Music
1926 results
Page 107
Opera Philadelphia's "Silent Night' (2nd review)
The monster of war
Silent Night is a very effective new opera that could be made even better with some judicious tinkering. The drama exudes a raw energy that doesn't shy away from the harrowing circumstances of war.
Articles
4 minute read
East Coast Chamber Orchestra at the Perelman
A traveling town hall meeting for musicians
The East Coast Chamber Orchestra, an exceptionally talented and cohesive string ensemble, made a vivid impression with two masterworks of the war-haunted 1930s.
Articles
3 minute read
Opera Philadelphia's "Silent Night' (1st review)
When the fighting stopped
Kevin Puts's Silent Night is based on a remarkable true incident during the first Christmas Eve of World War I, when enemy soldiers in adjoining trenches spontaneously agreed to a brief truce, in defiance of their commanding officers. It‘s the kind of compelling story that's too often missing from today's operas.
Articles
4 minute read
Orchestra's "Carmina Burana'
Who can argue with FrÓ¼hbeck?
Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos looks frail these days, and older than his 79 years, but he conducted Carmina Burana from memory in a gorgeously persuasive interpretation.
Articles
2 minute read
Choral Arts sings Rossini's "Petite Messe'
Joyful Christianity, for a change
Rossini, a master of comic opera, gave us a good-natured, beautiful mass for Saturday night— a piece that offers all the charm and grace of a romance with a happy ending.
Articles
4 minute read
Composer's quandary: Ideas vs. music (Part III)
Composer's quandary (continued): When the idea says ‘Yes,' but the music says ‘No'
Throwing out music is one of the composer's most necessary jobs. People ask composers how we get ideas, but ideas are easy. The hardest part is throwing out every idea except the one that's perfect.
Articles
6 minute read
Hugo Wolf's "Spanish Songs': Dual recital
This composer was depressed?
The charming British tenor Ian Bostridge and the pitch-perfect Austrian mezzo Angelika Kirchschlager make something of an odd couple. But they found their chemistry toward the end of a recital of Hugo Wolf's delightful Spanish Songs.
Articles
3 minute read
Tempesta di Mare's Bach with alterations
Bach without his organ
Tempesta di Mare sustained an old Baroque tradition, remodeling six of Bach's organ works to suit other instruments.
Articles
3 minute read
Two birds, one composer (Part II)
The composer's quandary: What does emotion really sound like?
Watching a fight between two birds had inspired me. Now came the real challenge: to pinpoint my emotion and translate it into music. Generic emotion, I knew, produces generic music, just as it produces bland acting, uninvolving painting, and vanilla poetry.
Articles
5 minute read
Shostakovich and free speech (3rd comment)
Shostakovich's problem, and ours
Even in a “free” society, creative people must confront the challenge that Shostakovich addressed in Stalin's Soviet Russia with his “Classical Symphony”: What do you do when your creative impulses conflict with the demands of the people who pay for your work?
Articles
6 minute read