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.
Music
Album Review: Clifton Hicks’s “Banjo Heritage” — If Trouble Don’t Kill Me, I’ll Live a Long Time
A master of America’s instrument with an abiding love for the people and their traditions – – despite everything. This is Clifton Hicks.
Classical CD Reviews: Listening During COVID, Part 2 — A Lute, a Particularly Silken Steinway, and Mahler Himself Playing in a 1905 Piano Roll
A trio of recordings help us rethink and rehear composers as varied as Barbara Strozzi (from the seventeenth century), Chopin, and Mahler.
Jazz Album Review: The Yellowjackets Celebrate Turning 40 — With a Big Band
Now that ¾ of the Yellowjackets are eligible for Social Security, the emphasis is more on confirming a legacy of creative compositions and expanding their art of arranging with a broader range of colors.
Opera CD Review: Verdi’s Opera about Attila the Hun Gets a Taut, Vivid New Recording
Metropolitan Opera stars Ildebrando d’Arcangelo and Liudmyla Monastyrska headline a new recording that reveals Verdi operatic mastery five years before Rigoletto.
Jazz Album Review: The Royal Bopsters — A Polished “Party of Four”
This recording displays a mastery of the techniques of the jazz vocal group genre.
Classical CD Reviews: Listening During COVID — Beethoven’s Jesus, Liszt’s Variations on “Norma,” and Janáček’s Animal Opera
Concert halls and opera houses remain closed — but unusual musical experiences await in this era of social isolation.
Jazz Album Reviews: Matthew Shipp — A Splendidly Many-Sided Pianist
Three recordings that testify to the chameleonic power of the (usually) avant-garde pianist Matthew Shipp.
World Music CD Reviews: Percussionist Julian Gerstin and Guitarist Todd Mosby Go Their Own Way
These superb CDs, from musicians who are doing it their own way, on their own labels, celebrate the realms below and above us: the sea and the sky.
Book Review: “Fangirls” — In Praise of Fanatics
Fangirls is a funny and poignant survey of an essential coming-of-age experience.