Music
1926 results
Page 143
Frank Loesser's enduring power
Why mama starts to weep: The inexplicable power of a song
As a pre-teen and young teen in the late 1940s and early '50s, I often found myself singing two old songs to myself. I had no idea how they got there. Then one day my mother told me.
Articles
3 minute read
A pianist reconsiders "Jonathan L. Seagull'
The concert pianist's life: My problem with Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Even as a concert pianist, I can't help wondering: Is anything worth the degree of single-mindedness depicted in the popular bestseller Jonathan Livingston Seagull?
Articles
5 minute read
Philadelphia Orchestra's lightweight Mann season
Those light summer evenings just got lighter
In the past, the Philadelphia Orchestra's opening night at the Mann initiated a group of programs that resembled the concerts it presents during its regular subscription season. Those days seem to be over.
Articles
4 minute read
Opera Company's "Orphée et Eurydice' (3rd review)
More endearing than the Met?
Unlike the Met's elaborately complicated staging of Gluck's Orphée et Eurydice, Robert Driver's Philadelphia version strives for simplicity. In many respects it's the more endearing of the two.
Articles
4 minute read
Opera Company's "Orphée et Eurydice' (2nd review)
The gaze of the other
The Opera Company of Philadelphia's Orphée et Eurydice offers a rare staging of Gluck's opera, a work of great historical significance that has retained its freshness and loveliness after two and a half centuries. Robert B. Driver's production has good singing and pacing to commend it, and fine scenic design. This version of the Orpheus legend has a happy ending, but not before going through its tragic paces too.
Articles
5 minute read
Opera Company's "Orphée et Eurydice' (1st review)
Timeless myth, psychological puzzle
The Opera Company of Philadelphia's Orphée et Eurydice, with its orchestra and 26-member chorus, along with dance by choreographer Amanda Miller, is a tightly-wound and satisfying production, albeit with a few strings attached.
Articles
4 minute read
Dutoit's masterful Mahler Third
Charlie, we hardly knew ye
Dan Coren buys rush tickets to the Mahler's Third and, too late, realizes what Charles Dutoit has meant to the Philadelphia Orchestra: “I hadn't fully understood this aspect of the work until Dutoit's calm, spacious, evenly paced reading of it revealed it to me at this concert.”
Straus's "The Merry Niebelungs' by Concert Operetta Theater
Siegfried plays the stock market
Whether you love Wagner or loathe him, you'll probably enjoy Oscar Straus's 1904 parody, especially in its new American translation.
Articles
3 minute read
Mithen's "Singing Neanderthals'
They couldn't talk, but boy, could they hum
Archaeologist Stephen Mithen opened up a music-filled box of speculation about the ways humans think, dance, sing and speak. He says we owe it all to our much-maligned Neanderthal ancestors.
Articles
4 minute read
Dolce Suono: Lessons from two old masters
A lesson from Debussy and Ravel
Dolce Suono's final concert of the season opened with a masterpiece, closed with a surprise and sparked some reflections on aesthetic theories that over-emphasize just one aspect of an art.
Articles
4 minute read