Review
Daniil Trifonov’s Silver Age pays bracing tribute to fin-de-siecle and post-Revolutionary Russian music; Jonathan Leshnoff’s Third Symphony is smartly-written and affecting. What happens when tenors Lawrence Brownlee and Michael Spyres team up for an album of duets and ensembles from various Rossini operas? Fireworks.
Alabama Snake is crazy, but it also provides the kind of off-kilter insights into humanity one finds in the best of Southern folklore
Violinist James Ehnes and pianist Andrew Armstrong’s Beethoven violin sonatas feel and sound absolutely right; Quatuor Ébène’s comes up with one of this anniversary year’s few, true benchmark releases; Nikolai Lugansky’s traversal of three of Beethoven’s late piano sonatas is often admirable.
Trumpeter Doc Severinsen had the right combination of talent and showmanship to reach and stay in the spotlight, and he adjusted the pieces of his life to maintain his singular place.
Uri Caine’s score about the life and murder of a 19th-century civil rights icon is direct and potent; touching documentation of Richard Pittman’s advocacy for the inventive composer Bernard Hoffer and a demonstration of the sheer musical excellence of Boston Musica Viva; Igor Levit’s keyboard playing is dynamic, precisely articulated, vividly felt, and beautifully voiced.
Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom is a stellar artistic accomplishment, a blazingly powerful dramatic experience.
This innovative “documentary” is a major accomplishment: it merits a much broader viewing than it is likely to attract (this one has “sleeper” and “cult classic” written all over it).
Jean Dawson’s Pixel Bath is one of the most exciting releases I’ve heard this year.
Poet Paul Celan has come to embody in person and in print the agonies of a half century of European culture.
The excellent cast and realistic tone make Another Round oddly accessible, despite its rather outrageous, anti-social premise.
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