foundation’s Music House on the day of the world premiere of her piece for violin and electronics, Frises. (Review here.) Because Mme. Saariaho didn’t feel comfortable with an interview being conducted solely in German, I happily volunteered to facilitate or translate

Read More