Classical Music

Classical Album Review: Chamber Orchestra of New York plays Ottorino Respighi’s “Concerto all’antica” and “Ancient Airs and Dances, Suites nos. 1-3”

February 8, 2021
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There are some smartly colored and well-handled performances here, but it’s hard to get past the recording’s unsatisfactory acoustics.

Opera Album Review: Croatia’s Best-Known Opera, “Ero the Joker” — Folk Fun and Games

February 4, 2021
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Croatia’s best-known Opera is like The Bartered Bride or a lighter-spirited Porgy and Bess: tuneful, engaging, and stageworthy.

Opera Album Review: Donizetti’s Teacher Takes Center Stage — Mayr’s “I Cherusci”

January 31, 2021
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This splendid world-premiere recording proves that, as an opera composer, Johann Simon Mayr had “the whole package.”

Classical Album Review: Jasper & Jupiter Quartets play Mendelssohn, Visconti, and Golijov

January 31, 2021
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This joint album from the Jupiter String Quartet and Jasper String Quartet is striking for its backstory but really memorable for its smart program and fine execution.

Opera Album Review: Before “Carmen,” There Was Massenet’s Spanish-Tinged “Don César de Bazan”

January 24, 2021
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World premiere recording of an utterly delicious 1872 comic opera, recorded without spoken dialogue, so you can just revel in the music and the singing.

Classical Album Review: Žibuoklė Martinaitytė’s “Saudade” — Engrossing and Accessible Recent Orchestral Music

January 22, 2021
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Taken together, these four pieces showcase a composer whose handling of the orchestra is expert and whose sense of form, in these works at least, feels unerringly right.

Opera Feature: Should We Be Updating Operas So They Address Present-Day Issues?

January 22, 2021
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Philip Glass’s librettist Arthur Yorinks offers his thoughts on whether and how to update an opera as the Boston Lyric Opera releases its revamped and filmed version of The Fall of the House of Usher.

Listening During Covid, Part 4: Fascinating Vocal Adventures from Different Times and Places

January 21, 2021
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I may be in quarantine, but music can transport me back to the Middle Ages, or to the court of Catherine the Great of Russia, or, via Donizetti, to an imagined India.

Opera Preview: Boston Lyric Opera Revamps Philip Glass’s “Fall of the House of Usher” for Today

January 16, 2021
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How do you make filmed opera relevant in the Age of COVID? The BLO isolated the performers from one another and made E.A. Poe’s story the dream of an immigrant child in detention on the US/Mexico border.

Classical Album Review: John Adams Orchestral Works

January 13, 2021
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My Father Knew Charles Ives and Harmonielehre make an excellent pairing on the Nashville Symphony Orchestra’s new, all-Adams album led by music director Giancarlo Guerrero.

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