Classical Music

Opera CD Review: Gunther Schuller’s Splendid 1970 Children’s Opera Gets Its World-Premiere Recording

May 17, 2020
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A Grimm, but not grim, opera about a Fisherman, his Wife, their Cat, and a wish-granting Flounder.

Performing Arts Series: Stories of Surviving COVID-19 — Handel & Haydn Society

May 14, 2020
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“We are in a time that challenges each of us running arts organizations to revisit and reaffirm our institution’s core existential purpose: why are we here? What do we do, and why does it matter?”

Performing Arts Series: Stories of Surviving COVID-19 — Boston Baroque

May 8, 2020
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“At Boston Baroque, as we look to the future, we take comfort in knowing that redefining ourselves is in our organization’s DNA.”

Classical Music Commentary: The Boston Symphony Orchestra’s 2020-21 Season Announcement

April 30, 2020
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If ever there was a season the BSO needed to put its right foot forward — balancing the core repertory with some strong steps outside of it — this is the one.

Classical CD Reviews: Wagner’s “Die Walküre,” Johann Strauss’s “Blindekuh,” and Mendelssohn’s “Die erste Walpurgisnacht”

April 16, 2020
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The two best things about Simon Rattle’s new recording of Die Walküre are, well, Rattle, himself, and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra; a strongly played and majestically sung performance of Felix Mendelssohn’s unfairly neglected Die erste Walpurgisnacht.

Classical CD Reviews: Offenbach Fantastique!, Mascagni’s “Cavalleria rusticana,”and Rossini Project vol. 2

April 15, 2020
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More proof that Offenbach’s is a remarkable body of work; a serviceable, but not particularly notable, Cavalleria rusticana; another installment in the Rossini Project, brilliantly curated, stirringly played and sung, and beautifully recorded.

Classical CD Reviews: Thomas Adès’s Orchestral Works, Aaron Copland’s Symphony no. 3, and Leonard Bernstein’s “Songfest”

April 14, 2020
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A terrific release showcases the Boston Symphony Orchestra and composer Thomas Adès. Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony deliver a radiantly honest recording of Aaron Copland’s Symphony 3.

Arts Remembrance: Krzysztof Penderecki (1933-2020) and Christopher Rouse (1949-2019)

April 5, 2020
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Many of the qualities that mark Penderecki’s best work – exquisite technique, an innate feel for rhythmic athleticism, an ear for dazzling colors and theatrical gestures, an impeccable sense of musical structure, and the affinity for emotional immediacy – are also hallmarks of Rouse’s.

Opera CD Review: A Tenor as a Villain? Donizetti’s Unusual Two-Tenor Opera Gets a First — and Fine — Recording

April 1, 2020
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An 1829 opera about Elizabeth I and her supposed lover — enlivened by underhanded threats, virtuous resistance, remorse, and an attempted poisoning — proves well worth reviving.

Arts Remembrance: Flutist Doriot Anthony Dwyer

March 26, 2020
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Doriot Anthony Dwyer was a virtuoso flutist, one who could coax brightly burnished tones out of the instrument.

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