Classical Music

Classical Music Album Reviews: Violinist Lea Birringer Performs Sibelius & Sheku Kanneh-Mason plays Shostakovich

July 2, 2025
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Violinist Lea Birringer does dazzlingly right by Sibelius and Szymanowski concertos and cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason finds life and defiance in Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 2.

Concert Review: Pianist Jonathan Biss — Masterful Performances of Schubert

July 1, 2025
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Rockport Chamber Music Festival is in the midst of a stellar season. Saturday evening, the brilliant pianist (and writer) Jonathan Biss gave a sensational recital of two late Schubert sonatas—a music lover’s dream.

Opera Review: Boston Modern Orchestra Project Sheds New Light on “Frederick Douglass”

June 25, 2025
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Played and sung with verve in its New England premiere, “Frederick Douglass” stands as the most significant revival BMOP has undertaken in recent years.

Classical Album Reviews: “Ravel Fragments” & Stephen Hough plays Hough

June 23, 2025
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Pianist Bertrand Chamayou demonstrates just how mercurial and influential Ravel could be; composer-pianist Stephen Hough’s Piano Concerto casts a Ravel-like spell.

Classical Music Album Reviews: Stewart Goodyear and “Hallelujah Junction”

June 21, 2025
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Pianist Stewart Goodyear livens up a tried-and-true program with works new and unfamiliar; the husband-and-wife team of Lukas Geniušas and Anna Geniushene survey piano music written on these shores, starting in 1932.

Opera Album Review: Finally, Verdi’s Original 1857 Version of “Simon Boccanegra” Gets the Recording It Deserves

June 21, 2025
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The skillful Mark Elder leads a fine cast, including the superb Peruvian tenor Iván Ayón-Rivas.

Classical Music Album Reviews: Ravel/Bach and Bruch & Korngold Violin Concertos

June 19, 2025
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Pianist Yeol Eum Son is more than up to the demands of J.S. Bach and Maurice Ravel; violinist Bomsori brings exquisite balances and shimmering sonority to Bruch and Korngold.

Concert Review: Boston Camerata’s “Gallery of Kings” — Uses and Abuses of Power, ca. 1300

June 17, 2025
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Through story, song, missives, and popular gibes at authority, the Boston Camerata program looked at kings remembered for their great deeds and those commemorated for their bumbling idiocy.

Opera Preview/Interview: White Snake Projects’ “To The People Like Us” — Understanding the Urgency of the Moment

June 16, 2025
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Our conversation touched—considerably, as it turned out—on the current political climate and the dispiriting response of the musical world to the rising tide of homegrown authoritarianism.

Classical Music Album Reviews: “Somnia” and Eastman & Tchaikovsky Symphonies

June 4, 2025
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Denis Kozhukin is an inspired guide to music geared toward young players by Sergei Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky; Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst serve up mixed rewards in performances of symphonies by Julius Eastman and Tchaikovsky.

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