Notes from the 2013 Schubertiade ( 2 ) • Prégardien Père et Fils

A Father & Son Duo of Tenors
Christoph Prégardien, tenor-father, and Julian Prégardien, tenor-son, appeared on stage of the Angelika-Kauffmann Hall for the afternoon concert on August 28th and engaged in a light program of Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, and Schubert—alternating for a few, tag-teaming a few others, but mostly going at these songs in versions that they arranged for two

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In Brief: Mary's Birthday 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.)





The results of this year's Banff International String Quartet Competition are in, with the Dover Quartet winning first prize (plus best performances of a Schubert

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Notes from the 2013 Schubertiade ( 1 ) • An Introduction

Tucked away in the Bregenz Forest between Lake Constance and the "Flysch Alps", betwixt valley, mountains, and hills so green cows salivate with eager anticipation, lies Schwarzenberg. You get there by car if you're smart, cab if you're rich, or yellow post-bus if you're neither.

You will likely first arrive in Bregenz, a shabby town directly on Lake Constance that is fascinating for its

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'Potted Potter' at Harman Hall

We are big fans of the Harry Potter books at Ionarts Central, where both kids and both parents are devoted to J. K. Rowling (and the movies that came from her work). So I was glad to have the chance to take Miss Ionarts to see a performance of Potted Potter: The Unauthorized Harry Experience, presented by the Shakespeare Theater at Sidney Harman Hall on Friday night. The show is a sort of

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Notes from the 2013 Salzburg Festival ( 18 ) Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra • Phillipe Jordan

Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra • Phillipe Jordan
Rienzi Minus the Baggage
Picture (detail) courtesy Salzburg Festival, © Wolfgang Lienbacher.
The Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra opened their Salzburg orchestral concert under Philippe Jordan with Wagner’s Rienzi Overture. They might as well have, seeing how orchestra and conductor have already been performing Rienzi throughout the Festival anyway,

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Notes from the 2013 Salzburg Festival ( 17 ) Die Meistersinger • R.Wagner

Die Meistersinger • Richard Wagner
Innocence Regained
Pictures above and below courtesy & © Salzburg Festival / Karl Forster
Click on details to see entire picture

The two notable themes that wormed their way through the 2013 Salzburg Festivals were too subtle and too inconsequentially pursued to be considered actual foci, but still, there they were, offering a little guidance and

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Briefly Noted: Freiburg's Orchestral Suites

Bach, Orchestral Suites (Ouvertures), Freiburger Barockorchester, P. Müllejans, G. von der Goltz
(released on November 8, 2011)
HMC 902113.14 | 93'42"
You may think you know exactly what Bach's orchestral suites are and what they sound like, but little has been certain about the origins of these familiar pieces since American musicologist Joshua Rifkin called much about them into question.

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Ionarts-at-Large: Das Liebesverbot in Frankfurt

Running up to the Wagner bicentennial which they will crown with a repeat of their Ring Cycle, the Frankfurt Opera is putting on a trilogy of early-Wagner concert performances: Die Feen (The Fairies) last year, Das Liebesverbot (The Ban on Love) this year, Rienzi next year—all recorded to be released on the Oehms label that has been taking constructive advantage of the Frankfurt company’s

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William Christie's Enchanted Forest

On my list of Americans who represent the United States well abroad, conductor William Christie is near the top. Yes, technically speaking, he is now a citoyen français, but he grew up here. We have already taken note of Christie's love of gardens, when he opened up his house and garden in the Vendée for the annual Rendez-vous aux jardins in 2004. Marie-Aude Roux visited Christie's home, in Thiré

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Dip Your Ears, No. 153 (Věc Makropulos from Salzburg)

L.Janáček, Věc Makropulos,
E.-P.Salonen / WPh & Vienna State Opera Chorus
A.Denoke, R.Very, P.Hoare, J.Adamonytė, J.Reuter, et al.
C Major Blu-ray / DVD


Ferocious Energy

The 2011 Vienna Philharmonic at the Salzburg Festival was in rare form, which paid dividends, too, in Janáček. Their Makropulous Case has sweep and drama and ferocious energy, sometimes sardonic wit, then chilling

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In Brief: Rest from Your Labor 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.)





Watch the closing concert of the Annecy Classic Festival, as Yuri Temirkanov conducts the St. Petersburg Philharmonic Orchestra and soloist Denis Matsuev, in

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Classical Music Agenda (October 2013)

Tintoretto, Tancredi Baptizes Clorinda
Museum of Fine Arts, HoustonEARLY MUSIC:
Leading the picks of the ten concerts I most want to hear in October are several free performances of early music. It is the month when the Washington Bach Consort's noontime cantata series gets under way, one of the best musical offerings in the city. On the first Tuesday of most months, WBC members perform one of

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Briefly Noted: Inscape's CD Debut

Sprung Rhythm, Inscape Chamber Orchestra, R. Scerbo
(released on July 30, 2013)
Sono Luminus DSL-92170 | 82'36"
Among the ensembles that play a lot of contemporary music in the Washington area, the programs offered by the Inscape Chamber Orchestra intrigue me the most. Since the group was founded, in 2004, I have reviewed their concerts only twice -- at the National Gallery of Art in 2011 and

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Miquel Barcelo at the Musée de Céret

There is a new exhibit of the works of Miquel Barceló, called Terra ignis, at the Musée d'art moderne de Céret, in the Pyrénées-Orientales region of France, which reveals some new directions in the artist's work. Philippe Dagen has some thoughts on this in an article (Miquel Barcelo transforme ornements de toit et urnes de jardin en œuvres d'art, August 28) for Le Monde (my translation):
The

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À mon chevet: 'The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle'

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


"Do you know the story of the monkeys of the shitty island?" I asked Noboru Wataya.

He shook his head, with no sign of interest. "Never heard of it."

"Somewhere, far, far away, there's a shitty island. An island without a name. An island not worth giving a name. A shitty island with a

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Briefly Noted: More of Pappano's Rossini

Rossini, Petite Messe Solennelle, M. Rebeka, S. Mingardo, F. Meli, A. Esposito, Coro e Orchestra dell'Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Rome, A. Pappano
(released on April 23, 2013)
EMI 4 16742 2 | 103'19"
This is the latest in the series of live recordings of the Chorus and Orchestra of Rome's Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, from EMI. The Petite Messe Solennelle is the largest

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An 'Amélie' Musical? Quelle horreur!

Jean-Pierre Jeunet hates musicals. Still he did not put a stop to the adaptation of his cult film Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain into a Broadway musical, as reported in an article ("Amélie Poulain" mangé à la sauce Broadway, August 26) in Le Point (my translation):
[The rumor] was confirmed on August 13 by Dan Messé, the American composer charged with the project, on the Facebook page of his

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In Brief: Last Gasp of August 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.)

Concerto Italiano performs Giulio Caccini's L'Euridice at the Innsbrucker Festwochen. Rinaldo Alessandrini leads a cast including Silvia Frigato, Furio Zanasi, Sara

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Dip Your Ears, No. 152 (A Schwarz-Schilling Concerto)

R.Schwarz-Schilling, Violin Concerto, Partita, Polonaise,
K.Troussov / J.Serebrier / Staatskapelle Weimar
Naxos


Determined Quality

Reinhard Schwarz-Schilling is one of the many secondary victims of the Third Reich and subsequent shift in musical ideology—roughly along the lines of Walter Braunfels, Wolfgang Fortner, and Karl Amadeus Hartmann. The post-war environment wasn’t without

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Mezzo-Soprano Teresa Berganza's New Memoirs

T. Berganza and O. Bellamy, Un monde habité par le chant (Buchet-Chastel, 2013)
The legendary mezzo-soprano Teresa Berganza is celebrating her 80th birthday by publishing her memoirs, Un monde habité par le chant, written with Olivier Bellamy. Thierry Hillériteau has an interview with her (Teresa Berganza : «Les compositeurs sont mes dieux, Mozart est mon messie !», August 23) for Le Figaro (my

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Briefly Noted: More Faustian Bartók

Bartók, Violin Concertos 1/2, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, D. Harding
(released on August 13, 2013)
HMC 902146 | 57'59"
You can throw another top-notch recording of Bartók's two violin concertos on the pile. Why would so many of the leading violinists of our time make recordings of the Bartók concertos? The answer is in the music, two pieces that feature some exquisite writing for the

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For Your Consideration: 'Vous n'avez encore rien vu'

For Washington cinéphiles, the La Cinémathèque program, supported by La Maison Française at the Avalon Theater, offers many delights. The series features rare -- often singular -- screenings of recent French films, in the beautiful old Chevy Chase movie house that was saved and restored by community support. Last night, it was a screening of Vous n'avez encore rien vu, a film directed by Alain

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Notes from the 2013 Salzburg Festival ( 16 ) Salzburg contemporary • Klangforum Wien 2, Heinz Holliger

Salzburg contemporary • Klangforum Wien 2: Heinz Holliger
Japanese Rain, Confused Owls, Nocturnal Guitar Lessons

All pictures courtesy Salzburg Festival, © Silvia Lelli. Details - click image to see entire photo.
Heinz Holliger is wonderful: A charming advocate of contemporary music—his own but especially that of others’. Still an outstanding oboist. The finest Haydn conductor I’ve heard in

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Notes from the 2013 Salzburg Festival ( 15 ) Shakespeare/Mendelssohn • Ein Sommernachtstraum

Shakespeare/Mendelssohn • Ein Sommernachtstraum
Inspiration for Wagner
All pictures above and below courtesy Salzburg Festival, © Ruth Walz. Details - click image to see entire photo.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is perhaps—probably—Shakespeare’s funniest comedy and raunchiest play, but apparently young Felix Mendelssohn-B. only got the bowdlerized version to read, or in any case one prepared ad

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Briefly Noted: Heras-Casado in HIP Schubert

Schubert, Symphonies 3/4, Freiburger Barockorchester, P. Heras-Casado
(released on September 10, 2013)
HMC 902154 | 54'33"
The historically informed performance (HIP) movement is officially mainstream, as I have noted before, a sub-discipline that most conservatory students now are at least exposed to, an alternative career path or option to add to the list, along with specialized contemporary

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A Helping Hand for Hans Gál!

Support the Hans Gál-indiegogo project here— Happy news: Goal achieved!!!

Conductor Kenneth Woods and his Orchestra of the Swan are busily raising money (via indigogo) for the last installment of their splendid, admirable, gorgeous-sounding Hans Gál Symphony project. Hans Gál is a composer dear to ionarts, he's been mentioned in the past and bound to get more attention still, in the future. His

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Notes from the 2013 Salzburg Festival ( 14 ) El Sistema • Ntl. Children’s Symphony Orchestra & Simon Rattle

El Sistema • Ntl. Children’s Symphony Orchestra & Simon Rattle
Pint-sized Mahler
All pictures courtesy Salzburg Festival, © Silvia Lelli. Details - click image to see entire photo.
Eighteen (!) double basses, about the size of a cello on PEDs, were bound to make up with quantity for what they lacked in volume. As did the gusto with which the pint-sized bass-steersboys and steersgirls of the

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Classical Music Agenda: September 2013

September is just around the corner, and that means the return of the Classical Music Agenda. For those who are new around here, this is a regular post in which I pick the ten performances I think are the highlights of the month here in Washington. The rest of the calendar will scroll through the sidebar as the month goes by.


Conductor Philippe Auguin
OPERA:
Washington National Opera's

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In Brief: Books, Dirty Looks 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.) Now you know what to do with that last week of summer vacation.

Listen to an all-Schumann recital by baritone Christian Gerhaher and pianist Gerold Huber, including

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Notes from the 2013 Salzburg Festival ( 13 ) Liederabend • Christian Gerhaher & Gerold Huber

Liederabend • Christian Gerhaher & Gerold Huber
The Art of Darkness
Picture courtesy Salzburg Festival, © Silvia Lelli. Detail - click image to see entire photo.
Chances of a recital with Christian Gerhaher and Gerold Huber being special are higher than for just about any other recital or concert. “Just about 100%” Jay Nordlinger suggested before heading up the stairs of the Mozarteum to hear the

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Dip Your Ears, No. 151 (A Trio of Austrian Trios)

K.Goldmark, H.Gál, A.Zemlinsky, Piano Trios,
T.A.Irnberger, E.Sinaiski, A.K.Cernitori
Gramola SACD



Tempting Trios

We’re at the beginning of a greatly desirable Hans Gál renaissance, and so it was that composer’s piano trio that drew me to this recording from Vienna’s enterprising Gramola label. Bending and twisting with summery delight, the Trio makes no bones about Schubert and Bahms

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Notes from the 2013 Salzburg Festival ( 12 ) El Sistema • White Hands Choir

El Sistema • White Hands Choir
The Calligraphy of Song
Pictures above and below courtesy Salzburg Festival, © Silvia Lelli. Detail - click image to see entire photo.
Had I not been cajoled and convinced that I absolutely had to see the El Sistema Coro de Manos Blancos—the White Hands Choir, I would have missed it, and if I hadn’t missed it on the program, I might have dismissed it. A double choir

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For Your Consideration: 'I Give It a Year'

Most romantic comedies are simply reiterations of the same overtired plot device, cinematized pulp not worth serious consideration. A select few examples -- When Harry Met Sally, Roman Holiday, Four Weddings and a Funeral, There's Something about Mary, Breakfast at Tiffany's, to name a few -- rise above the genre, mostly by being so well written that they are irresistible. I Give It a Year, the

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À mon chevet: 'My Name Is Red'

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


Nasir the Limner was making a mess of a plate he intended to repair from a version of the Quintet of Nizami dating back to the era of Tamerlane's sons; the picture depicted Hüsrev looking at a naked Shirin as she bathed.

A ninety-two-year-old former master who was half blind and had

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Notes from the 2013 Salzburg Festival ( 11 ) Soloist Recital • Till Fellner

Soloist Recital • Till Fellner
Baroque Brawn and Classical Timidity
Picture courtesy Salzburg Festival, © Silvia Lelli. Detail - click image to see entire photo.
If you favor pianism over star-power, the replacement of Evgeny Kissin (ill) with Till Fellner on short notice for the soloist recital on August 7th in the Grosses Festspielhaus should not have spelled disappointment. If you love Bach,

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Rodríguez Explains the Tango

Charles T. Downey, In Smithsonian’s Steinway Series, Carlos César Rodríguez piano concert has pedagogical flair (Washington Post, August 13, 2013)


Carlos Gardel: King of Tango, Vol. 1
In the middle of his recital at the Smithsonian American Art Museum on Sunday afternoon, Carlos César Rodríguez did something intriguing. The Venezuelan-born local pianist teaches at the Levine School of Music,

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Washington's Season to Come: 2013-2014

Here in Washington, there is relatively little to hear in the sleepy month of August, and one's ears start to think ahead to the fall. This city offers a lot of high-quality music, more than most people can afford to hear. What are the performances that you should mark on your calendar now, the ones you do not want to miss? Here are my picks for the Top 25 events in classical music in the season

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In Brief: Savoring Summer 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.) Now you know what to do with that last week of summer vacation.





You can now listen to the end of the Ring cycle from Bayreuth. [Siegfried | Götterdämmerung]

Listen

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'Falstaff' at Wolf Trap

(L to R) Tracy Cox (Alice Ford), Mireille Asselin (Nannetta), Margaret Gawrysiak (Quickly),
and Carolyn Sproule (Meg) in Falstaff, Wolf Trap Opera, 2013 (photo by Carol Pratt)
Five years after Wolf Trap Opera presented Verdi's first and only other comedy, Un Giorno di Regno, the company let the other shoe drop. Their new production of Verdi's Falstaff is timed conveniently with the composer's

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Dip Your Ears, No. 150 (Langgaard’s Stringed Nightingale)

Rued Langgaard
String Quartets Nos. 2, 3, 6, Variations on “Oh, Sacred Head”
Nightingale String Quartet
Dacapo SACD

Musical Nattergale

Rued Langgaard (1893—1952) is a strange and most wonder-full romantic composer, whose 16 symphonies cover the gamut from massively delightful to charmingly bizarre. His violin and piano miniatures are among the sweetest found in the 20th century. His works

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Notes from the 2013 Salzburg Festival ( 10 ) Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra 1 • Mariss Jansons

Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra 1 • Mariss Jansons
A Russian Pair of Sixes

A pair of Russian Sixes came from Mariss Jansons and his Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in their first of two Salzburg concerts: Shostakovich’s and Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony each, related by their key (B minor), nationality, and number, but little else.

The lower strings of the BRSO opened the Shostakovich with

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Ionarts in Santa Fe: San Miguel Mission

On this last trip to Santa Fe, I spent more time in Santa Fe itself, rather than in the surroundings. On Sunday afternoon, that meant visiting the Loretto Chapel, whose beautiful spiral staircase is the subject of Barbara Hershey's movie The Staircase, and another visit to the city's cathedral, which features in Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop, the best evocation of the mystery of

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Gustav Mahler – Symphony No.5 (Part 1)

Continued here: "Gustav Mahler — Symphony No.5 (Part 2)"
Picture of postcard with Mahler by Hans Boehler (detail; click to see in entirety) courtesy Carnegie Hall Archives
Gustav Mahler’s Fifth, along with the Fourth, is the most popular among Mahler’s symphonies… not the least because of the famous slow fourth movement, the Adagietto (soundtrack to “Death in Venice” and Robert Kennedy’s funeral

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Notes from the 2013 Salzburg Festival ( 9 ) Vienna Philharmonic • Zubin Mehta

Vienna Philharmonic • Zubin Mehta
Mahler in the Morning

Mahler in the morning is a tough proposition, even for avowed Mahlerficionados™. Which is perhaps why the concert of the Mahler Fifth Symphony in this year’s Salzburg Mahler cycle was buffered with Mozart before intermission—Mozart being decidedly more morning-suited music to the extent that any orchestra performance can be truly suited to

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Gustav Mahler – Symphony No.5 (Part 2)

This continues "Gustav Mahler — Symphony No.5 (Part 1)"
In early 1901, Mahler last conducted the Philharmonic concerts with Bruckner’s Fifth, vigorously cut down to Mahler’s preferred size. The Mahler-groupie Alma Schindler followed his movements breathlessly as he conducted Die Zauberflöte at the opera. He then suffered a massive, life-threatening hemorrhoid-caused hemorrhage that necessitated

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Notes from the 2013 Salzburg Festival ( 8 ) El Sistema • Simón Bolívar Orchestra

El Sistema • Simón Bolívar Orchestra
A Scherzo to Remember

Success in “Mahler 3” (see review), however rare or great, does not spell automatic success in Mahler’s considerably stranger, elusive Seventh Symphony—a work so full of ambiguous atmosphere, point blank banality, and ‘or-is-it’ irony that among all of Mahler’s eleven symphonies it seems to best resist the efforts of audience and

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Gustav Mahler – Symphony No.7 (Part 2)

This continues "Gustav Mahler — Symphony No.7 (Part 1)"
Gustav Mahler in New York (detail, click to see entire picture). Picture courtesy New York Philharmonic Archives
By the time Mahler premiered his Seventh Symphony, his reputation as a conductor well exceeded that of him as a composer. He had quit the Court Opera in the summer of 1907 and traveled to the US where he conducted his first

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Christine Brewer, the Last Rose of Summer

Wagner, Wesendonck-Lieder / Britten, Cabaret Songs, C. Brewer, R. Vignoles (live at Wigmore Hall) [MP3]
At the end of my week at Santa Fe Opera was the first of a series of song recitals, presented by the company at the Lensic Center in downtown Santa Fe. Heard on Sunday afternoon, this concert featured soprano Christine Brewer, who was marking the birth anniversaries of Richard Wagner (200)

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Gustav Mahler – Symphony No.7 (Part 1)

Continued here: "Gustav Mahler — Symphony No.7 (Part 2)"

Mahler’s Seventh Symphony is a forbidding work that can baffle the listener even more than the Third. The author of liner notes to one recording tries to help: “What idea might help comprehend the whole symphony? The same as the Third Symphony, it might be “the World”. But this time the composer has created a world where we would not find

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Notes from the 2013 Salzburg Festival ( 7 ) Mozart-Matinee • Ingo Metzmacher

Mozart-Matinee • Ingo Metzmacher
Ives Got Something to Remember
Click on excerpt for whole picture. Picture courtesy Salzburg Festival, © Silvia Lelli

The Mozart Matinees at the Salzburg Festival are gladly attended AM-concerts, musical amuse-gueules, easily digestible, and quickening stuff consumed before the concert-activities that follow later that day. Comfortably air-conditioned (not the

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Notes from the 2013 Salzburg Festival ( 6 ) Lucio Silla • W.A.Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart • Lucio Silla
Pretty to Die for and Deadly Boring
Pictures above and below courtesy Salzburg Festival, © Matthias Baus
Click on details to see entire picture
The Haus für Mozart was rather sparsely filled on Friday afternoon, August 2nd, to welcome Mark Minkowski and his Musiciens du Louvre for the third performance of Mozart’s early opera, Lucio Silla.

The difficulty of

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Ionarts in Santa Fe: 'Figaro' Redux

(L to R) Keith Jameson (Basilio), Susanne Mentzer (Marcellina), Dale Travis (Bartolo), Daniel Okulitch (Count), Zachary Nelson (Figaro), Lisette Oropesa (Susanna), Susanna Phillips (Countess) in Le Nozze di Figaro, Santa Fe Opera, 2013 (photo by Ken Howard)

The final opera of the season at Santa Fe Opera had to be Mozart, and it had to be the Mozart opera most produced here, Le Nozze di Figaro.

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In Brief: Red or Green 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.) Now you know what to do with your Sunday.

In case you missed the live streams of the Ring cycle from Bayreuth, you can listen to the performance of the first two operas,

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Notes from the 2013 Salzburg Festival ( 5 ) Jeanne D'Arc • Walter Braunfels

Walter Braunfels • Jeanne D'Arc
The Would-Be Future of Opera at Stake
Jeanne d'Arc, signature
There is a special pleasure when an anticipated highlight turns into an experienced highlight. Walter Braunfels’ opera Jeanne D’Arc, Scenes from the Life of Saint Joan, one of the initial reasons not to miss this year’s Salzburg Festival (the other having been the hindsight-makes-you-smarter Gawain) was

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Notes from the 2013 Salzburg Festival ( 4 ) Salzburg Contemporary • Klangforum Wien 1

Salzburg Contemporary • Klangforum Wien 1 (Birtwistle)
"Trading Places" and Other Deadly Compositions
Click on excerpt for whole picture. All pictures courtesy Salzburg Festival, © Silvia Lelli

The Salzburg Festival may have done away with the “Kontinent” series that successfully focused on one contemporary composer every year, but under “Salzburg Contemporary” (the title in English, which is of

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Dip Your Ears, No. 149 (Hans Rott Returns)

H.Rott, Symphony in E, Suite for Orchestra in B-flat,
P.Järvi / Frankfurt RSO
RCA

Rott’s Return

Finally a label – RCA – has agreed to release the Frankfurt RSO and Paavo Järvi’s 2010 performance of Hans Rott’s grand Symphony. The story of composer and work (see Listen Winter 11) is as fascinating as the ebullient music. Paavo Järvi has channeled his enthusiasm for the youthful

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Ionarts at Santa Fe: The Lady without a Lake

Joyce DiDonato (Elena) in La Donna del Lago, Santa Fe Opera, 2013 (photo by Ken Howard)
Charles T. Downey, Santa Fe Opera’s thrilling “Donna del Lago” proves the highlight of the summer
The Classical Review, August 2
It had to happen eventually, and it did.

After some disappointments earlier in the week, Thursday was a very good night to be at the Santa Fe Opera. The company’s debut production

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For Your Consideration: 'Europa Report'

Recent discoveries of unexpected forms of life able to survive at the bottom of the ocean, surviving off thermal vents rather than sunlight, have made the possibility of similar forms of life on other planets seem even more likely. Scientific speculation is focused on Europa, one of the moons of Jupiter and known at least since the time of Galileo, where the smoothness of the ice observed on the

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Ionarts in Santa Fe: 'Oscar'

David Daniels (Oscar Wilde, center) and cast in Oscar, Santa Fe Opera, 2013 (photo by Ken Howard)
Charles T. Downey, Morrison’s “Oscar” premiere proves a trial at Santa Fe Opera
The Classical Review, August 1
One of the best things about coming to the Santa Fe Opera each summer is the chance to hear new or at least recent operas. The company has a decorated history of world and U.S. premieres,

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Ionarts at Santa Fe: 'La Grande Duchesse de Gérolstein'

Kevin Burdette (General Boum, center) and cast in La Grande Duchesse de Gérolstein, Santa Fe Opera, 2013 (photo by Ken Howard)
Charles T. Downey, Fizz is off the champagne in Santa Fe Opera’s “Duchess of Gerolstein” (The Classical Review, July 31)
Listening to three hours of an Offenbach operetta will likely cause a hangover, not unlike the one caused by all the champagne that is guzzled by the

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Castleton Festival Closer

Charles T. Downey, Castleton Festival offers excellent tribute for Benjamin Britten centenary
Washington Post, July 29, 2013

J. Bridcut, Britten's ChildrenWhat to make of the Benjamin Britten centenary? The final concert program of the Castleton Festival, heard Saturday night, offered an excellent tribute to the British composer. How does one square one’s admiration for the beauty of Britten’s

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Notes from the 2013 Salzburg Festival ( 3 ) El Sistema • Simón Bolívar Orchestra

El Sistema • Simón Bolívar Orchestra & Gustavo Dudamel
Glorious Venezuelan Mahler

A complete Mahler cycle is not terribly novel these days, nor particularly imaginative programming for a large festival. Then again, with the amount of great orchestras and Mahler-savvy conductors in town that the Salzburg Festival can boast, it’s a perfectly welcome opportunity to get one’s annual Mahler fix: A

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Gustav Mahler – Symphony No.3 (Part 2)

This continues "Gustav Mahler — Symphony No.3 (Part 1)"

Mahler wrote his Third Symphony in the summers of 1895 and 1896—having become the ‘summer composer’ only two years before, while finishing the Second Symphony. Unwilling to see himself only as a conductor and opera director rather than a composer, he compared himself to what the great composers before him had achieved at his age (then

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Gustav Mahler – Symphony No.3 (Part 1)

Continued here: "Gustav Mahler — Symphony No.3 (Part 2)"

The Third Symphony, Mahler’s longest, has sublime moments and plenty of them, but it can be difficult to find your way to—and around—it: Its quilt of music is complicated and never just straight forward and clear-cut. It has two large outer movements around four smaller movements—the first movement alone takes over half an hour. In my

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Ionarts in Santa Fe: 'La Traviata' Redux

Michael Fabiano (Alfredo) and Brenda Rae (Violetta) in La Traviata, Santa Fe Opera, 2013 (photo by Ken Howard)
It is the last week of July, and that means press week here at the Santa Fe Opera, the chance to hear what five operas, and other goodies, are on offer. My week in New Mexico began last night with Verdi's La Traviata, one of the season's two chestnuts -- part of a brilliant programming

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Notes from the 2013 Salzburg Festival ( 2 ) Gawain • Harrison Birtwistle

Harrison Birtwistle • Gawain
Detail - click to see entire picture.
All production photos above and below courtesy Salzburg Festival, © Ruth Walz
How to Explain Opera to a Dead Hare
Now with a single step, your journey starts…

One of my main reasons to attend the Salzburg Festival this year was the promise of Harrison Birtwistle’s opera Gawain (more pictures here) staged by Alvis Hermanis.

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Notes from the 2013 Salzburg Festival ( 1 ) El Sistema • Youth Orchestra of Caracas

El Sistema • Youth Orchestra of Caracas
Great Shostakovich, Gruesome Propaganda
Since the unstoppable rise of Gustavo Dudamel, Venezuela’s Orchestra Academy El Sistema (FESNOJIV) has become a brand. The Simón Bolivar Orchestra (SBO) became its flagship and Dudamel is the brand ambassador. A strong presence at this year’s Salzburg Festival, El Sistema is present with seven branches: four

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In Brief: Armchair Festival 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.) No one could possibly listen to all of it.



From the Festival de Beaune, Ottavio Dantone leads his Accademia Bizantina in a performance of Vivaldi's opera

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Ionarts-at-Large: A Damrau Liederabend to Harp On

A Liederabend in Munich’s National Theater is normally a compromised proposition: few singers have the voice—and fewer still the courage—to look into the vast round and still sing Lied-appropriately: light and naturally. Christian Gerhaher can do it, and I’ve heard Thomas Quasthoff do a Müllerin there in an I-can’t-be-bothered-kind-of-way that was at once insulting and splendid. But most

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Dip Your Ears, No. 148 (Double the Chorales, Double the Joy)

J.S.Bach, Orgelbüchlein
BWV 599-644
Francesco Cera (organ)
Coro della Radiotelevisione Svizzera
Diego Fasolis (director)
Brilliant

A Musical Diet of Aural Respite

The label’s PR blurb claims that this release is “an original concept: the Orgelbüchlein BWV 599-644 performed alternating the organ chorale with the same chorale sung by a choir.” Perhaps not that original. Ton Koopman has

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Preview of the 2013 Salzburg Festival ( Gawain )

Preview of Salzburg’s Gawain • Harrison Birtwistle
One of the performances I’m most looking forward to at this year’s Salzburg Festival is Harrison Birtwistle’s Gawain, in a Alvis Hermanis production, conducted by Ingo Metzmacher, and featuring the ever strapping and striking Christopher Maltman. Here are some photos (below the jump) of the production (courtesy Salzburg Festival, © Ruth Walz)

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Armonia Nova at Church of the Epiphany

Charles T. Downey, Armonia Nova performs rarely heard medieval music at lunchtime concert
Washington Post, July 25, 2013


G. de Machaut, Sacred and Secular Music, Ensemble Gilles Binchois
For classical-music listeners thirsting for summer concerts, the Church of the Epiphany offers a weekly oasis. The most recent concert in its free Tuesday noontime series featured rarely heard medieval music,

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Mieczysław Weinberg’s IdiotAwe-inspiring Masterpiece Unearthed in Mannheim

Click excerpts to see entire picture.All pictures above and below courtesy Mannheim National Theater, © Hans Jörg Michel
A transfixing experience and the discovery of one of the major operas of the second half of the 20th century
Just a decade ago the name “Mieczysław Weinberg” drew a blank from music lovers. In record stores, which still existed then, you weren’t likely to find an index card

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The Cello Suites, Bach III (Gastinel, Queyras, Lipkind)

Over a few months in 2008 (republished now) I’ve looked at recordings of Bach’s Cello Suites including Mischa Maisky on DVD in February and the classic Harnoncourt, Fournier, Rostropovich as well as Steven Isserlis’ new account. Still missing from my little survey are three recent recordings: Anne Gastinel’s, Jean-Guihen Queyras’, and that of Gavriel Lipkind... to which I turn now. (I will

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Gorgeous 'Fanciulla del West' at Castleton

The high point of this summer's Castleton Festival, edging out a fine double-bill of La Voix Humaine, was a rather spectacular production of Puccini's La Fanciulla del West, heard in the final performance on Sunday afternoon. Made for the Metropolitan Opera in New York, where it was premiered in 1910, Fanciulla would get my vote for the most beautiful, most accomplished score that Puccini

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'La Voix Humaine' at Castleton

Dietlinde Turban-Maazel, La voix humaine, Castleton Festival, 2013
(photo by E. Raymond Boc)
The Castleton Festival was inaugurated with the chamber operas of Britten, an auspicious choice to make a new summer opera destination stand out from the crowd. Lorin Maazel, a Puccini specialist, soon was turning instead to more standard fare for his summer vacation, chestnut operas that may have more

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Ionarts Turns 10

Image by jfl
Ionarts was launched on this day in 2003, in an era when one had to explain what a blog was when you said you were writing one. The Age of the Blog (2005-2008, R.I.P.) has come and gone since. Most of the blogs we enjoyed reading every day are now defunct or intermittent, and these days we usually describe Ionarts as an online magazine.

In the last ten years, we have published

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Lloyd Webber's Requiem Lives Again

Charles T. Downey, At Castleton Festival, a take on 2 composers
Washington Post, July 22, 2013


Barber, Violin Concerto (inter alia), J. Ehnes, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, B. Tovey
Somewhere in between the operas at the Castleton Festival, Lorin Maazel takes his Festival Orchestra out for a spin. At a concert on Saturday night in the Festival Theater, Maazel led his young musicians, most of

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Through Labor and Love: Weinberg, War and PersecutionInterview with Julia Rebekka Adler

[July 2010] An article about violist Julia Rebekka Adler could easily, rewardingly turn into an article on Mieczysław Weinberg instead. For one, it is Weinberg to whom she has pinned her hat, whose viola sonatas she has now torn from obscurity into the (narrowly focused) spot-light of well-regarded niche repertoire, and to whose music she very obviously responds. Further, she is genuinely

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In Brief: Weekend at Castleton 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.) Good luck finding the time to listen to and watch all of them!





Christian Thielemann leads the Staatskapelle Dresden, Dresdner Kammerchor, MDR Rundfunkchor, and

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'Otello' at the Castleton Festival

In a formidable stride in its fifth season in the picturesque fields of Rappahannock County, Virginia, the Castleton Festival’s production of Verdi’s tragic Otello was almost a triumph. Conducted by Castleton founder Lorin Maazel in the Festival Theater, which except for the pit and stage is something of a barn-like tent structure, grand opera was offered in a chamber setting.

Maazel’s

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Dip Your Ears, No. 147 (Rick LaSalle's Sonatas)

Rick LaSalle, Piano Sonatas, Ragtime
Ingrid Marsoner
Gramola

Whocareswhenitwascomposed-MusicIt’s such a delight to stumble upon a composer, one that I've never heard of before, who turns out to be most enjoyable: Rick LaSalle (*1951) in this case, with three of his eight traditionalist piano sonatas. This is Whocareswhenitwascomposed-Music, joyous compositions with spunk and humor and a

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Ian Bostridge Celebrates Britten in Aix

On Wednesday, Ian Bostridge sang in a Britten anniversary concert at the Aix-en-Provence Festival. Marie-Aude Roux had a piece about the singer's approach to Britten (Ian Bostridge, fauve aux aguets face à la partition, July 17) for Le Monde (my translation):
One month ago, [Bostridge] was in the grayness of Aldeburgh, for a session of master classes about the songs of Britten, presented from

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À mon chevet: Lucky Jim

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


Dixon was alive again. Consciousness was upon him before he could get out of the way; not for him the slow, gracious wandering from the halls of sleep, but a summary, forcible ejection. He lay sprawled, too wicked to move, spewed up like a broken spider-crab on the tarry shingle of the

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The Cello Suites, Bach II (Fournier, Isserlis, Harnoncourt et al.)

Bach’s Cello Suites have been popping up left and right, recently – re-issues and new recordings alike. As with every piece of music that is so widely recorded (there are more than five dozen versions currently available, not counting transcriptions for recorder, guitar, marimba, harp, viola, double bass, the question arises why yet another recording is necessary or what it can bring us that is

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'Dutchman' at Les Chorégies d'Orange

Wagner has been a hard sell at Les Chorégies d'Orange, not programmed at the festival in the Roman amphitheater of Orange since the Ring cycle in 1988. Even in this double-centenary year, the second performance of this season's Flying Dutchman had to be canceled because of low ticket sales, while Verdi (Il Ballo in Maschera this year) continues to be ever popular. Marie-Aude Roux saw the Wagner (

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'Elektra' at Aix-en-Provence

Interesting opera all around this year from the Festival d'Aix-en-Provence. The revival of a controversial Don Giovanni by Dmitri Cherniakov, Robert Carsen's Rigoletto in a circus (don't miss the video stream from Arte), and a highly lauded staging of Strauss's Elektra directed by Patrice Chéreau. Christian Merlin covered that last one in an article (Tout le monde se lève pour Elektra, July 12)

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Ionarts-at-Large: Bavaro-Russian Peace Orchestra with Gergiev

“Mahler 5” on one rehearsal—a dress rehearsal—with an orchestra that’s never played together like that: it’s a welcome taster of what’s to come for the Munich Philharmonic under incoming music director Valery Gergiev… even if they won’t likely share their desks with colleagues from the Mariinsky Orchestra again, as they did as part of this well intentioned gimmick to celebrate the German-Russian

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In Brief: Formez vos bataillons 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.) The list is longer than normal this week because the France Musique Web site, recently reconfigured, has once again made concert streams available.


Celebrate le 14

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Dip Your Ears, No. 146 (Christine Schäfer Sings SchoenBerg)

Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, String Quartet no.2, Langsamer Satz, Largo desolato,
Petersen Quartett & Christine Schäfer
Capriccio

This is a CD that elicits raves and frustration. The excellent Petersen Quartet teams up with the sublime Christine Schäfer and present us Arnold Schoenberg’s Second String Quartet op.10 (for two violins, viola, cello and soprano), Anton Webern’s heavenly Langsamer

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À mon chevet: Le Grand Meaulnes

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


I had never made a long trip on a bicycle. This was my first one. But, some time ago, despite my bad knee, Jasmin secretly taught me how to ride. For most ordinary young men the bicycle is a lot of fun, so why should it not be the same for a poor boy like me, who not so long ago was still

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Beethoven Sonatas - A Survey of Complete Cycles Part 8, 2010 Onward

Incl: R.Buchbinder II • H J Lim • S.Goodyear • F.F.Guy • M.Korstick • L.Lortie • P.Rösel



Louis Lortie
1991 - 2010 - Chandos

Louis Lortie got started in the early nineties on this cycle, with discs released individually, and worked on it until 2000 and then it went nowhere... until, seemingly out of nowhere, Chandos remembered the project late in 2009 and hurried it to an

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The Cello Suites, Bach I (Mischa Maisky - DVD)

I count nearly 80 available recordings of the Bach Cello Suites and I’ve probably missed a few and wasn’t even counting transcriptions. I have about a quarter of those recordings, which goes to show that I can show restraint, especially when it comes to Bach.

Along with the Sonatas and Partitas for Violin, the Cello Suites really are—in an abstract sense—among the most perfect creations of Bach

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Opera Reviews from Aix-en-Provence

Who can explain the vacillations of the critical heart? It is a mystery how an opera production, or a singer, or a conductor can thrill one's ears at one hearing and leave one vexed the next. You may recall a controversial staging of Don Giovanni in 2010, directed by Dmitri Cherniakov at the Aix-en-Provence festival. Like most critics, Marie-Aude Roux hated it the first time around, so she sounds

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Verdi Celebrated at Caramoor

Charles T. Downey, Angela Meade sizzles in Verdi’s “Vêpres” at Caramoor (The Classical Review, July 7)

Verdi, Les vêpres siciliennes, J. Brumaire, J. Bonhomme, BBC Concert Orchestra, M. Rossi (Opera Rara)Don’t look now, but it’s time for another annoying composer anniversary. Worse, the Verdi bicentenary this year is the most irritating kind of composer anniversary, requiring us to commemorate a

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In Brief: Independence Day 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.) The list is shorter than normal this week because the France Musique Web site is undergoing a renovation. We are assured that the concert streams will be reinstated in their new

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Dip Your Ears, No. 145 (Jan Vogler's Bach Suites)

J.S.Bach, Cello Suites,
Jan Vogler
Sony




Jan Vogler is a busy man, running the lovely Dresden Music Festival. It wasn’t surprising then that when I last heard him in his function as a cellist, he sounded as though he had been busier administrating than practicing. That he dared or bothered to perform the marvelous and rare Arthur Honegger Cello Concerto made up for much, but not all. If I

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Whither the Avignon Festival?

This coming September, stage and opera director Olivier Py will take over as head of the Festival d'Avignon, which opens today in southern France. Nathalie Simon wrote an article (Le festival d'Avignon face à ses contradictions, July 5) for Le Figaro, taking stock of the tenure of the departing directors, Vincent Baudriller and Hortense Archambault (my translation):
If they have sometimes been

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Serenade! Festival Goes to Russia, Australia

Charles T. Downey, Russian Singers and Australian Voices close Serenade! festival
Washington Post, July 3, 2013
The goal of the Serenade! festival, presented by music promoter Classical Movements, is to offer a cross section of choral music from around the world. In its third year of free concerts throughout the Washington area, the annual summer event ended Monday night at Damascus United

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How Much Reger do you Need? (How Much Reger can you Take?)

How much Max Reger (1873 – 1916) does one need? Enough to rid oneself of the stereotypes, not so much as to reinforce them. This catch-all box of re-released Reger by Brilliant does a very fine job of striking that balance.

About those stereotypes of Reger as a composer more appreciated than listened-to, a “master of thick textures, heavy counterpoint, and interminable fugues”… here is the only

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Ionarts-at-Large: Koopman's Stockhausen Antidote

Karlheinz Stockhausen’s SAMSTAG aus LICHT, Mahler’s Fifth Symphony, and Bach’s St.John Passion in five concerts in four days is a curious musical tour-de-force. An astute musical friend remarked: “That sounds like one of those combinations where each one is an antidote for the other.” Very much so. Last Friday, after the initial dose of Stockhausen (Scenes 1 & 2) it was time for Bach, from the

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Modern Meets Medieval in Montmajour

Montmajour was a Benedictine abbey founded in the 10th century on an island near the town of Arles. Now a protected national monument, the restored monastery is the site of an exhibit, Mon île de Montmajour, curated by Christian Lacroix, of contemporary glass sculpture, from the Centre de recherche sur le verre et les arts plastiques (Cirva) and mostly not exhibited previously. Florence Evin

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In Brief: R.I.P Google Reader 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 Wiener Festwochen, Till Fellner plays music by Bach, Mozart, Haydn, and Schumann. [Österreichischer Rundfunk]

A recital by the excellent pianist Alexander

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Dip Your Ears, No. 144 (Papa Järvi's Raff)

J.J.Raff, Symphony No.2, Shakespeare Preludes
N.Järvi / Orchestre de la Suisse Romande
Chandos


Rheinbergerish-Brahmsean-LizstesqueFrom his bold First Symphony (“To the Fatherland”) to his four “Seasons” Symphonies (Nos. 8-11), Joseph Joachim Raff’s symphonic output is as important as it is ignored. Raff—who taught Liszt orchestration—combines dark Brahmsean ardor, Rheinbergerish touches,

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'For a long time, I went to bed early'

This year is also the centenary of the publication of Du côté de chez Swann, the first volume of Marcel Proust's landmark roman-fleuve À la recherche du temps perdu. In June 1913 Proust was correcting the proofs, making significant changes, and the book would finally appear that November. The following year, the love of Proust's life, his one-time taxi driver and then secretary, Alfred

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Picasso in Oslo

Before Anders Breivik perpetrated his terrorist attack on the island of Utøya in 2011, he set off a bomb near a building in Oslo that housed the offices of the ministries of justice and police. Two of those buildings are likely to be demolished because of the damage to the structure. As Jean-Jacques Larrochelle reports (A Oslo, Picasso au secours d'un bâtiment ministériel, June 26) for Le Monde,

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À mon chevet: The First Four Notes

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


Of course, only the perceiving subject could know whether their judgment is concept free and therefore aesthetically valid, and Kant admits that the perceiving subject is an unreliable witness, often unaware that a perception of beauty is based on a concept. That makes it difficult to tell

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Summer Reading: French Edition

Andrus Kivirähk, L'Homme qui savait la
langue des serpents (Attila, 2013)
Here is a selection of some French beach reads (Les coups de coeur du "Monde des livres" pour l'été, June 21) recommended by Le Monde (my translation):
Andrus Kivirähk, L'Homme qui savait la langue des serpents (Mees, kes teadis ussisõnu), trans. Jean-Pierre Minaudier, Attila, 422 pp., 23 €.

In this novel by Andrus

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Reviewed, Not Necessarily Recommended: Peter and the Wolf at Lake Wobegon

PETERING The Tomten and the Fox: New Classical Music for Children • Mississippi Gulf Coast Suite, Journey for Two Violins, String Quartet for Pet Rabbit, The Tomten and the Fox • Norene Smith, Mark Petering, Charles Sena (narrators); Stephen Colburn, cond; Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra New Music Ensemble • Zebrina Records ZR1075 (50:30)



M.Petering , The Tomten and the Fox et al.,
N.Smith,

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In Brief: At the Lake 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 concert of the three prize-winners at the Concours Musical International de Montréal for violin: Marc Bouchkov (Belgium), Stephen Waarts (USA), and Zeyu

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The Currentzis Dances II & Ravel’s Wonderful Rubbish

Teodor Currentzis’ look is half Emo, half Marilyn Manson. It’s rather dreadful, but I suppose anything to differentiate oneself from the crowd will do and serves a purpose. And if rebel one must, it is surely better to rebel with black carrot pants and a white dinner jacket and greasy side-shaved hair than, say, youthful swastikas. From a PR point of view, at least. (Also with the difference that

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Dip Your Ears, No. 143 (Jansons' Lutosławski & Friends)

Lutosławski, Szymanowski, A.Tchaikovsky , Cto. for Orchestra, Sy.#3, Sy.#4
M.Jansons / BRSO
Rafał Bartmiński (tenor), Andreas Röhn (violin), Nimrod Guez (viola)
BR Klassik

Lutosławski TouchstoneLutosławski’s Concerto for Orchestra is of a rare, invigorating quality: here pounding, there lyrical, then flitting like reveling grasshoppers. Success depends on painstaking precision, fitting each

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NSO Ends Season with a Modern Bang

W. Lutosławski, Concerto for Orchestra (inter alia), Polish Radio National Symphony Orchestra, W. Lutosławski (EMI)
The regular season of the National Symphony Orchestra came to a memorable close last night in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. Before heading off for summer shits and giggles at Wolf Trap, the ensemble brought back Witold Lutosławski's virtuosic Concerto for Orchestra, not heard

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Second Opinion: NSO with Tough MacMillan Nuts, Lutosławski Excitement

Many thanks to Robert R. Reilly for this review from The Kennedy Center.




Thursday night, at the Kennedy Center,the National Symphony Orchestra welcomed Polish conductor Krzysztof Urbanski in a program of Edvard Grieg, James MacMillan, and Witold Lutosławski.

Grieg’s Suite No.1 from Peer Gynt made for a nice curtain raiser and warm-up piece. It also revealed the style of the very young

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Flying Dutchman Sketches & Doodles

Jotted down during Minkowski's performance at the Vienna Konzerthaus. (Not creatures of boredom.)

The Gal



The Vision

The Long Talk

The Meeting

The Courtship

The Promise

The End

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Minkowski's Sons of Meyerbeer: Wagner & Dietsch

A Double Bill of Flying Dutchmen
While in Vienna, do as the Viennese and attend concerts. At least that’s the cliché about the allegedly culture-loving town, and I’m not above it. After tremendous Verdi at the Konzerthaus (Requiem, Noseda), I was in for another anniversary-boy in the same venue. This time Wagner, but with a two-hour twist. When Wagner wrote the libretto for his Flying Dutchman,

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Briefly Noted: MacMillan Piano Concerto

J. MacMillan, Piano Concerto No. 2, W. Marshall, BBC Philharmonic, J. MacMillan (Chandos, 2006)
Krzysztof Urbanski is conducting quite a program with the National Symphony Orchestra tonight, combining Grieg's Peer Gynt Suite No. 1, op. 46, and Lutosławski's Concerto for Orchestra. In between will be Jean-Yves Thibaudet playing a piano concerto, either the new third piano concerto by Scottish

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'Sostegno e gloria d'umanità': Arts and Wine

British art historian Norman Rosenthal has a theory about Dionysian references in the history of art. Valérie Duponchelle spoke to him about it for an article (Sir Norman Rosenthal : «De Dionysos à Picasso», June 19) for Le Figaro (my translation):
LE FIGARO. - Art and wine, is it a long, loving marriage?
Seated in my library, I see all my art history books which are filled with endless

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Montserrat on Montserrat

Llibre Vermell de Montserrat, M. Figueras, Hespèrion XX (inter alii), J. Savall
(re-released on October 25, 2010)
Virgin 628658 2 1 | 59'18"
Hard as it is to believe, this fine little disc was recorded 35 years ago, in the heyday of the early music movement. In it Jordi Savall offers alternately mysterious and earthy performances of the ten pieces notated in the Llibre vermell, a 14th-century

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NOI's Strauss

Charles T. Downey, National Orchestral Institute’s presentation of young musicians displays talent, haste
Washington Post, June 17, 2013


R. Strauss, Tone Poems, Philadelphia Orchestra, W. Sawallisch
The best way to learn is to do. That is the goal of the National Orchestral Institute, the summer apprenticeship program for young classical musicians at the University of Maryland. Its National

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Ionarts-at-Large: AkAMus Rocks Corelli

In the fourth concert of their little mini-residency in Munich’s Prinzregenten Theater, the Academy for Ancient Music Berlin (AkAMus) appeared before a very decent crowd last Saturday. Not like on their last outing, where the concert venue, a smaller scaled Bayreuth replica, was apparently two thirds empty. It’s heartening, that the rather un-adventurous Munich crowd cared enough about one of

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In Brief: Dear Old Dad 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 Salle Pleyel, watch Vasily Petrenko lead the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France in Shostakovich's fourth symphony, plus Tchaikovsky's violin concerto

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Dip Your Ears, No. 142 (Modern Piano Préludes)

Various Composers, Piano Préludes from the 20th and 21st Century
Ulrike Fendel
Gramola

Irresistible Unknowns
Irresistible unknowns: I know as much about Ulrike Fendel as this disc’s liner notes tell me. Nor do I know if it is her performance prowess, to any significant degree, or just the ingenious assembly of pieces that makes this release work. But it is an increasingly enthralling

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Ionarts-at-Large: Grazioso Indeed! Nelsons with the BRSO

Andris Nelsons may have signed on in Boston as the new MD—and Mariss Jansons may have renewed his contract with the BRSO through 2016, but the courtship between the orchestra and Nelsons, the Jansons protégé, continues right on. Only the consummation has been postponed. (Aside: in this day and age, no maestro is expected to be monogamous… going steady with two, even three orchestral bodies a

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Musical Evocations at the Kennedy Center

Many thanks to Robert R. Reilly for this review from The Kennedy Center.



This Thursday night, French influence was everywhere with the National Symphony Orchestra under British guest conductor Matthew Halls at the Kennedy Center. First there was Maurice Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin, a recollection of 18th-century French music through the gauze of Impressionism, next, Henri Dutilleux’s Tout

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Briefly Noted: Hamelin's Haydn

Haydn, Keyboard Concertos 3/4/11, M.-A. Hamelin, Les Violons du Roy, B. Labadie
(released on April 9, 2013)
Hyperion CDA67925 | 61'44"


Haydn, Keyboard Sonatas, Vol. 3, M.-A. Hamelin (2012)Marc-André Hamelin plays Haydn on a Steinway, unapologetically and beautifully. We have admired the Canadian pianist's immaculate, sleek, ornately decorated Haydn sonatas in concert, at fine recitals in 2011

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Picasso Studio Possibly for Sale Soon

If you have always wanted to visit the Grenier des Grands-Augustins, go soon. It is the attic floor of the Hôtel de Savoie (7, rue des Grands-Augustins) in the VIe arrondissment of Paris, a space that figures in the Balzac short story Le Chef-d'oeuvre inconnu (in English, The Unknown Masterpiece), was the residence of actor and director Jean-Louis Barrault, and is where Picasso painted Guernica

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Curse of the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées

Does something about the Théâtre des Champs-Elysées in Paris encourage outrageous behavior in its audiences? The theater opened in 1913, 100 years ago, and quickly hosted the premiere of Debussy's Jeux and The Rite of Spring. The infamous riot that greeted the latter's first performance is only one of several controversial events that have happened in the theater. Pierre Gervasoni takes a look

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Lutosławski's 'Trois poèmes d'Henri Michaux'

Charles T. Downey, At Strathmore, National Philharmonic’s Lutoslawski benefits from lacking Orff
Washington Post, June 11, 2013


Orff, Carmina Burana, G. Wand
The National Philharmonic marked the 100th anniversary of Polish composer Witold Lutoslawski’s birth by giving what was billed as the local premiere of one of his landmark works, “Trois poèmes d’Henri Michaux,” on Sunday at Strathmore.

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New Opera about Muhammad Ali

Charles T. Downey, The Washington National Opera’s ‘Approaching Ali’
Washington Post, June 10, 2013


D. Miller, The Tao of
Muhammad Ali
Little is more exciting than the chance to hear a new opera. There before you is an unknown libretto, characters and plot unfolding, and unheard music flowing into your ears for the first time without anyone’s impressions or experience of the work to bias your

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In Brief: It's Summer Vacation 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.)





Pianist Elisso Virsaladze, cellist Natalia Gutman, violinists Ingolf Turban and Maria Kagan, and violist Bodar Zhvania perform a concert of chamber music by

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Augustin Hadelich with the NSO

Flying Solo (Bartók, Paganini), A. Hadelich (2009)
In the last few years, pops concerts and other activities have made the last month of the National Symphony Orchestra's season seem cut short or non-existent. This year, happily, the Kennedy Center Concert Hall has a series of concerts, with some satisfying repertoire, that runs through most of the month of June. The latest one, heard on Friday

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Dip Your Ears, No. 141 (Geordie Corelli)

A.Corelli, 12 Violin Sonatas Op.5
The Avison Ensemble
Pavlo Beznosiuk (leader)
Linn 2 SACDs


Fiercely Baroque “You request Corelli?”, my former boss at the radio station asked me with some disbelief over white sausage breakfast, eyeing this SACD release with the dozen Opus 5 Violin Sonatas sitting next to me. Yes, I do. And I was right on with this one! These are terrific performances by

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Ballet Across America 2: 'Les Patineurs'

The second part of the Kennedy Center's Ballet Across America festival (see Part 1) had the choreography that really caught my eye, Frederick Ashton's classic Les Patineurs. Overall it was likely the high point of the week because of the combination of Ashton's skating ballet, made for Sadler's Wells in 1937, with a Philip Glass choreography, Wunderland, and more Balanchine, The Four Temperaments

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Opera on DVD: Branagh's 'Magic Flute'

Mozart, The Magic Flute, J. Kaiser, A. Carson, R. Pape, L. Petrova (film directed by K. Branagh), Chamber Orchestra of Europe, J. Conlon
(released on June 11, 2013)
Idéale Audience REVA1047 | 134'
Attentive readers may recall me mentioning a new film version of Mozart's Die Zauberflöte, directed by Kenneth Branagh, back in 2006 when it was first seen in limited release (in Canada, France, and a

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Ionarts-at-Large: Noseda's Stereofantastic Verdi-Vienna Requiem

Outgrowing its inaugural home of Munich, the classical music recording industry fair “Classical:NEXT” took place in Vienna this year… as good an excuse to travel east to the Austrian capital as there is. Once there, however, it was a decision between attending the opening ceremony with a chat by Daniel Hope or a Verdi Requiem in the Konzerthaus, featuring the Teatro Regio Torino Orchestra in its

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“In Music I’m a Lot More Courageous”

An Interview with Anna Zassimova


An Authority on Catoire
I’m sitting in the middle of sugary-charming Salzburg, running from concert to concert, with scarcely time to change shirts between. Christian Thielemann conducts Die Frau ohne Schatten left of the Salzach river. On its right a complete cycle of Shostakovich’s string quartets with Mandelring String Quartet takes place in the Mozarteum.

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Ballet Across America 1

What if you could take a cross-country tour to get a snapshot of what smaller ballet companies are presenting across the United States? That is the goal of the Kennedy Center's Ballet Across America festival, a cross-section of regional ballet from around the country, now in its third installment after previous incarnations in 2008 and 2010. The most recent work on the first set of three ballets,

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Briefly Noted: The Lord Said to My Lord

Handel / Vivaldi, Dixit Dominus, L. Crowe, La Nuova Musica, D. Bates
(released on April 9, 2013)
HMU 807587 | 66'38"
This setting of Dixit Dominus -- Psalm 109, in the Divine Office the first psalm at solemn Vespers on Sunday -- is the third known to have been composed by Antonio Vivaldi. It was discovered in Dresden only in 2005, because the work had long been wrongly attributed to Baldassare

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Briefly Noted: Lera Auerbach's Celloquy

L. Auerbach, 24 Preludes for Cello and Piano / Cello Sonata / Postlude, A. Aznavoorian, L. Auerbach
(released on February 5, 2013)
CDR 90000 137 | 75'12"
Lera Auerbach has been one of the composers whose music I most want to hear since her first cello sonata came to my ears (the one for cello and piano, not the one for solo cello), on a recital by David Finckel and Wu Han, for whom it was

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In Brief: Class of 2013 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 Opéra Comique in Paris, listen to a performance of Cendrillon, a 1904 chamber opera by Pauline Viardot, for seven voices and piano. [France Musique]

Listen to

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Dip Your Ears, No. 140 (Bacewicz and the Cello)

G.Bacewicz, Cello Concertos
Sinfonia Iuventus Orchestra /
DUX

From Lutosławski, Górecki, Panufnik, Penderecki, and Tansman—the five better-known Polish 20th Century composers—one important name missing: Grażyna Bacewicz, who successfully escaped style-classification but also escaped lasting fame. Her String Quartets and Violin Concertos are the go-to works, but the Cello Concertos are “

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Second Opinion: John Adams and his City Noir

Many thanks to Robert R. Reilly for this review from The Kennedy Center.

Last Thursday, American composer John Adams led the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in a program of Ottorino Resphigi’s Fountains of Rome, Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto in G major, and Adams’s own City Noir, composed for the Los Angeles Philharmonic and premiered in 2009. What could possibly tie this

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John Adams Back with the NSO

J. Adams, City Noir (inter alia), Los Angeles Philharmonic, G. Dudamel (2009)
John Adams is coming to the end of his latest visit to Washington: after a four-day residency at the Library of Congress, he is taking the podium of the National Symphony Orchestra this week. As with previous guest stints in the area, with the NSO in 2010 and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 2007, he paired one of

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Briefly Noted: Egarr's English Suites

J. S. Bach, English Suites,
R. Egarr (harpsichord)
(released on February 12, 2013)
HMU 907591.92 | 141'23"
We always want to hear Richard Egarr play, and the recordings in his ongoing series of the works of J. S. Bach are guaranteed to find their way to my ears. In the latest installment, the six English suites, Egarr uses the same Joel Katzman harpsichord (Amsterdam, 1991, after a 1638 Ruckers

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Bezuidenhout's Mozart Continues

Mozart, Keyboard Music, Vol. 4, K. Bezuidenhout (fortepiano)
(released on January 8, 2013)
HMU 907528 | 71'29"
Kristian Bezuidenhout, in an excellent traversal of the keyboard works of Mozart, continues to furnish jewel-like renditions of pieces you thought you knew but hear in different ways now, as well as others you did not really know and now wonder why not. We have admired the earlier

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'Show Boat', Now That It's Over

It is no secret that Francesca Zambello's decision to include Washington National Opera in her experiments with the American musical, by bringing her production of Show Boat here, struck me as a mistake. Some people think that musicals will somehow usher in a revitalizing audience boom for opera houses: Anne Midgette and Tim Smith both wrote highly about Zambello's production, praising the

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Collard with the BSO

Charles T. Downey, Guest BSO conductor Carlos Kalmar provides expert leadership
Washington Post, May 27, 2013


Saint-Saëns, Piano Concertos, J.-P. Collard, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, A. Previn
In the battle of the area’s major orchestras, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra often outplays the National Symphony Orchestra, section for section. In the past few years, however, the BSO’s

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In Brief: Rite of What 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.) Now you know what to do with your day off tomorrow.





Philippe Herreweghe conducts four Bach cantatas (BWV 73, 44, 48, and 109) plus the motet Komm, Jesu, komm (Johann

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John Adams Residency, Day 3

Adams, Son of Chamber Symphony, ICE, J. Adams (2011)
[REVIEW]
John Adams has not done himself any favors during his residency this week at the Library of Congress. In his programming of the first three concerts, he has put his own music up against the titans of the 20th century: Béla Bartók and Leoš Janáček for Road Movies, and last night it was Igor Stravinsky and Arnold Schoenberg sandwiching

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Dip Your Ears, No. 139 (Mozart's Many Requiems)

W.A.Mozart, Requiem
S.Cleopbury / The Choir of the King’s College
KGS 002

The Choir of the King’s College has been taken into the publishing-boat of the LSO Live recording specialists who are already producing the eponymous LSO Live label and that of the Mariinsky Orchestra. Their first shot was a double CD of “Nine Lessons & Carols” which featured several new commissions, a small

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John Adams Residency, Day 2

E.-P. Salonen, Lachen verlernt (inter alia), J. Koh (2009)


Adams, Road Movies (inter alia), J. Koh, R. Uchida (2010)Half of the concerts in the Library of Congress's residency with composer John Adams are in the Coolidge Auditorium, with the other half at the Atlas Performing Arts Center, including last night's recital by violinist Jennifer Koh and pianist Reiko Uchida. The only apparent

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Whitsun Salzburg: Stravinsky for Dummies

Instigated by little more than mood and circumstance, I’d taken a little sabbatical from concert-going—abstaining for the first time in about ten years from live musical stimuli for any extended amount of time. What better way to end the self-imposed drought than to hop down to Salzburg for a day, to catch a performance at the Whitsun Festival.

The topic this year was “OPFER/SACRIFICE”, with

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John Adams Residency, Day 1

Fellow Traveler: Complete String Quartet Works of John Adams, Attacca Quartet
(released on March 26, 2013)
Azica ACD-71280 | 65'


Beethoven, String Quartets, op. 18/2+3, Quatuor MosaïquesJohn Adams is in town for a couple weeks, curating a residency at the Library of Congress this week and then serving as guest conductor with the National Symphony Orchestra next week. The first concert

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Briefly Noted: Colin Davis's 'Der Freischütz'

Weber, Der Freischütz, C. Brewer, S. Matthews, S. O'Neill, L. Woldt, London Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, C. Davis
(released on May 14, 2013)
LSO Live LS00726 | 122'43"
One way to celebrate the Richard Wagner bicentenary -- he was born on this day in 1813 -- is to spend the day listening to one of the composers from whom he stole shamelessly. Wagner was only eight years old when Carl Maria von

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Picturing --- Pictures

Lens time with Mona
The Louvre, one of the greatest collections of art in the world, is one of the most difficult to visit. The museum is the most popular attraction in France, hands down, and many think they have the secret to a stress-less entry. The Pyramid entrance after 2 pm, or the Carousel entrance -- they both have benefits, but Carousel is my preferred passage.

The energy created by

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Apollo Ensemble's Jewish Baroque

This review, which somehow had disappeared into the Intertube ether, covers a concert heard last week.


Solomon Alexander Hart, The Feast of the Rejoicing of the Law at the Synagogue in Leghorn, Italy, 1850 (The Jewish Museum, New York)
The architecture and decoration of Jewish synagogues was often similar in style to Christian or Islamic structures: Roman-style frescoes in Dura-Europos, the

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Classical Month in Washington: July/August

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!

July 4, 2013 (Thu)
8 pm
A Capitol Fourth
National Symphony Orchestra
U.S. Capitol, West Lawn

July 6, 2013 (Sat)
4 pm
Castleton Chamber Players
Music of Mahler
Castleton

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La Maledizione, Hon

Charles T. Downey, Lyric Opera of Baltimore presents a worthwhile ‘Rigoletto’
Washington Post, May 20, 2013


Verdi, Rigoletto, D. Damrau, J. D. Flórez, Ž. Lučić, Semperoper Dresden, F. Luisi (Virgin, 2010)
[READ REVIEW / YouTube]
The world celebrates the 200th anniversary of Giuseppe Verdi’s birth this October, but opera companies hardly need any encouragement to stage the Italian composer’s

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In Brief: Almost Wagner's Birthday 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 Musikverein in Vienna (video embedded at right), Daniele Gatti leads a performance of Rossini's Petite Messe Solenelle with the Orchestre National de France

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It's Raining Cats and Cash

There's a cool rain falling in New York City, at the Museum of Modern Art. The Rain Room, by Random International, is a field of falling water that pauses wherever a human body is detected: there may be no need to carry an umbrella again. Think of yourself as Moses. I don't know how many sensors it takes to run this project, but it's quite interesting and fun. The faster you walk, the more you

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Dip Your Ears, No. 138 (Mendelssohn Organ Works)

F.Mendelssohn-B., Organ Works
Yuval Rabin (Braun/Mathis organ of St.Marzellus, CH)
MDG


Felix Mendelssohn B. was fond of organs and organ music and wrote idiomatically for the instrument. You just can’t hear it in his other compositions (think Bruckner, for contrast), and since you just about never hear Mendelssohn’s organ music in recital or concert either, that part of his output—limited

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Summer Music Festivals: U.S.

Soprano Angela Meade
What would Ionarts be covering this summer if we had an unlimited travel budget? Here are our picks for the best performances of opera and classical music being presented by American summer festivals.

CINCINNATI OPERA
This may be the summer for my first visit to Cincinnati Opera, primarily because Angela Meade will be the Donna Anna in their production of Don Giovanni (

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Classical Music Agenda (June 2013)

Summer is at hand, meaning that the pickings get slimmer in the monthly concert agenda for local events. On the other hand, we will also have a summer festival preview coming up, with some of the performances outside of Washington we most want to hear.


Composer James MacMillan
ORCHESTRAS:
Happily the National Symphony Orchestra is extending its season at the Kennedy Center through June, until

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Debussy's 'Jeux', 100 Years Later

Tamara Karsavina (first young lady), Vaslav Nijinsky (young man), and Ludmilla Schollar (second young lady) in Jeux, 1913
As you have doubtless heard by now, we are coming up on the 100th anniversary of the first performance of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring. The groundwork of that infamously riotous premiere was laid by the much less notorious debut of a ballet that was in many ways more

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Martina Filjak @ Phillips

Charles T. Downey, At Phillips, pianist Martina Filjak offers unexpected interpretations of familiar works
Washington Post, May 14, 2013


Soler, Keyboard Sonatas 1-15, M. Filjak (Naxos, 2011)
Martina Filjak offered some surprises during her recital Sunday afternoon at the Phillips Collection. The Croatian-born pianist gave sometimes unexpected interpretations of familiar works, paired with

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Farewell to David Finckel

Emerson Quartet:

Haydn, String Quartets


Bartók, String QuartetsDavid Finckel has left the Emerson Quartet, with whom he has performed as cellist since 1979. The group gave their last performance with Finckel on Saturday evening, the conclusion of their Smithsonian Associates concert series at the National Museum of Natural History. As Finckel explained in brief remarks before the second half,

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In Brief: Call Mom 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 last month, John Eliot Gardiner leads a performance of Bach's B Minor Mass, with English Baroque Soloists and the Monteverdi Choir at Royal Albert Hall. [

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Dip Your Ears, No. 137 (Orchestral Suites Reconstructed)

J.S.Bach, Orchestral Suites
M.Huggett / Ensemble Sonnerie / G.X.Ruiz
Avie

Monica Hugget is one of the baroque music scene’s most cherished pioneer-veterans, co-founder of the Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra with Ton Koopman and founding member of the Academy of Ancient Music, she also worked with Trevor Pinnock and his English Concert and has led Toronto based Tafelmusik. She is currently the

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For Your Consideration: 'Kiss of the Damned'

Truth be told, I love a good vampire movie: Nosferatu, Frank Langella as Dracula, Fright Night, Guillermo del Toro's Cronos, the Swedish Let the Right One In -- excellent examples have come in lots of different forms. That predilection means that I can also enjoy a truly bad vampire movie, and that is where Kiss of the Damned, the new feature from Xan Cassavetes, comes in. This is the first

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Briefly Noted: 'Such the tenor man told...'

Britten, Songs, I. Bostridge, A. Pappano, X. Yang
(released on May 21, 2013)
EMI 4334302 | 70'15"
As noted earlier this week, the Britten centenary is yielding some welcome recordings of the composer's lesser-known works. Add to the list this disc of Britten's songs performed by tenor Ian Bostridge, who has the optimal type of voice for much of Britten's writing. Britten wrote most of these

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Briefly Noted: 'Giove in Argo'

Handel, Giove in Argo, A. Hallenberg, K. Gauvin, A. Z. Giustiniani, Il Complesso Barocco, A. Curtis
(released on April 9, 2013)
Virgin 50999 72311622 | 156'50"

Previously:
Berenice | Alcina | Ezio
The Handel opera revival continues apace, with the latest work rediscovered being Giove in Argo, first performed at the King's Theater in London on May 1, 1739. The less said about the libretto, a

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Briefly Noted: 'Rape of Lucretia'

Britten, The Rape of Lucretia, I. Bostridge, S. Gritton, A. Kirchschlager, Aldeburgh Festival, O. Knussen
(released on February 5, 2013)
Virgin 50999 60267221 | 105'33"
On November 22nd this year -- St. Cecilia's Day -- Benjamin Britten would have celebrated his 100th birthday. Composer anniversaries are mostly for powering the engines of publicity, but if good performances and recordings come

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Meredith Monk, 'On Behalf of Nature'

Charles T. Downey, Meredith Monk’s ‘On Behalf of Nature’ at Clarice Smith Center
Washington Post, May 6, 2013


Monk, Impermanence (ECM, 2008)
[READ REVIEW]If nature were to rise up and speak in defense of itself, its voice might sound like a Meredith Monk theater piece. That was the goal of Monk’s new work, “On Behalf of Nature,” presented at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center on

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In Brief: First Communion 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.)





Watch the production of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande from Brussels, directed by Pierre Audi and conducted by Ludovic Morlot, with sets by Anish Kapoor and a cast

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NSO's Russian Tribute to Rostropovich

Schnittke, Viola Concerto, D. A. Carpenter, Philharmonia Orchestra, C. Eschenbach (Ondine, 2009)


Shostakovich, Symphony No. 5, Philadelphia Orchestra, C. Eschenbach (Ondine, 2008)
Christoph Eschenbach is taking the National Symphony Orchestra to Carnegie Hall next weekend, with a program of Russian music in tribute to the ensemble's venerated former music director, Mstislav Rostropovich. The

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Dip Your Ears, No. 136 (A Versatile Viol)

The Versatile Viol
Scottish & Irish Music
Tina Chancey & members of Hesperus
Golden Apple

This 2007 release is for all practical purposes a self-published CD; a tribute to Violist Tina Chancey’s (recorder-playing) husband Scott Reiss who took his life days after contributing to five of the 16 Scottish and Irish early folk songs here. In a technical sense, it’s a ‘vanity release’, except

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Oh Dear, Poor Actaeon

Charles T. Downey, At the Kennedy Center, Opera Lafayette performs Charpentier’s ‘Actéon’
Washington Post, May 4, 2013


M.-A. Charpentier, Actéon, A. Sheehan, Boston Early Music Festival, P. O'Dette, S. Stubbs (cpo, 2010)The vengeful gods of ancient Greece devised devilishly clever punishments. The hunter Actaeon found that out when he glimpsed Artemis bathing in a pool. The goddess, her

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Philadelphia Orchestra

Hilary Hahn: A Portrait (excerpts of Korngold concerto) (DG, 2007)


Bruckner, Symphony No. 7, Orchestre Métropolitain de Montréal, Y. Nézet-Séguin (Atma, 2007)
The Philadelphia Orchestra has survived the past few years of financial and leadership crises, but not without some damage to that venerable institution's reputation. Hopes are high that the tenure of the orchestra's new music director,

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Andrew Tyson, YCA

Charles T. Downey, At Kennedy Center, pianist Andrew Tyson makes debut solo recital
Washington Post, May 2, 2013


Scriabin, Sonata No. 3 (inter alia), E. KissinWhat does it take for a young performer to distinguish himself in the world of classical music? One way is to win a competition, which Andrew Tyson did by taking first prize in the Young Concert Artists International Auditions in 2011.

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Classical Month in Washington (June)

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!

June 1, 2013 (Sat)
2 pm
Markus Groh, piano
WPAS
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

June 1, 2013 (Sat)
7:30 pm
National Chamber Ensemble
With Carlos Rodriguez, piano
Rosslyn

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Jaap van Zweden Directs the NSO

Dutch conductor Jaap van Zweden led the National Symphony Orchestra on Saturday evening in a program of Wagenaar, Beethoven, and Tchaikovsky. Van Zweden, who is Music Director of the Dallas Symphony, violently jerked the musical leash of the hundred-plus musical personalities to establish leadership in the beginning of Johan Wagenaar’s Overture to Cyrano de Bergerac. His abusive gestures during

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Rafał Blechacz in Holding Pattern

Debussy / Szymanowski, Sonata, R. Blechacz (DG, 2012)
Rafał Blechacz's first visit to Washington, in 2010, confirmed the Polish pianist's gift for the music of Chopin. The jury and audience at the 2005 Chopin Competition in Warsaw were so impressed with his ability to play Chopin that he swept every prize, an achievement so remarkable that the jury decided not to award a second prize.

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In Brief: Cool Spring 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.)


The French premiere of Gerald Barry's new opera The Importance of Being Earnest, recorded last month in Nancy, plus a performance of Viktor Ullmann's one-act opera Der

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Dip Your Ears, No. 135 (Medtner, Unsweetened)

N.Medtner / S.Rachmaninoff, Piano Concertos Nos.2 & 4, Floods of Spring,
Y.Sudbin / North Carolina Sym. / G.Llewellyn
BIS SACD


Yevgeny Sudbin is one of the very few pianists about whose recordings I get excited, no matter what repertoire he tackles. His Scriabin (see Dip Your Ears, No.86) and his Scarlatti have set a standard so high, that even very good Beethoven concertos (with the

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Christine Brewer vs. Pollen

Charles T. Downey, For Christine Brewer, a rare miss at Kennedy Center Terrace Theater
Washington Post, April 27, 2013


Strauss, Four Last Songs (inter alia), C. Brewer, Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, D. Runnicles (Telarc, 2006)Christine Brewer does not play it safe in programming, which means that not every recital by the lauded American singer will be a winner. She is one of the most exciting

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Evgeny Kissin's Op. 111

Liszt, Études d'exécution transcendante (inter alia), E. Kissin


Schubert / Brahms / Bach / Liszt / Gluck, E. Kissin

Previous Reviews:
2011 | NSO, 2009 | 2009
2007 | 2005
Among living pianists, Evgeny Kissin is in a separate category, someone whose technical acumen and musical approach are near-infallible. We have not missed a single local performance by this most celebrated Russian pianist

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Briefly Noted: Vinikour's Rameau

J.-P. Rameau, Complete Harpischord Works, J. Vinikour (2 CDs)
(released on June 26, 2012)
DSL-92154 | 156'44"
The harpsichord played by Christophe Rousset in a concert at the Library of Congress earlier this month was built by Thomas and Barbara Wolf in 2005. It is a copy of a 1707 instrument created in Paris by Nicolas Dumont (hidden in an estate's granary, where it survived the French

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Crunch Time for Missing Children

The Scoping Report on Missing and Abducted Children 2011 states the following: “Children who go missing are at risk of harm. When a child goes missing, there is something wrong, often quite seriously, in that child’s life. The reasons behind missing incidents are varied, where children go missing as a consequence of specific, distinct circumstances. The serious problem of missing and abducted

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Bavouzet Returns, Phillips Collection

Charles T. Downey, Pianist Jean-Efflam Bavouzet: Technical mastery in need of a little heart
Washington Post, April 23, 2013


Debussy, Complete Works for Piano, J.-E. Bavouzet (Chandos, 2012)
No one should have any doubts about the virtuosity of Jean-Efflam Bavouzet. The French pianist has amassed an extensive number of recordings on the Chandos label, including complete sets of Beethoven’s

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The Writing on the Wall

Charles T. Downey, A valiant ‘Belshazzar’ at Freer Gallery
Washington Post, April 22, 2013

Handel, Belshazzar, A. Rolfe Johnson, A. Auger, English Concert, T. Pinnock
[Review of Jacobs DVD]Cyrus the Great has been admired by many people, from the ancient Hebrews to the Greeks to Thomas Jefferson. When Cyrus conquered the Babylonians, he freed many enslaved people and returned the cultural

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In Brief: Boston 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.)


Andris Nelsons leads the Berlin Philharmonic in Shostakovich's sixth symphony, a Mozart symphony (K. 319), and Wagner's overture to Tannhäuser. [Österreichischer

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Dip Your Ears, No. 134 (The Lovely Hill)

Alfred Hill,
SQ4ts 10 & 11, “Life” Quintet
Dominion Quartet / R.Mapp
Naxos 8.572844

Here’s chamber music you didn’t know you love: From Australian Alfred Hill (1869-1960), whose string quartets led Robert Reilly to call him “the Australian Dvořák.” That’s perhaps giving their earnest melodiousness a little too much credit, but the excellent if not revelatory 10th and 11th (of 17) string

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Stile Antico @ LoC

Charles T. Downey, Stile Antico brings out beauty of early music
Washington Post, April 19, 2013


Passion and Resurrection, Stile Antico (Harmonia Mundi, 2012)
[Other recordings]
Sometimes the best way to champion early music is to perform it as beautifully as possible and forget about how it might have been performed when it was composed. This was exactly what the English chamber choir Stile

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Dresden Staatskapelle (and WPAS) in North Bethesda

Brahms, Violin Concerto / C. Schumann, Three Romances, L. Batiashvili, Dresden Staatskapelle, C. Thielemann (DG, 2013)
Given the direction Washington Performing Arts Society seems to be going -- more about that below -- we should perhaps savor the last Neale Perl season from WPAS, with performances by András Schiff, Evgeny Kissin, and Rafał Blechacz in just this month alone. Add to that list a

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Maurizio Pollini de Retour

Chopin, Preludes / Nocturnes / Mazurkas / Scherzo, M. Pollini (DG, 2012)


Chopin, Box Set, M. Pollini (DG, recorded 1972-2008)


Debussy, Preludes (Book 1) / L'Isle Joyeuse, M. Pollini (DG, 1999)

Previous Recitals:
2010 | 2008 | 2006 | 2004
Why do we love the performances of Maurizio Pollini so much? What some listeners find too flinty or steely in his playing is the same lack of varnish, the

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In Memoriam: Hearing Sir Colin Davis (1927 - 2013)

Tippett, Midsummer Marriage
Lyrita
UK | DE | FR Britten, Peter Grimes
Philips/Decca
UK | DE | FR
To pick a dozen recordings from Sir Colin Davis’ discography that do his life, work, and art justice is either terribly easy (because there are so many) or terribly difficult (because twelve are so few). Davis was one of the most prolific, and most recorded conductors, rivaled only by Sir

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Christophe Rousset, Musical Journeys

Charles T. Downey, Christophe Rousset on the harpsichord
Washington Post, April 15, 2013


J.-P. Rameau, Les Indes Galantes, C. Rousset (Naïve, 2009)
In the right hands, the harpsichord can be a mesmerizing instrument. Christophe Rousset, in two concerts over the weekend, took listeners on unforgettable musical journeys: through two centuries of French music for the harpsichord, through musical

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Sir Colin Davis (1927 - 2013)

See our Colin Davis Appreciation here: In Memoriam: Hearing Sir Colin Davis (1927 - 2013)

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In Brief: Tax Man 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.)


The Opéra de Lyon gives the world premiere of Thierry Escaich's opera Claude (watch video embedded at right), based on Victor Hugo's novel Claude Gueux from 1834. [

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Dip Your Ears, No. 133 (Bach Motets)

J.S.Bach, Motets
J.E.Gardiner / Monteverdi Choir
SDG 716

John Eliot Gardiner’s Bach recordings on his label, Soli Deo Gloria, are gorgeous in every way. The packaging is a joy to behold; the artwork, the notes, the choice of fonts… everything exudes thoughtfulness. The same is true for their live performances—here the six Motets of Bach which not only Gardiner considers among the cantor’s “

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Christophe Rousset in Concert

Froberger, Suites de clavecin, C. Rousset (Naïve, 2010)


L. Couperin, Suites de Clavecin, C. Rousset (Aparte, 2010)


J.-P. Rameau, Les Indes Galantes, C. Rousset (Naïve, 2009)
We are big fans of the harpsichord playing of Christophe Rousset around here. The French harpsichordist and conductor has a vast discography to his name, with discs of music by a startling range of composers, some

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Parsifal and the Tree of Life

My first Wagner opera was Parsifal at the Bavarian State Opera. Around Easter, twelve years ago, I managed to snag a standing room ticket for a performance with Waltraud Meier and Kurt Moll (John Keyes was Parsifal, Christof Prick conducted). At the time, Peter Konwitschny’s production was already six years old, and it fascinated me, right through my enthralled incomprehension.

I might not

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American Ballet Theater at the Kennedy Center

Marcelo Gomes and Julie Kent in The Moor's Pavane, American Ballet Theater (photo by Gene Schiavone)
American Ballet Theater is back in town for a week-long visit to the Kennedy Center Opera House, a company we last reviewed in their charming Nutcracker a couple years ago. The distinguished touring company, established to bring the best ballet to the citizens of the Unites States and once led

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WNO Celebrity Series: Diana Damrau

Charles T. Downey, Coloratura Diana Damrau charms in Washington National Opera debut despite illness
Washington Post, April 10, 2013

Nuit d'étoiles (music by Debussy), X. de Maistre (harp) with D. Damrau (2009)Diana Damrau, one of the finest coloraturas of her generation, finally came to Washington National Opera on Monday night. It was not exactly the debut one might have hoped for, not on

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Washington Concert Opera's 'Maria Stuarda'

Donizetti, Maria Stuarda, B. Sills, E. Farrell, London Philharmonic Orchestra, A. Ceccato


Donizetti, Maria Stuarda, J. Sutherland, H. Tourangeau, L. Pavarotti, Orchestra del Teatro Comunale di Bologna, R. BonyngeDonizetti's Maria Stuarda features perhaps the best cat fight in operatic history. In what is arguably the opera's high point, at the end of the second act, Queen Elizabeth I of

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The Choir of King’s College, Cambridge

This review is an Ionarts exclusive.


Mozart Requiem: Realisations, Choir of King's College, Cambridge (to be released this month)


Glorious Majesty: Music for English Kings and Queens, Choir of King's College, CambridgeRegarded as the “pre-eminent representative of the great British choral tradition,” the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge, offered a rare performance Sunday afternoon to an

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Bach is Next to Godliness, the Flute Not

J.S.Bach, Flute Sonatas, and lots of them,
M.Piccinini, Brasil Guitar Duo
Avie

In the documentary “A Year in the Life of the St. Thomas Boys Choir” (an essay about it forthcoming in the next issue of Listen Magazine), Christoph Biller, the 16th Thomanercantor since Bach, says that God can’t be known (hence faith), but he can be felt—in Bach. Bach—and I agree wholehearted, although “

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A Far Cry, Dumbarton Concerts

Charles T. Downey, A Far Cry closes out Dumbarton Concerts series
Washington Post, April 8, 2013


Piazzolla, J. Vieaux, J. Labro, A Far Cry (2011)
What a chamber orchestra loses by performing without a conductor is some degree of ensemble cohesion, as well as an outside ear to judge balances, phrasing and interpretive choices. What it gains is independence, and that can energize a

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Kahane and Andres, Dual-Piano Act

T. Andres, Shy and Mighty, T. Andres and D. Kaplan (2010)


G. Kahane, Where Are the Arms? (2011)
Gabriel Kahane's flexibility in the pop idiom, which he mixes with an interest in classical music old and contemporary, has made him the darling of many critics. The same is true of composer-pianist Timothy Andres, which made their dual appearance on the free concert series at the Library of

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In Brief: Quasimodo 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.) Oh, so much to watch and listen to this week, so get started!


Washingtonians may want to listen to Christoph Eschenbach with another band, the Czech Philharmonic,

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Dip Your Ears, No. 132 (Gál’s Marionettes)

Hans Gál, Complete Piano Duos
Goldstone and Clemmow Piano Duo
Divine Art 245098

Don’t let the amateurish graphic design of this release (strictly speaking re-release from an earlier Olympia recording), or the performer’s shiny turquoise waistcoat fool you: These are quality piano duos by the wonderful, woefully neglected Hans Gál, in highly professional, thoughtful performances by Caroline

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For Your Consideration: 'Reality'

Matteo Garrone, the Italian filmmaker, took his realistic approach to cinéma vérité quite seriously when he made Gomorra, an extraordinary film about the corruption of the Neapolitan mafia. He was able to make that frank assessment of the Camorra, the crime syndicate that pervades the life of Naples, only by collusion with that same mafia, as has recently been alleged. He discovered one of his

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Easter WETA Redux No.2<!-- Easter Pilgrimage – Parisfal [sic!] -->

Fresh back from a Easter Parsifal performance (review forthcoming), I figure it seems only (in)appropriate, on this Easter Sunday, to resurrect the two meandering 'Easter Pilgrimage bits' I wrote for WETA in 2008... which was a wonderful trip through Europe with the goal of getting as many Parsifal and Matthew Passion performances into a fortnight. (An unforeseen link: Attila Jun, then a Dutchman

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NSO and Ax

S. Albert, Symphony No. 1 ("RiverRun"), National Symphony Orchestra, M. Rostropovich


Chopin, Piano Concertos 1/2, M. J. Pires, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, E. Krivine / Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, A. Previn


Dvořák, Symphony No. 5, Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, J. Bělohlávek
Sometimes a concert can be more intriguing, intellectually rewarding, than truly exciting. All of the ingredients

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WNO Young Artists and Their Russian Friends

Tenor Sergey Radchenko (photo courtesy of Askonas Holt)
For the third year in a row, Washington National Opera's Domingo-Cafritz Young Artists Program has undertaken an exchange of its young singers with young artists in a similar training program at the Bolshoi Opera. After sending a few of its charges to Moscow, WNO has hosted a few Russian singers here in Washington the last couple weeks, and

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Reviewed, Not Necessarily Recommended: Vapid Mann

Johan Gottfried Hendrik MANN: Feest Preludium for Orchestra op.95, Clarinet Concerto op.90, Violin Concerto op.101, Troisième Suite op.98. Sebastian Manz (clarinet), Akiko Yamada (violin), Hermann Bäumer (conductor), Osnabrücker SO ● CPO 777 620 (73:40)



J.G.H.Mann, Violin & Clarinet Concertos et al.,
S.Manz, A.Yamada / H.Bäumer / Osnabruck SO
CPO

I don't remember being less impressed by

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Classical Music Agenda (May 2013)

In May, we are leading with the living composers who are coming to the area and whose music will be performed here. Equally high in our estimation are some definitely dead composers also being performed here next month. Here are the Top 10 choices, but many more concerts will run through the calendar in the sidebar.


Composer John Adams
ALIVE:
The last time that we reviewed Meredith Monk and her

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Eric Whitacre Takes New Direction

Eric Whitacre, Night: Music for the Zombie Apocalypse, Eric Whitacre Singers, London Symphony Orchestra
What is the secret behind Eric Whitacre's hold over choral singers around the world? The answer may be found in the composer's new album, Night, which cashes in on the frenzy of interest in zombie stories like television's The Walking Dead. The new album, says advance press releases, "is an

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Easter WETA Redux No.1 <!--Easter Pilgrimage – Dutchman Detour-->

Fresh back from a Easter Parsifal performance (review forthcoming), I figure it seems only (in)appropriate, on this Easter Sunday, to resurrect the two meandering 'Easter Pilgrimage bits' I wrote for WETA in 2008... which was a wonderful trip through Europe with the goal of getting as many Parsifal and Matthew Passion performances into a fortnight. (An unforeseen link: Attila Jun, then a Dutchman

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In Brief: Χριστός ἀνέστη 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.)





For Easter Sunday, here is the Berlin Philharmonic performing Mahler's second symphony at Carnegie Hall in February 2012, with Camilla Tilling and Bernarda Fink, plus

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NSO with Janowski

Beethoven / Berg, Violin Concertos, A. Steinbacher, WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, A. Nelsons


B. Blacher, Orchestra-Variations on a Theme of Paganini (inter alia), Dresden Philharmonic, H. KegelMarek Janowski, the music director of the Rundfunk-Sinfonie Orchester Berlin, may have conducted the National Symphony Orchestra before this weekend, but Friday night's performance was the first time we

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Dip Your Ears, No. 131 (Pfitzner Supreme)

H.Pfitzner, Palestrina
Kirill Petrenko / Frankfurt Opera & Museum Orchestra & Chorus
P.Bronder, B.Stallmeister, C.Mahnke, W.Koch J.M.Kränzle et al.
Oehms OC 930

I have a soft spot for most of the irreputable Hans Pfitzner’s unabashedly romantic tone. But Palestrina, his supposed masterpiece, can be dull. While I suffered through a performance with Simone Young in Munich, the Frankfurt opera

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Easter WETA Redux No.0<!-- Bach Pilgrimage to Narden -->

Fresh back from a Easter Parsifal performance (review forthcoming), I figure it seems only (in)appropriate, on this Easter Sunday, to resurrect the two meandering 'Easter Pilgrimage bits' I wrote for WETA in 2008... which was a wonderful trip through Europe with the goal of getting as many Parsifal and Matthew Passion performances into a fortnight. (An unforeseen link: Attila Jun, then a Dutchman

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Good Friday Musical Meditation

William Cornysh (1465-1523), Woefully Arrayed, Stile Antico
Woefully arrayed,
My blood, man, for thee ran, it may not be nayed;
My body, blo and wan;
Woefully arrayed.

Behold me, I pray thee,
with all thy whole reason
and be not hard-hearted,
and for this encheason,
sith I for thy soul sake
was slain in good season,
Beguiled and betrayed
by Judas false treason,
unkindly entreated,
with sharp

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"Vieuxtemps" Guarneri del Gesù Sings Again

Charles T. Downey, Anne Akiko Meyers takes Vieuxtemps violin to National Museum of Women in the Arts (Washington Post, March 29)


Air: The Bach Album, A. A. Meyers, English Chamber Orchestra, S. Mercurio (Bach's double violin concerto, with Meyers on both parts, playing her 1697 "ex-Molitor" and 1730 "Royal Spanish" Stradivari violins)
One of the most sought-after figures in classical music

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'La Dispute' from Brussels

Watch video (subtitles only in French or Dutch)The Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels has mounted the world premiere of La Dispute, the second opera by Belgian composer Benoît Mernier (b. 1964). It is based on the Marivaux play of the same title, with a libretto by Ursel Herrmann and Joël Lauwers. Patrick Davin conducts the staging directed by Karl-Ernst Herrmann, Ursel Herrmann, and Joël Lauwers

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New York City Ballet's Tchaikovsky Fest

Maria Kowroski (Odette) in Swan Lake, choreography by George Balanchine, New York City Ballet (photo by Paul Kolnik)
The New York City Ballet is in town this week, performing two different programs in the Kennedy Center Opera House. Last night was the opening of its all-Tchaikovsky sampler, three shorter works choreographed by George Balanchine, grounded on the legendary choreographer's one-act

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For Your Consideration: 'Like Someone in Love'

Film director Abbas Kiarostami made his first film outside his native Iran a few years ago, the puzzling, rewarding Copie conforme. From that movie's setting in Tuscany, with European actors speaking dialogue in French, Italian, and English, Kiarostami has gone to Japan for his latest film, Like Someone in Love. Written and directed by Kiarostami, the film was shot in Japan and the dialogue

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A Survey of Dvořák Symphony Cycles

Like the Beethoven Piano Sonata Cycle Survey, the Sibelius Symphony Cycle Survey, and the Bruckner Cycle Survey, this is a mere inventory of what has been recorded and whether it is still available. Favorites are denoted with the “ionarts’ choice” graphic.

The complete Dvořák Symphonies have gone through various changes in their numbering (best known is the fact that the Ninth Symphony used

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In Brief: Holy Week 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.)





Harry Christopher conducts The Sixteen in a concert recorded in February at the Wigmore Hall in London, featuring excerpts from Monteverdi's Selva morale e spirituale

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Washington Ballet's 'Cinderella': Spring 'Nutcracker'

Morgann Rose, Ji Young Chae, Emily Ellis, and Aurora Dickie in Cinderella, Washington Ballet (photo by Brianne Bland)
What is to prevent a ballet company from replicating its December cash cow, The Nutcracker, in the spring season? The Washington Ballet could just about make it work with its pastel-pink production of Prokofiev's Cinderella (created in 2003, last revived in 2008), made for little

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Dip Your Ears, No. 130 (Bach, Fresh Squeezed)

J.S.Bach,
Partitas No.2, 4 BWV 826, 828, “Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme” (arr. Dimetrik)
W.Dimetrik
Gramola 98945

The accordion has a reputation problem in the US, where its esteem ranks somewhere between recorder and kazoo. But after recording three English Suites in 2007, the Austrian Wolfgang Dimetrik is back with a Bach-accordion-disc that has the power to dispel any suppressed

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Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Siberian Melancholy

Rachmaninoff, Romances, D. Hvorostovsky, I. Ilja
(Ondine, 2012)


G. Sviridov, Petersburg: A Vocal Poem, D. Hvorostovsky, M. Arkadiev (Delos, 2004)
Two hours of depressing Russian songs -- broken hearts, cold winters, silent steppes, nostalgic pasts, crushing presents -- may not be everyone's cup of tea. When sung with exceptional diction, mesmerizing presence, and oozing musicality by Russian

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The Shtick, Shpil, and Spheres of Daniel Hope

Daniel Grossmann has been leading and shaping Munich’s little, innovatively programming Jakobsplatz Orchestra since its inception in 2005. Recently he hit upon the good (indeed highly necessary and long overdue) idea to also let other conductors lead the band: It ought to be good for the band, their experience and morale, and also mitigate their reputation as a toy orchestra for Grossmann (à la

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Ionarts-at-Large: Dallas SO and @violincase in Munich

Just a month after Washington’s National Symphony Orchestra toured Europe (reviews from Nürnberg & Frankfurt), the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under their music Director Jaap van Zweden [guest conducting the NSO on April 25th] did something much the same, with their string of concerts in Eindhoven, Amsterdam, Vienna (Konzerthaus), Munich, Frankfurt, Hamburg, and Hannover. Those last three cities

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Classical Month in Washington (May)

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!

May 1, 2013 (Wed)
7:30 pm
Charpentier, Actéon
Opera Lafayette
Kennedy Center Terrace Theater

May 1, 2013 (Wed)
8 pm
Philadelphia Orchestra
With Yannick Nézet-Séguin (conductor

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More 'Norma'

Angela Meade in Norma, Washington National Opera, 2013 (photo by Scott Suchman for WNO)
Even theater and cinema require a suspension of disbelief, a surrendering of the doubts of everyday perception to the narrative tide presented to the senses. Opera, however, is in a class by itself in this department, as "the extravagant art" (in the memorable phrase of scholar Herbert Lindenberger) -- "an

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James Galway in Green

Being in love with a flutist means going to any concert performed by James Galway. The venerable Irish flutist, last in the area in 2008, is now in his 70s. His repertory is pretty close to pops concert-level at this point: the current Legacy Tour is devoted to music that Galway played and cherished through the course of his long career. As he showed at his St. Patrick's Day concert on Sunday

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San Francisco Symphony on Strike

As we reported via Twitter last night, the musicians of the San Francisco Symphony have voted to continue their strike. After management canceled all of last weekend's concerts, it quickly became apparent that a solution could not be reached before the ensemble was due to leave on an East Coast tour. The tour was to have concluded with their long-anticipated return to the Kennedy Center, their

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In Brief: Habemvs Papam 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.)


Mariss Jansons conducts the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chorus in a performance of Britten's War Requiem, in honor of the Britten centenary, with Christian

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