Jonathan Blumhofer
If this is your first Bluebeard’s Castle, Susanna Mälkki’s recording makes for a fine, occasionally inspired, introduction.
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Throughout these Études, Driver’s playing marries tonal warmth with textural precision.
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One might risk hyperbole by saying so, but in this instance such recklessness is worth it: this album sounds like Brahms as he ought to be played and sung.
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For Alex Ross, Wagnerism is as profound and far-reaching an aesthetic ideology – for good, ill, and all degrees in between – as any.
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Fiddler Daniel Hope’s new all-Schnittke disc with pianist Alexey Botvinov brings with it a level of authority that demands respect.
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Violinist Hilary Hahn’s blend of musical curiosity, expressive savvy, and technical excellence doesn’t often appear in one person.
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Manfred Honeck’s one of the finest and most exciting Beethoven conductors around, but his interpretive decisions result in an account of the Ninth’s climactic sequence that comes over as episodic and mannered.
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The VPO’s performance doesn’t want for energy or purpose because of the lack of a crowd. Rather, there seems to be an internal imperative to the ensemble’s music-making that isn’t always apparent at these events.
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One can only hope that Gail Samuel’s hiring means that the BSO’s welcome-but-fitful efforts at expanding its repertoire and engaging the community of late will become central to its post-pandemic mission.
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Arts Commentary: In Memoriam, James Levine (1943-2021)
Do any of his accomplishments – including James Levine’s raising the level of an orchestra’s playing to new heights – really excuse sexual predation?I’d argue in the negative.
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