Mendelssohn's real tragedy

What would the world have been like if the Fates had been just a little kinder and allowed Schubert and Mendelssohn to know each other’s music as contemporaries? Mendelssohn was, I believe, the most musically gifted of all his famous contemporaries: the only composer in music history smart enough to assimilate Mozart’s music successfully. Yet his music makes we want to scream.

Dan Coren

Jul 14, 2007 · Articles · 7 minute read

Milanov vs. Eschenbach

BEETHOVEN AT THE MANN, or:
THE GREAT ESCHENBACH DEBATE continues

When Milanov conducted the Shostakovich, I realized it was a perfect expression of the feelings I associate with the quiet, sober veterans I met immediately after World War II. I didn’t hear any of that in Eschenbach’s performance.

Philadelphia Orchestra: Higdon Concerto for Orchestra, Beethoven Symphony Number Nine. Arianna Zukerman, soprano; Jennifer Hines, mezzo-soprano; Stephen Tharp, tenor; Stephen Powell, baritone; Philadelphia Singers Chorale; Ro

Tom Purdom

Jul 07, 2007 · Articles · 5 minute read

Eschenbach vs. Milanov

When Milanov conducted the Shostakovich, I realized it was a perfect expression of the feelings I associate with the quiet, sober veterans I met immediately after World War II. I didn’t hear any of that in Eschenbach’s performance.

Philadelphia Orchestra: Higdon Concerto for Orchestra, Beethoven Symphony Number Nine. Arianna Zukerman, soprano; Jennifer Hines, mezzo-soprano; Stephen Tharp, tenor; Stephen Powell, baritone; Philadelphia Singers Chorale; Ro

Tom Purdom

Jul 07, 2007 · Articles · 5 minute read

Orchestra's "Best Of"¦' concerts

The Philadelphia Orchestra’s “Best of...” concerts were obviously designed to attract people who aren’t familiar with the Orchestra’s wares. Rossen Milanov gave them useful guides when he talked, and the real unadulterated stuff when he conducted. And yes, he did indeed crowd a portrait of Beethoven’s development into a single evening.

Philadelphia Orchestra: Best of Mozart, Best of Beethoven, Best of Tchaikovsky. Excerpts from works b

Tom Purdom

Jun 26, 2007 · Articles · 4 minute read

The case for electronic music

Electronic music has become so accessible that a good deal of it is pretty primitive— the kind you might want your neighbor to turn down at 3 a.m. But this proliferation of new sounds strikes me a lot like 18th-Century musical Vienna must have seemed. All we lack is a new Joseph Haydn.

Dan Coren

Jun 23, 2007 · Articles · 6 minute read

Fresh air from the Chamber Orchestra

The Chamber Orchestra will devote almost half its repertory in the coming season to works by daring experimental composers, past and present. If Ignat Solzhenitsyn keeps up this sort of programming, perhaps Charles Dutoit’s arrival at the Philadelphia Orchestra won’t stultify Philadelphia concert life as much as I’d feared.

Dan Coren

Jun 21, 2007 · Articles · 2 minute read

Center City Opera's "Dorian Gray' (2nd review)

The Picture of Dorian Gray is over a century old, but it’s a story that speaks to modern audiences. It will probably seem even more relevant as life spans continue to lengthen and medical progress continues to reduce the effects of aging.

Lowell Liebermann’s The Picture of Dorian Gray. Jorge Garza (Dorian Gray), Jason Switzer (Lord Henry), Megan Marie Hart (Sibyl Vane), Richard Ziebarth (Basil Hallward), Joseph Specter (James Vane). An

Tom Purdom

Jun 19, 2007 · Articles · 4 minute read

Center City Opera's "Dorian Gray' (1st review)

Lowell Liebermann’s opera based on Oscar Wilde’s story gets much needed traction in this chamber orchestra version. Liebermann’s music is audience-friendly; his instrumentation is modern but the tonality is conservative, which is a logical choice for a story set in Victorian times.

The Picture of Dorian Gray. Opera by Lowell Liebermann; directed by Leland Kimball. Presented through June 12, 2007 by Center City Opera Theater at the Perelman Theater, Kimmel

Steve Cohen

Jun 11, 2007 · Articles · 3 minute read

Lyric Fest's "Once Upon a Time'

There’s nothing like the sound of a classically trained, unamplified voice singing at full power at the end of your pew, a few feet from your ear. It’s something every child of the Stereo Age should experience at least once.

“Once Upon a Time.” Lyric Fest, with Youngjo An, Amerew Cummings, Suzanne DuPlantis, Mega Day-Toth, Jeffrey Halili, Randi Marrazzo, Sheryl Woods, vocalists; Laura Ward, piano; Jake Miller and Yes!…And Studio, The Motet

Tom Purdom

May 22, 2007 · Articles · 3 minute read

Music Group's "Winging Wildly'

Second hearings are actually rarer than premieres. Most music organizations are happy to schedule a premiere now and then. Repeat performances are less glamorous.

“Winging Wildly: Music for Chamber Chorus.” Mechem’s Winging Wildly, Convery’s Israfel; Copland’s In the Beginning. Music Group of Philadelphia; Sean Deibler conducting; Janice Fiore, soprano; Terence Belzer, oboe. May 18, 2007 at Trinity Center for Urban

Tom Purdom

May 22, 2007 · Articles · 4 minute read