Orchestre Révolutionnaire at Verizon Hall (1st review)

Another way to hear Beethoven

When this orchestra plays, the needle is always in the danger zone, lending a bracing, edgy quality to the performances that enhances the truly revolutionary spirit of Beethoven's music.

Nov 20, 2011 · Articles · 4 minute read

AVA's "Tales of Hoffman'

With a little (posthumous) help from Offenbach's friends

The new and more authentic version of Offenbach's Tales of Hoffman resulted in a dramatically improved story as well as melodious music to replace those old bogus tunes that musicologists have expunged.

Steve Cohen

Nov 15, 2011 · Articles · 5 minute read

Dolce Suono's Holocaust concert

What we lost in the Holocaust

Dolce Suono's Holocaust concert passed the ultimate test for a concert devoted to an emotionally charged historic event.

Tom Purdom

Nov 15, 2011 · Articles · 5 minute read

Met's "Siegfried' in HD-TV Live

Broad shoulders and a waterfall, too

In Siegfried, Robert Lepage and the Metropolitan Opera have at last come up with a spectacular Ring production that realizes the potential we expected from that director and that company.

Steve Cohen

Nov 13, 2011 · Articles · 3 minute read

Network For New Music at World Café Live

Can poets and musicians get along?

The Network for New Music presented its first concert at the World Café, surrounded the music with a touch of the era of lung cancer and lengthy tirades against the restraints of middle class society.

Tom Purdom

Nov 08, 2011 · Articles · 4 minute read

Orchestra's heavyweight Brahms Requiem

Awesome, yes. But what was Brahms trying to say?

Brahms's stirring German Requiem was performed with astonishing power by the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Westminster Choir and two outstanding soloists director-designate Yannick Nézét-Séguin. Yet it raised questions of just how this work should be interpreted and performed.

Victor L. Schermer

Nov 08, 2011 · Articles · 3 minute read

Ying Quartet at the Perelman

Three Slavs by four Asians

The Ying Quartet's recital offered a late work of the Tsarist era and a late one of the Soviet period. Plenty of history intervened between them, as the scores made clear, but Dvorák's Piano Quintet in A, Op. 81, which rounded out the program, made for a rousing conclusion, with pianist Menahem Pressler adding his special touch to the youthful ensemble.

Robert Zaller

Nov 06, 2011 · Articles · 5 minute read

Dutoit and the Orchestra: Breathing easy

The case for self-effacing conductors

A conductor's pacing works best when the audience notices it least. Charles Dutoit's beat created a pace that's akin to breathing, as opposed to the unvarying tick-tock of a metronome.

Nov 05, 2011 · Articles · 3 minute read

Met's new "Don Giovanni' in HD Live

Revolt of the peasants? Not just yet

In this age of complaints about “class warfare” and widening gaps between the “top one percent” and the rest of us, Don Giovanni takes on new meaning. But only two singers the Met's production seemed perturbed about the Don's debaucheries.

Steve Cohen

Nov 01, 2011 · Articles · 4 minute read

Julian Rodescu: A life in the arts

The courage to take risks: Julian Rodescu's rich life in the arts

My late friend Julian Rodescu was a cellist who became an opera singer, a teacher who became an impresario, a Romanian who became an American, and a New Yorker who became a devoted Philadelphian. His talent opened doors for him, but so did his willingness to try new things and push new limits.

Miriam Lewin

Nov 01, 2011 · Articles · 6 minute read