Web-only review: BSO goes pretty with cozy standards by Charles T. Downey If anything, the program offered by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra on Friday night at Meyerhoff Hall was too pretty, too easy on the ears. Continuing an unofficial traversal of Gustav Mahler's symphonies, music director Marin Alsop gave up on last season's unsuccessful pairing of Mahler's music with that of Leonard Bernstein....
Brahms' Symphony No. 1 is one of those rare pieces I can listen to over and over again, without ever getting bored. There's so much drama, anxiety and (eventually) affirmation in the piece that I would gladly travel abroad to hear different performances of it. So I did. Brahms' First is often mockingly called Beethoven's Tenth, so it was a fitting conclusion to Bonn's Beethovenfest last month. The...
Says mezzo-soprano Susan Graham: "Singing the ('Dido and Aeneas') role will be like drinking a long, cool drink of fresh spring water when you've been surrounded by milkshakes." If versatility is a musical virtue, then mezzo- soprano Susan Graham should be canonized. The 49-year-old Graham's singing résumé reveals an intense desire for tackling a wide range of roles. These...
How about a quiz ? Name some classical repertoire for accordion. Wozzeck is the only one springs to mind but there must be more. Click on the photo to enlarge, the guy is soooo cute. And below, there's a clip of authentic Cajun music. Nowadays everyone knows who the Cajuns are because every restaurant has Cajun sauce and stuff like that. But the real Cajun thing was much too quirky and individual to...
[Marlon Daniel] Marlon Daniel sends us YouTube videos of about 5 minutes each of rehearsals in Prague, followed by two links to preview information for the Nov. 8, 2009 concert in New York: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eqrz14stNrg Conductor Marlon Daniel shares with us the theories and music of Gustav Mahler. Observe the preparation involved for an electrifying performance by Marlon Daniel with special...
I like to think the hyper-brilliant finale of Martinu's Second Symphony is a soundtrack to the composer, pictured above with pianist pal Rudolf Firkusny on the left in Central Park, striding the streets of New York like Gershwin's American in Paris . Yes, it's a dazzling showpiece, at least in the last two movements, but there's introspection, too, in the slow-movement homage to Dvorak and Janacek....
CONCERT REVIEW: The 28-year-old conductor leads the orchestra in a big, new work by John Adams and Mahler’s First Symphony. The Orange County Register, Oct. 9, 2009. Note to blognescenti: I had terrible seats, at least for reviewing purposes. I sat next to the former mayor of Beverly Hills (that’s not why the seats were terrible). [...]
One of the best-kept professional secrets among classical musicians is the wild state of affairs that persists in sheet music for even the most standard repertoire. While meticulously researched editions of scores are readily available and new editions, based on alternative souces and editing principles, appear with some regularity, very often the sets of parts that an orchestra will have on their...
Roger Kaza is the new SLSO Principal Horn, getting off to an auspicious start playing the gorgeous horn solo in Mahler's Symphony No. 5 on Opening Weekend. This is his second time with the SLSO, having started at Third...
After losing part of my hearing watching the LovEvolution parade on Saturday afternoon, with its floats adorned with banks of porno sized speakers, I risked the safety of my eardrums again at Davies Hall Saturday night. The San Francisco Symphony was finishing up its three-week Mahler festival with a performance of the noisy and long (75 minute) Fifth Symphony. Last week featured a series of bizarre...
OK, well it's not a Desert Island, but Building a Library. Stephen Johnson compared recordings of Mahler's late symphony of songs, Das Lied von der Erde, in last Saturday's programme. You can listen again to the programme (26 minutes into CD Review) by clicking here. For those of you not in need of hearing Johnson's recommendation of the above Jascha Horenstein recording, with Alfreda Hodgson (
After the Mahler 5 rehearsal concluded in the afternoon, I passed by the Green Room and heard some accordion and percussion happening, making, for a moment, the place sound like a South City Czech Beer Hall. Then the Henchmen...
"It is true that people respond more easily to Mahler. It is about emotions and people like that. When they go to the movies they like action. If it is a movie about beauty they will just go away. For...
Violist Katy Mattis approached me at a break in the action during Mahler 5. She apologized for not sending me her Musician Picks for the 0910 season, especially since she considers the Mahler 5 to be "my favorite symphony...
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