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Vienna, Musikverein, October 10, 2018—Orchestras have gotten better and better over the last 100 years (the time frame we can reasonably judge). Choirs have gotten audibly better every decade, too. But perhaps nowhere has the improvement—technically and expressively—been more astounding than in the field of string quartets. In the past, the outstanding ensembles stood out […]
The Vienna State Opera, better known as one of the foremost museums of opera, staged a world premiere–the first in eight years–on Saturday, December 8. The Tyrolian Johannes Maria Staud, steadfast contributor to Wien Modern and collaborator with the Klangforum Wien, had been asked to write the work and turned to German poet and essayist […]
92nd Street “Y”, New York, NY; December 1 , 2018—Peter Serkin’s Mozart interpretations have always stood out for their intimacy, transparency, and classical reserve. These characteristics certainly revealed themselves in the opening half of Serkin’s 92nd Street “Y” recital, along with a pronounced freedom and intensification of detail. Unlike pianists who play the B minor […]
Metropolitan Opera House, Lincoln Center, New York, N.Y. November 5, 2018—The David McVicar Tosca that replaced the hated Luc Bondy production is a finely traditional affair. It arrived at the Met on New Year’s Eve, 2017, with Sonya Yoncheva and Vittorio Grigolo as the protagonists, and as was becoming their youth and charm, he portrayed […]
Festival della Valle d’Itria, Martina Franca, July 30-31, 2018—It is the 150th anniversary of Rossini’s death, and Italy is celebrating in style. Parliament has ushered in a “Rossini year”, and a wealth of Rossini initiatives are taking place across the nation. But what can be learned about the composer when the Rossini revival that began […]
Roger Allen. Wilhelm Furtwängler: Art and the Politics of the Unpolitical. The Boydell Press, Woodbridge, 2018 (286pp). Just how smart was Wilhelm Furtwängler? That he was musically gifted there can be no question, but there is a significant difference between being talented and being intelligent. Similarly, one can be very highly educated—as a function of […]
La Scala, Milan, June 22, 2018—Herbert Blomstedt, who turns 91 in July, has been guest conducting Mahler’s Ninth Symphony these past months with various orchestras. On Friday evening he led the first of three performances with the Teatro alla Scala Orchestra. The orchestra’s busy opera schedule apparently did not allow for more than minimum rehearsal […]
Church of St Jean Baptiste, 76th st and Lexington Avenue, NY; May 23, 2018—On the evening of May 23rd, the now- 60-year-old Clarion Orchestra and Choir gave the last concert of its under-publicized season at the Church of St Jean Baptiste. A major influence on the music of the Baroque and Classical era in the […]
DAY 2. INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE: SYMPHONISM IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY EUROPE Organized by:Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini, Lucca; Research Group ERASMUSH, University of Oviedo (Oviedo, Spain) in collaboration with: Ad Parnassum. A Journal of Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Instrumental Music Oviedo, Edificio Histórico de la Universidad de Oviedo 10-12 May 2018 Like most European cities and towns, Oviedo has its share of historic […]
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE: SYMPHONISM IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY EUROPE Organized by:Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini, Lucca; Research Group ERASMUSH, University of Oviedo (Oviedo, Spain) in collaboration with: Ad Parnassum. A Journal of Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Instrumental Music Oviedo, Edificio Histórico de la Universidad de Oviedo 10-12 May 2018 Oviedo, Spain is a medium-sized city of some 240,000 persons, the capital of […]
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