Music

1916 results
Page 97
Hear Handel’s Overture from Music for the Royal Fireworks. Image via Wikimedia Commons.

The Philadelphia Orchestra Commissions

The flute and bassoon draw a cash crowd

The Philadelphia Orchestra adds two contenders to the sparse repertoire of woodwind concertos for large orchestra and proves, once again, that audiences are willing to pay good money to hear new music.
Tom Purdom

Tom Purdom

Articles 4 minute read
A Chinese bride: Joy followed by sorrow

The Philadelphia Orchestra premieres Tan Dun's 'Nu Shu'

Linking the centuries

The Philadelphia Orchestra presents a premiere that honors the past and links it to a future now being created in most of the world.
Tom Purdom

Tom Purdom

Articles 4 minute read
Hainen: Appropriately feminine.

Philadelphia Orchestra’s week of premieres

New faces, new sounds (and even new words)

Three premieres unveiled this week by the Philadelphia Orchestra satisfied the human need for inner nourishment and rational thought. Too bad audiences couldn’t hear all three works together.
Steve Cohen

Steve Cohen

Articles 3 minute read
Abramovic: Forget the 'Don't do thats.'

Dolce Suono’s 18th-Century entertainment

When musicians show their stuff

Dolce Suono combined a lesson in 18th-Century performance practice with a reminder that music ought to be a pleasure.
Tom Purdom

Tom Purdom

Articles 3 minute read
Rorem: American poets, set to music.

Ned Rorem’s 90th at Curtis

A composer who cares about words

Curtis Institute celebrated Ned Rorem’s 90th birthday with a magnum opus that summed up a career devoted to the art of adding music to well-chosen words.
Tom Purdom

Tom Purdom

Articles 3 minute read

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Have you ever seen a nose walking?

The Met’s ‘The Nose’ in HD Live

The exuberant heyday of Russia’s avant-garde

From Gogol to Shostakovich to the South African director William Kentridge, the absurdist tale of a disembodied nose has survived as a refreshing reminder that laughter is the most effective antidote for government oppression, censorship and pomposity.
AJ Sabatini

AJ Sabatini

Articles 4 minute read
Bernstein: Sweet interlude.

Piffaro open its ‘Tudor Season’

Across the English Channel
(and into the office)

Piffaro opened a season-long sojourn in the Tudor era with a demonstration that Henry VII may have been a better composer than a husband. Meanwhile, Piffaro’s back office provided hope of better days ahead for Philadelphia arts administration.
Tom Purdom

Tom Purdom

Articles 4 minute read
Watkins: A warmer, more introspective sound.

Emerson Quartet at the Perelman

Ambitious and uncompromising

The Emerson Quartet, with its fine new cellist, Paul Watkins, opened the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society’s season with an ambitious program, excellently performed.
Robert Zaller

Robert Zaller

Articles 7 minute read
Davenport: Latter-day Pavarotti. (Photo: Mark Garvin.)

Donizetti’s ‘Elixir of Love’ in Wilmington

An old-fashioned Elixir

Some directors distort Donizetti’s Elixir of Love. OperaDelaware’s decidedly old-fashioned approach was like a refreshing splash of water.
Steve Cohen

Steve Cohen

Articles 3 minute read
Pearl gave his harsichord a workout, and vice versa.

One week, three concerts

If Mozart and Beethoven were here today….

Last week, I attended three concerts that offered a glimpse of the range of emotional, aesthetic and intellectual experiences that music offers to those of us who attend concerts as frequently as other people attend plays and movies.
Tom Purdom

Tom Purdom

Articles 6 minute read