Classical Music
It is serendipitous that James Ehnes added Brahms’ two viola sonatas to his repertoire; Patrick Messina, Lise Berthaud, and Fabrizio Chiovetta’s new recording of Bruch’s “8 Pieces for Clarinet, Viola, and Piano” serves the piece admirably.
Read More
A conspicuously inviting account of Béla Bartók’s Duke Bluebeard’s Castle, and a welcome surprise: Aram Khachaturian actually wrote a pretty good piano concerto.
Read More
A renowned 18th-century master struts his stuff, helped by a skillful young Italian tenor, in an opera first performed in Russia.
Read More
Guest conductor Dima Slobodeniouk and the Boston Symphony Orchestra invited listeners to a meditative evening of music.
Read More
The Sphinx Virtuosi is terrific: the group’s unified tone and articulations, impeccable responsiveness and technique, and command of stylistic nuance are all of the first rank.
Read More
With so many cooks, flaws were inevitable. But the effort was noble, and hearing Terence Blanchard’s beautiful trumpet sound in Symphony Hall was a transcendent experience.
Read More
A pair of pleasant traversals of the French master’s complete piano music, or thereabout, from the still-relative-newcomer Seong-Jin Cho and the established Jean-Efflam Bavouzet.
Read More
Violinist James Ehnes and the BBC Philharmonic supply some truly great performances; violinist Benjamin Schmid revels in composer Friedrich Gulda’s freewheeling sense of play.
Read More
Semyon Bychkov supplies an extraordinarily well-played account of Mahler’s Third; Paavo Järvi’s version of Mahler’s Fifth avoids the more idiosyncratic excesses of Leonard Bernstein’s superb 1987 Vienna recording.
Read More
Violinist Ray Chen and the BSO delivered one of the most seismic performances of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto that I’ve heard.
Read More