Music
1932 results
Page 160
Harp Music Festival's third edition
What Fellini and John Williams knew about the harp
Harpist Saul Davis Zlatkovski mounted the third edition of his welcome addition to the fading days of the Philadelphia music season. Zlatkovski has put some impressive organizational work into this project, but he can use help with the administrative details.
Articles
4 minute read
Orchestra 2001: Three composers, four soloists
The surprising 20th Century
Orchestra 2001 ended its season with a program guaranteed to please most audiences: four attractive concertos featuring four first-class soloists.
Articles
4 minute read
Philadelphia Orchestra's eclectic program
The turn of two centuries: Three Romantics and a modern
Guest conductor David Robertson, in an eclectic Philadelphia Orchestra program, offered three works of a century ago, and one of our own moment: the Philadelphia premiere of Thomas Ades's impressive new Violin Concerto, with Leila Josefowicz.
Articles
6 minute read
Wagner's "Ring' cycle (Part 5: "Siegfried')
Siegfried: Wagner's All-American boy
Wagner's Siegfried is a dumb, muscular bully”“ a hard fellow to like. But 19th-Century Americans had no such problem: Wagner deliberately created an aggressive modern man who defies all the rules of the past, just like the Americans who were boldly opening the West by pushing aside everything that stood in their way.
Articles
7 minute read
Chamber Orchestra turns cautious
Et tu, Chamber Orchestra? Or: The bland leading the bland
After two seasons of adventurous programming, the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia has reacted to hard economic times with a coming season that will offend nobody. Symphonic repertory in Philadelphia has become the musical equivalent of the menu at a high-end retirement community: pretty good, meal by meal, but deadly dull over the long run.
Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio at the Perelman
Enormous changes at the last minute
A late cancellation turned what promised to be an unusual and intriguing program of trios— with clarinet, horn, and piano joining the strings— into more ordinary fare. But the Kalichstein-Laredo-Robinson Trio, with guest Ricardo Morales, performed with the aplomb of a fine veteran group in works by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, and Tchaikovsky.
Articles
3 minute read
Wagner's "Ring' cycle (Part 4: 'Die Walküre')
Die Walkure: Wotan's children (and Hitler's too?)
Wagner really was at the top of his game when he wrote Die Walküre. Perhaps he was energized by the chance to glamorize incest and throw it in the face of conventional society. But his greatest inspiration was the difficult father-daughter relationship between Wotan and Brünnhilde.
Articles
7 minute read
Choral Arts: Bach's B-minor Mass (2nd review)
Bach and religion: What a combination!
A myriad of barriers confronts a successful performance of the B-minor Mass. On this occasion, the audience was rewarded with one of those performances that can be a treasured memory for a lifetime.
Dolce Suono's "Rouge, blanc et bleu' (2nd review)
That obscure but sublime French connection
The long and complex relationship between the U.S. and France is reflected in their music, but with distinct differences in style and approach. Dolce Suono contemplated the musical and historical connections in a concert of three French composers plus a new French-influenced work by Philadelphia composer Andrea Clearfield.
Articles
6 minute read
Four Mother's Weekend concerts (1st review)
Take Mom to a musicale
With masterpieces by Bach, Beethoven and Debussy, and a historical range that covered 1496 to 2009, these four Mother's Weekend concerts should have satisfied any reasonably cultured mother's tastes.
Articles
6 minute read