Classical Music
Overall, this is a strong program done in by unsatisfying recorded sound.
Read More
Pianist John Wilson, like his mentor Michael Tilson Thomas, is a servant of the music rather than its dictator and he knows both when and how to step back and let it speak.
Read More
I know no more thoughtful disquisition, for the opera stage, on basic questions of life, death, war, love, power, and resistance.
Read More
As the composer moves from youth to middle age, Thomas Adès is unique among his contemporaries for his singular embrace of melody, harmony, and form.
Read More
Gil Rose’s team, headed by an incandescent Ellie Dehn as Catherine of Aragon, should help bring this major work back to the world’s opera-house stages.
Read More
Europa Galante is small enough to make touring financially viable, yet large enough to successfully undertake “larger” works in a variety of venues.
Read More
The season-long celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Benjamin Zander’s debut as a conductor, which gets underway later this month when the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra (BPO) returns to the stage, doesn’t stint on festive spirit.
Read More
Augustin Hadelich has the feeling of this music – its bittersweet melodic phrases, dancing riffs, and restrained passion – well in hand.
Read More
This recording presents one of the most lucid and well-programmed portraits of John Adams to emerge, well, in a long while.
Read More
Classical Critic’s Notebook: Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2
Whatever Rachmaninoff’s conflicted feelings about writing symphonies were, there’s nothing ambiguous about the content of his Second Symphony. From start to finish, it’s a marvel of melodic freshness and brilliant instrumentation.
Read More