Classical Music

Concert Review: Boston Symphony Orchestra plays Smyth, Bruch, and Mendelssohn

February 8, 2024
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Given its considerable strength and vitality, Ethel Smyth’s music deserves its newfound place in the limelight. Let’s hope the BSO programs more of her music again soon.

Concert Review: Soprano Renée Fleming and Pianist Inon Barnatan — Voices of Nature

February 7, 2024
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It is always a thrill to be in the audience when the legendary American soprano Renée Fleming performs.

Concert Review: Cameron-Wolfe’s “Heretic” — As Played by Aaron Larget-Caplan

January 30, 2024
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Guitarist Aaron Larget-Caplan managed to keep the micro-opera’s crazed figure sympathetic as he blurred the lines between reality and delusion.

Opera Album and Video Review: The Baroque Does the Bible

January 28, 2024
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Marc-Antoine Charpentier’s 1686 “David and Jonathan” brings ancient characters to life in this 2022 Chateau de Versailles production, brilliantly staged, danced, sung, and played.

Concert Review: Pianist Hélène Grimaud — Combining Gritty Force and Dark Ecstasy

January 23, 2024
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Hélène Grimaud’s performances of Brahms, Busoni, and Beethoven drew on the strengths of her boldly imaginative powers, which have only deepened over the past two decades.

Opera Album Review: From Denmark with Love, Passion, Irony, and Much More — Works by Carl Nielsen and Helge Bonnén

January 23, 2024
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Carl Nielsen’s vivid biblical opera “Saul & David,” here paired with Helge Bonnén’s remarkable concert adaptation of poems from “Spoon River Anthology.”

Opera Album Review: An Award-Winning Recording of a Spontini Opera Championed by Maria Callas

January 11, 2024
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Latvian soprano Marina Rebeka, under conductor Christophe Rousset, shows why Berlioz and others loved “La Vestale”.

Concert Review: Concord Chamber Music Society’s “The Music of Memory” — An Unusually Beautiful Program

January 10, 2024
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It was worth driving over 70 miles of snowy roads to be rewarded with such invigorating heat. Bravo tutti.

Opera Album Review: An Award-Winning Recording of Handel’s Most Comical Opera

January 5, 2024
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Mary Bevan, silvery soprano beloved in Boston, enchants anew in one of Handel’s most frequently performed and recorded operas.

Concert Review: Blue Heron Does “Christmas in Medieval England” Right

December 29, 2023
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In this performance, Blue Heron conveyed enough merriment for Christmastime and beyond.

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