Classical Music
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Violinist Ray Chen and the BSO delivered one of the most seismic performances of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto that I’ve heard.
Navigating the clash between tradition and experimentation — they are often two vastly different artistic worlds — requires bold programming.
“I wanted, with this opera, to see if audiences and collaborators could feel something about our changing weather, in an artistic space.”
Conductor Jane Glover, marvelous soloists — including superstar countertenor Aryeh Nussbaum Cohen — and a superb chorus and orchestra invigorate one of Handel’s last and greatest works.
Playing side-by-side on two different pianos facing in opposite directions on the Symphony Hall stage, Vikingur Ólafsson and Yuja Wang were as complementary, in a flavorsome way, as lemon and chocolate.
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