Jonathan Blumhofer
Two discs: Jamaican-American musician Jordan Bak celebrates music for the viola and a reconstruction of Charles Martin Loeffler’s abandoned Octet.
There’s no question that either the violinist or the orchestra are completely at home with Julia Perry’s larger style or the notes: this is about as confident and secure a first recording as they come.
Sir Simon Rattle revisits the music of Benjamin Britten and Elim Chan once again draws on her remarkable ear for detail.
The performance of John Adams’s “City Noir” is swift and characterful, though sometimes pushed perhaps a bit too hard for its own good. The rendition of Leonard Bernstein’s “Serenade” is clear but a bit too safe.
The Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich recording of Mendelssohn’s Symphonies doesn’t cast the composer as a radical, but the effort highlights the strengths of his music and finds ways to put distinctive interpretive stamps on several of these scores.
Pianist Marc-André Hamelin demonstrated a total command and control of his materials.
“There’s nothing better to do on Friday night than hear this orchestra play. What else would people do that would be better? Of course, people get very excited about the sports teams – and most of them lose. But this orchestra never loses. It wins every game!”
Ultimately, on some level, the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra’s performance of Bruckner Ninth functioned as a study in approaching the unknown (and unknowable) with humility.
The Portland Youth Philharmonic’s East Coast tour allows the ensemble, whose membership is mostly drawn from the city of Portland, and its nearby suburbs, to showcase their artistry in venues that will do them sonic justice, including Worcester’s Mechanics Hall.
The Sinfonia of London and Susanna Mälkki with the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra release recordings filled with color and beauty.
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