Dolce Suono's search for the ancient Greeks

In search of antiquity

What did ancient Greek music sound like? We'll never know. But Dolce Suono took us on a worthy quest to provide an answer.

Tom Purdom

Mar 03, 2009 · Articles · 4 minute read

Vienna Philharmonic at Verizon Hall (2nd review)

The odd couple: Lang Lang with the Vienna

The extremely well balanced Vienna Philharmonic is accustomed to shouldering a huge and diverse workload. But last week it assumed what struck me as a dispiriting assignment: playing second fiddle to the histrionics of piano virtuoso Lang Lang.

Steve Cohen

Mar 01, 2009 · Articles · 4 minute read

Vienna Philharmonic at Verizon Hall (1st review)

An orchestra like a seamless bolt of cloth

The Vienna Philharmonic, in its first Philadelphia appearance in six years, showed again why it's in a class by itself among the world's orchestras in a program of Wagner, Chopin, and Schubert. Soloist Lang Lang, alternately brilliant and frustrating by turns, left a more mixed impression.

Robert Zaller

Mar 01, 2009 · Articles · 4 minute read

Astral Artists' "Musical Tapestry'

Musicians who care about their audience

So you want challenging new music that's nevertheless comprehensible and digestible? Astral Artists' “Musical Tapestry” offered young musicians who are not only talented but also eager to recruit converts to their unusual repertory.

Dan Coren

Feb 27, 2009 · Articles · 4 minute read

Curtis grads play Schubert trios

Young composer, young musicians— and grownup emotions

Three of Curtis Institute's most successful graduates of the past 20 years took on two of Schubert's best-loved trios in a concert that explained, among other things, why chamber music audiences tend to be older than Olympic swimmers.

Tom Purdom

Feb 24, 2009 · Articles · 3 minute read

Opera Company's "Turandot'

A little more light on the subject

The Opera Company's Turandot boasts a pleasant tenor in Francesco Hong, an innovative director in Renaud Doucet and a colorful set borrowed from the Dallas Opera. Why, then, was the stage in near-darkness for much of the opera?

Steve Cohen

Feb 24, 2009 · Articles · 3 minute read

Vertigo String Quartet at Curtis Institute

To be young and tackling mature masters

The youthful Vertigo String Quartet, all Curtis graduates in their mid-20s, returned to give an alumni recital in Field Concert Hall with one of their teachers, Steven Tenenbom, in a program of late Brahms and Shostakovich, followed by compositions by two of their own members. Already accomplished, this group should, happily, be with us for some time to come.

Robert Zaller

Feb 24, 2009 · Articles · 4 minute read

One tenor's musical odyssey

Between black and Baroque: One adventurous tenor's musical odyssey

The versatile black tenor and musicologist Darryl Taylor has evolved from rhythm and blues to Classical to African American art song. Lately he's singing Baroque music written in the 18th Century for castrati. Can this one-man musical life force straddle several worlds without short-changing any of them?

Maria Thompson Corley

Feb 18, 2009 · Articles · 6 minute read

Brahms German Requiem by Chamber Orchestra (2nd review)

God's favorite agnostic

Ignat Solzhenitsyn leads a moving performance of a work that ventures into the deepest emotional areas of human life.

Tom Purdom

Feb 17, 2009 · Articles · 3 minute read

Brahms German Requiem by Chamber Orchestra (1st review)

Another challenge for the Chamber Orchestra (it's called the Perelman Theater)

The Choral Arts Society's performance of Brahms's German Requiem was in many ways a cornucopia of musical riches. But the acoustics of the Perelman Theater made it as frustrating as it was satisfying.

Dan Coren

Feb 17, 2009 · Articles · 5 minute read