Classical Music
On Christmas Night is a welcome alternative to the inescapable flood of tiresome holiday songs currently assaulting us from radios and shopping mall sound systems.
With youthful vigor, Yo-Yo Ma performed the complete Bach Cello Suites, intermixing the music with stories of personal success, wishes for future generations, and gratitude for all those who make the Commonwealth function.
Not only does Michelle Cann hold a seat in the upper echelon of stellar pianists, but she’s a great storyteller as well.
The destruction and displacement of people today so recall the past that Thomas de Hartmann’s music resounds with fierce, resonant force.
Concerts in the past week by the Boston Symphony Orchestra with guest artist James Carter and the Orquesta Sinfónico de Puerto Rico with guest artist Luis Sanz were a cultural festival and a musical feast.
The album ends up paying dividends, not just for fans and students of 20th-century composition, but for anyone interested in the broader reach and global development of classical music in the last century.
Though Sibelius’s music has come to define whatever Finnish music is supposed to sound like, he certainly wasn’t the country’s only active, turn-of-the-20th-century composer.
“Standard Stoppages” is a veritable cornucopia of sounds experienced in multifarious combinations, showcasing a diversity of fresh, inventive, and satisfyingly expressive voices operating at full tilt.
A new recording of Carl Nielsen’s Symphony No. 5 from the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra and Edward Gardner captures much of what makes the composer’s writing in it sound so fresh.
Both players are long-time friends and recital partners; the pair thrive on tackling big stylistic and musical contrasts that are tied together by performances that were both interpretively thoughtful and technically accomplished.
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