Classical Music

Concert Review: Pianist Jeremy Denk’s “Well-Tempered Clavier” — An Embarrassment of Riches

April 6, 2022
Posted in , , ,

I have heard many recordings of Bach’s work, but none had the vibrancy of what I heard in Jeremy Denk’s Sunday concert.

Read More

Opera Album Review: The “Fidelio” Story a Year Before Beethoven’s Opera — and in Italian

March 30, 2022
Posted in , , , ,

A new recording of Ferdinando Paër’s Leonora gives us characters we love (or love to hate) in a fresh light

Read More

Music Commentary: Jean Sibelius’s Violin Concerto — The Universal Concerto?

March 27, 2022
Posted in , , ,

Sibelius’s Violin Concerto is almost something of a phenomenon now: in just eight months, I’ve heard it played by three different fiddlers — Baiba Skride, Lisa Batiashvili, and Inmo Yang.

Read More

Opera Album Review: Saint-Saëns’s Delightful Skewering of the West’s Fantasies of Japan

March 27, 2022
Posted in , , ,

A major contribution to the recorded repertory, making clear just how effective Saint-Saëns’s The Yellow Princess could be on stage, its nowadays objectionable title repudiated by its varied and nuanced approach to the evocation of the exotic.

Read More

Opera Album Review: “Der ferne Klang” Does Its Thing and Does It Amazingly Well

March 23, 2022
Posted in , , ,

I am beginning to suspect that Franz Schreker was the most effective of the many semi-forgotten opera composers who were active in the German lands during the first decades of the twentieth century (that is, ones less well known today than Strauss, Berg, and Kurt Weill).

Read More

Classical Album Reviews: “Dance With Me” and “Eden”

March 20, 2022
Posted in , , ,

Marvelously accomplished albums from American mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato and Canadian soprano Barbara Hannigan.

Read More

Classical Album Reviews: “Reflections: Scott Joplin Reconsidered” and New York Youth Symphony plays Price, Coleman, and Montgomery

March 18, 2022
Posted in , ,

Two first-rate albums: pianist Lara Downes successfully reconsiders Scott Joplin and the New York Youth Symphony plays Florence Price and others with panache.

Read More

Listening During Covid, Part 9: Intriguing New Works and New-Sounding C. P. E. Bach

March 17, 2022
Posted in , , ,

A varied buffet of fresh musical experiences from recent decades and from the mid-1700s.

Read More

Cultural Commentary: The Gergiev Case

March 11, 2022
Posted in , , ,

There are times – and we’ve been living in these for several years now – when boldness is required, especially from artists.

Read More

Opera Album Review: Donizetti’s Teacher Reveals His Own Operatic Mastery in a World-Premiere Recording of “Elena”

March 10, 2022
Posted in , , ,

This first-rate performance highlights the special attractions of the “half-serious” operatic genre.

Read More

Recent Posts

Popular Posts

Categories

Archives