Classical Music
Nothing to recommend in Daniel Lozakovich’s take on the Beethoven Violin Concerto, but Midori’s performance of the piece is completely unpretentious, natural, and exciting. Gidon Kremer & friends serve up a terrifically flexible version of Carl Reinecke’s adaptation of Beethoven’s Triple Concerto.
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A delightful and compact opera — from a generation before Mozart — that cuts various social types down to size.
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Composer Anna Clyne’s new disc displays her maturity as a composer and brilliance as an orchestrator; pianist Simone Dinnerstein builds a number of bridges between Philip Glass and Franz Schubert; pianist Hélène Grimaud’s interesting program is marred by some uneven Mozart.
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Terrific performances, blazing with color, character, and wonderful technique from Neeme Järvi and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra; John Williams and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra offer considerable pleasure with some misteps; another triumphant release from Gil Rose and the BMOP.
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Françoix-Xavier Roth delivers a must-have cycle of Robert Schumann’s symphonies; Herbert Blomstedt’s Brahms’s Symphony no. 1 is spacious, restrained, and – too often – dull; Daniel Barenboim’s latest Elgar installment features a regrettably unsung masterpiece.
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A trio of recordings help us rethink and rehear composers as varied as Barbara Strozzi (from the seventeenth century), Chopin, and Mahler.
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Metropolitan Opera stars Ildebrando d’Arcangelo and Liudmyla Monastyrska headline a new recording that reveals Verdi operatic mastery five years before Rigoletto.
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Concert halls and opera houses remain closed — but unusual musical experiences await in this era of social isolation.
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Coming soon to your computer or cellphone: The Boston Camerata launches a bold staged performance of Purcell’s pathbreaking opera, but in a way that keeps its cast and audience safe.
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Three new discs do right by Beethoven’s chamber music.
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The 20th Annual Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll: The Institution Continues