Cedille

Classical Album Review: “Dependent Arising” — Lots of Sound and Fury

August 28, 2023
Posted in , , ,

A three-movement concerto for violin and orchestra, “Dependent Arising” fuses the worlds of heavy metal, punk rock, and 20th-century classical composition into a furious, frenetic, sometimes tortured thirty-minute whole.

Read More

Classical Album review: Clarinetist Anthony McGill’s “American Stories”

December 5, 2022
Posted in , ,

These stories occupy their own, distinctive spaces but they share something intangible. A kind of humanity, maybe? Perhaps.

Read More

Classical Album Review: “When There Are No Words…” — Do Music and Politics Mix?

April 28, 2022
Posted in , , ,

When There Are No Words presents six pieces written between 1936 and 1980 by composers responding (at least seemingly) to contemporaneous political events and situations.

Read More

January Short Fuses – Materia Critica

January 8, 2022
Posted in , , , ,

Each month, our arts critics — music, book, theater, dance, and visual arts — fire off a few brief reviews.

Read More

Classical Album Review: “Here With You” — Fitting Music for the End of a Bittersweet Year

December 18, 2021
Posted in , ,

Johannes Brahms’s wistful 1894 Clarinet Sonatas receive fantastic performances.

Read More

Classical Music Review: “Dreams of a New Day — Songs by Black Composers”

September 7, 2021
Posted in , , ,

The young baritone Will Liverman’s performances are full of spirit and a wide range of moods.

Read More

Classical Album Review: Lincoln Trio’s Splendid “Trios from the City of Big Shoulders”

August 23, 2021
Posted in , , ,

One of the year’s stand-out releases: full of wonderful music, all of it well worth getting to know, and played to the hilt.

Read More

Classical CD Reviews: Andris Nelsons conducts Shostakovich, Esa-Pekka Salonen’s Cello Concerto, Project W

May 20, 2019
Posted in , , ,

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.

Read More

Classical CD Reviews: “Visions and Variations,” “Songs From Chicago,” and Giuseppe Sinopoli conducts Beethoven and Ravel

August 23, 2018
Posted in , , ,

A triumphant disc from A Far Cry, some fresh thinking from Giuseppe Sinopoli and the Israel Philharmonic, and Thomas Hampson, a great purveyor of American song, focuses on Chicago.

Read More

Year-end CD Round-up, Part 1: Rosanne Philippens’ Prokofiev, Dover Quartet’s “Voices of Defiance,” Longleash’s “Passage,” Michael Gielen Edition Vol. 4, and Barbara Hannigan’s “Crazy Girl Crazy”

December 18, 2017
Posted in , , ,

Reviews of performances that are energetic, immediate, muscular, and simply breathtaking.

Read More

Recent Posts