Gil-Rose
Taken together, it’s a bracing, provocative, and – perhaps above all – fun survey of music for the stage from, for England, the conspicuously abundant 20th century.
The orchestral playing, a couple moments of questionable intonation notwithstanding, was commanding and, at times, exhilarating.
Nothing, until the very end of the opera, is ever settled or, even, as it seems: this is psychological musical drama writ large and graphically.
Things are going well with Monadnock Music: before Saturday’s concert kicked off, managing director Christopher Sink announced that the festival had cleared its financial debts as it heads into next year’s 50th anniversary season.
The emphasis of Monadnock’s coming concerts is, quite happily, American music by composers with strong ties to New England. It’s hard to imagine a more appropriate place to hear such fare or a better group of musicians to play it.
While 1962’s Symphony owes a clear debt to Stravinsky and Britten (especially its last movement), it sounds like nobody but Irving Fine. This is a score that orchestras ought to be lining up to play.
Gil Rose and the Boston Modern Orchestra Project (BMOP) have been on something of a recording tear of late.
For their debut on Sunday, Odyssey Opera and conductor Gil Rose could hardly have picked a more spectacular, unfamiliar epic than they did.
Musical quibbles aside, the performances on both albums from Boston Modern Music Project’s in-house label, BMOP/sound, are top-notch.
Music Commentary: Notable Classical Performances of 2014
It’s fun to recall what’s been played locally since January and be reminded just how rich the greater Boston area’s classical music scene really is.
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