Classical Music
Thanks to BEMF for once again presenting Benjamin Bagby, who seems incapable of serving up anything but a wonderfully memorable experience.
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Helen Gillet’s music welcomes loops of all sorts and plays with the happy accidents that create new melodies and rhythms that reach beyond borders.
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This entertaining opera is a real soap opera, given that it chronicles the fallout of the passionate protagonist’s unrequited love.
Letters from Gettysburg is an extraordinarily haunting five-movement work that elevates the experience of one man into a memorial to all victims of war.
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The six pieces hailed from various corners of the country and examined a wide range of expressive and social viewpoints.
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François-Xavier Roth’s Mahler offers plenty of personality and ideas; there’s nothing on Mariss Jansons’ disc that’s really worth your time; guitarist Daniel Lippel draws out Steve Reich’s lyrical qualities.
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Vasily Petrenko’s Elgar disappoints, Edward Gardner’s Mendelssohn excites, and Alain Lefévre’s Paris is delights.
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Vladimir Jurowski’s new recording of Rachmaninoff’s Symphony no. 1 is a tightly-played, exciting reading; The Yiddish Cabaret’s only real offense relates to poor labeling; The transcriptions in Russian Masquerade are played with spunk and vitality.
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Railroad Rhythms is one of the year’s delights: unexpected, well played, and thoroughly charming. Theodore Kuchar is a conductor who seems to know precious few limitations; Eduard Strauss, despite his champions, turns out to have been a competent writer of music for the day.
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Arguably, the strongest entry in the BSO’s complete Shostakovich symphony cycle thus far; Esa-Pekka Salonen’s 2016 Cello Concerto is emotionally direct and, at times, simply gorgeous; the resurgence of interest in the music of Boston-educated composer Florence Price is a good thing.
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The 20th Annual Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll: The Institution Continues