The Classical Music Network (English) Sat, 20 Apr 2024 12:37:47 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/ http://www.concertonet.com/images/concertonet.jpg http://www.concertonet.com/
R. Tonsgaard Sørensen, F. Schøyen Sjölin, A. Nørgaard, F. Oland (© Caroline Bittencourt)


“Hark, I have dared and done, for my resting place is found, The C major of this life; so, and now I will try to sleep.”
Robert Browning, referring to Schubert Quintet.


“The Adagio of this work beckons one into heaven.”
Arthur Rubinstein, requesting that the C Major Quintet be played at his funeral.


The reputation of the Danish String Quartet (DSQ) rivals that of their national philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard. Both took t]]>... Thu, 18 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16223
Accademia del Piacere & Constantinople Ensembles


“Soon, with a noise like tambourines,/Came her attendant Byzantines.”
From Peter Quince at the Clavier, Wallace Stevens


“Art is the conversation between lovers. Art offers an opening for the heart. True art makes the divine silence in the soul Break into applause.”
Hafez (1325-1398)


“Music Before 1800” has produced such exciting eclectic programs these past few years, ranging from ancient Mali to old Portuguese motets that I was especially anxious to hear their “From Seville to Isfahan” concert yesterday afterno]]>... Sun, 14 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16215
ICP Members/K. Sulayman


“Hearken, my minstrels! Which of ye all/Touched his harp with that dying fall,/So sweet, so soft, so faint,/It seemed an angel’s whispered call/To an expiring saint?”
Sir Walter Scott


“An excerpt [from Knoxville: Summer of 1915] was set to music by Samuel Barber in 1947, and has become legend. However, for me, there is nothing more powerful than the purity of this in its entirety.”
James Agee
 

The New York/Israel-based Israeli Chamber Project  (ICP) has been around for two decades, their fame increasing each ]]>... Fri, 12 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16211
A. Bélanger, J.‑M. Richer (© Vivien Gaumand)


Following the successful world premiere of La Reine-garçon in February, l’Opéra de Montréal has once again struck gold with a captivatingly modern work that will appeal to the broader public. Alternating its programming between tried-and-true warhorses and new works is a wise strategy for a city like Montreal, with its modest opera tradition and tepid government financing. Therefore, accessible modern opera with relevant contemporary themes will generate interest from a younger demographic, es]]>... Sun, 07 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16222
A. R. Costanzo/ Laika


“I think that this is, for me, important right now, spiritually and musically, to go to a place where it’s not no where and no time, but where time is clicking and there is growth—and there’s funk and rhythm and jokes.”
Osvaldo Golijov


When a major composer is inspired to write an obsequy for the tragic true history of a dog, and when a major poet pens verses appropriate for that tragedy, then the dog himself, Laika deserves top billing. Even when the Met Chamber Orchestra ensemble had two other major composers on their program this afternoon.


Once upon a tim]]>... Sat, 06 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16205
C. Tetzlaff/K. Gerstein


“The violin part of the violin sonatas... is extraordinarily difficult, and it is only a violinist of the top class who has any chance of learning them...
Béla Bartók


“I hear music constantly in the empty silence, while the intellect is still and all emotional strings are relaxed.”
Leos Janácek


Forget for the moment that Christian Tetzlaff and Kirill Gerstein are two of the most brilliant musicians on the concert stage today. Instead, consider the first half of last night’s program was like a dream, a hallucinatory trio of strange languages a]]>... Sat, 06 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16202
S. Clarke (© Courtesy MSO)


Renowned Australian conductor and virtuoso keyboard performer Erin Helyard has gained local and international acclaim as Artistic Director of Pinchgut Opera and the Orchestra of the Antipodes. His recognised excellence in the operas of the Baroque period has lead performances in receipt of numerous awards and widespread acknowledgement. As Artist in Residence with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (MSO), Maestro Helyard leads two of the three concerts for this “Baroque Festival” for the MSO and this exhilarating and joyous collaboration with Australian/British Soprano Samantha Clarke is the second]]>... Thu, 04 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16200
A. S. Ott/K. Canellakis (© Deutsche Grammophon/Boston Symphony)


“If you want to make something clear to someone, you mustn’t forget the main point, the most important thing, and if you bring in something else as an illustration you mustn’t wander off into endless irrelevancies.”
Anton Webern


“I am God. I am a moment illuminating eternity...I am affirmation...I am ecstasy.”
Alexander Scriabin


The momentous polarities of the year 1908 bookended this week’s NY Phil concert, led, in her debut performance by Karina Canellakis. The opening ]]>... Thu, 04 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16199
K. Saariaho/S. Reich


“Music is still song, even if one cannot literally sing it: it is not a philosophy, not a world-view. It is, above all, a chant, a song the world sings about itself, it is the musical testimony to life.”
Valentyn Silvestrov


“The land of the Chang tribes is not my home, Why have I stayed here so long?//In the lonely night, I cannot sleep,/Gathering my robe, I rise to pluck the zither./Silk strings on wood answer my mood./A stranded traveler has no hope to break away./And melancholy thoughts are strong and hard in my heart.”
Wang Ts’an (177-217)


With the]]>... Sat, 30 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16193
P. Järvi, C. Schmitt (© Diana Antal)


Prokofiev’s Fifth: where have you been all my life? I have long enjoyed the company, style, and wit of this symphonic creation, but never so much as on March 22, 2024, during a matinee performance by the Philadelphia Orchestra, This is the version I want to hear again and make my own.


The work started off humbly enough, with an attractive whisper of French horns. But once the symphony built up some steam, the Estonian conductor pulled out the stops with a performance that gained depth and eloquence as it unfurled and raced boldly to a breathtaking conclusio]]>... Thu, 21 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16184
L. Shani (© Bic)


“A need to concentrate on each sound, so that every blade of grass would be as important as a flower. I could compare my music to white light which contains all colours. Only a prism can divide the colours and make them appear; this prism could be the spirit of the listener.”
Arvo Pärt


For more than a century, the Rotterdam Symphony Philharmonic Orchestra has been giving the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra a run for its reputation. Granted, the latter is far ahead in the fame department. But when the Rotterdam Phil hired the Israeli pianist-conductor Lahav Shani as their yo]]>... Sat, 09 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16161
E. Chan (© Simon Pauly)


“Orchestration is part of the very soul of my work. A work is thought out in terms of the orchestra, certain tone‑colors being inseparable from it in the mind of its creator and native to it from the hour of its birth.”
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov


What incandescent paintings and artists both from the vast margins of the world, were presented by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra last night.


From the once fertile and now desolate plains of Southwestern America by a composer of the Chickasaw nation; the chiaroscuro blazes of a refugee]]>... Thu, 07 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16155
Y. Nézet‑Séguin, T. S. Yun (© François Goupil/OM)


Conductor Yannick Nézet‑Séguin with the Orchestre Métropolitain (OM) is on tour in his adopted hometown where he is Philadelphia Orchestra’s music director, telling a sold‑out Verizon Hall he was “excited bringing my wonderful Canadian family to my wonderful American family.” He led OM in what proved to be a sterling program of Rachmaninoff, Sibelius, and a premiere from Canadian composer Cris Derksen. It was a playlist which proved a musical night to remember for the audience and for the musicians onstage.


Nézet-Séguin introduced Cr]]>... Tue, 05 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16167
F. Welser-Möst (© Julia Wesely)


“Only when I experience intensely do I compose. Only when I compose do I experience intensely.”
Gustav Mahler


“When I asked how music is composed, Mahler declared, ‘God, how can you ask such a thing? Do you know how a trumpet is made? One takes a hole and wraps tin around it. That’s more or less what composing is.’”
Natalie Bauer-Lechner


Franz Welser-Möst started and ended his three‑day stint with the Vienna Philharmonic with two Symphonies No. 9, neither by Ludwig B. Rather he took two]]>... Sun, 03 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16147
A. Bruckner


“A single cymbal clash by Bruckner is worth all four symphonies of Brahms, with the Serenades thrown in.”
Hugo Wolf


“When I compose, I feel like I am Beethoven. Only afterward do I feel that, at best, I am only Bizet.”
Alban Berg


First, one must respectfully inquire: Was this the dream of a madman? An act of sheer chutzpah? Perverse revenge for the 200th birthday of a composer?? The suicidal riddle of “Two B’s or Not Two B’s.”?


The answer is: none of the above. In fact, the idea was pure genius. To start a concert with a 90‑mi]]>... Fri, 01 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16144
N. Stutzmann (© Jeff Fusco)


There are only so many approaches to performing the great classics of musical literature. It often feels as though we have heard just about all of them in every guise. Like Goldilocks sitting down to a palette of porridges, I often find them too hot, too cold, and even the “just right” lacks distinction.


As a result, even though I count myself as a Beethoven enthusiast, I wasn’t particularly looking forward to the Philadelphia Orchestra’s All‑Beethoven program this past weekend, which included a performance of the Symphony No. 7. What, I thought, could princip]]>... Thu, 29 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16145
W. Man (© David Bazemore)


“Thick strings clatter like splattering rain;/Fine strings murmur like whispered words./Clattering and murmuring, meshing/Interweaving sounds./Like pearls, big and small falling on a platter of jade.”
Bai Juyi (816 BCE), Song of the Pipa


That always-copasetic group of musicians, The Knights, is known for its adventurous programming. Last night, perhaps in honor of a rare Leap Year, in, their adventures were picaresque, with music reversing time and space.


Beginning with a Maurice Ravel’s 20th Century paean for an 18th Century ]]>... Thu, 29 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16140
P. Nuzzo/A. Tendler (© Yamaha Artists/Atwater Reed Artists)


“Enjoy hybrid music, because that’s all there is. We’re all human beings, We have the same ears and we have the same feelings. There’s no ‘they’ there anymore. We’re all ‘we.’”
Lou Harrison


For 150 years, gamelan music has offered singular opportunities for Debussy and Britten and (the authentic scholar) Colin McPhee. But only Lou Harrison, the poet, calligrapher, painter, hiker, trekker and–of course–composer had the love, the expertise, the genius, the Zen reality to make the gamelan the bedrock of his music.
]]>... Sat, 24 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16134
E. S. Kim (© Kim Tae‑hwan)


“I write pieces because fantastic musicians ask me to, The ‘MAX Concerto’ was written to reflect the exuberance and geniality of this outstanding pianist.”
Anders Hillborg


Electric? Electrifying? Volcanic?


How difficult to describe the galvanizing New York Philharmonic review by the young Korean Eun Sun Kim! Presently Music Director of the San Francisco Opera, the Seoul- and Stuttgart-trained conductor has made the rounds of virtually every European orchestra. And for New Yorkers, she was a revelation.


... Thu, 22 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16133
B. Liu/L. Farrenc (© Quist/Painting by Luigi Rubio)


“Oh,” said Mrs. Organ Morgan, “I’m a martyr to music.”
Dylan Thomas, from Under Milk Wood


“‘Rhapsody on a a Theme of Paganini’ sometimes sounds like a plague of insects in the Amazon Valley, sometimes sounds like the Day of Judgement, and for a change grows lachrymose.”
New York World Telegram review, 1936


Hearing the word “Farrenc” for the first time last night, I imagined an eccentric spelling of “Ferenc”, as in Liszt and Fricsay. But no, Louise Farrenc was a highly successful 1]]>... Thu, 15 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16121
From Jephte finale (© Les Arts Florissants)


“Claudio Monteverdi, in moving our feelings, becomes the most pleasant tyrant of human minds.”
Aquilino Coppini (1608)


“The Most High has a decided taste for vocal music, provided it is lugubrious and gloomy enough.”
Voltaire


Did Les Arts Florissants, that 35‑year-old icon of early/late Baroque music, make an error in presenting their Morgan Library evening as “a concert”?


Claudio Monteverdi revealed pure theater in his liturgical words. And while Giacomo Carissimi w]]>... Tue, 13 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16117
T. Sokhiev (© Patrice Nin)


Russian maestro Tugan Sokhiev led the Philadelphia Orchestra in Verizon Hall with a dynamic program pairing Britten’s playful Simple Symphony with Shostakovich’s volcanic Symphony No. 4.


Sokhiev’s last appearance with the Philadelphia Orchestra was in November 2022, six months after he resigned from both the Bolshoi Theatre and the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse amidst intense criticism for not giving a full‑throated condemnation of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. He weathered the criticism by sidestepping the politics with his statement “In Eu]]>... Thu, 08 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16127
E. Yoo(© Courtesy of the Artist)


“What a poor appearance the tales of poets make when stripped of the colours which music puts upon them, and recited in simple prose.”
Plato


“Music, because of its specific and far-reaching metaphorical powers, can name the unnamable and communicate the unknowable.”
Leonard Bernstein


A few moments after Esther Yoo finished her so sensitive performance of Leonard Bernstein’s rare Serenade, I knew exactly why the film Maestro was such an abomination.


Serenade has the imp]]>... Thu, 08 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16112
V. Òlafsson (© Ari Magg/Deutsche Grammophon)


“The ‘Goldberg Variations’ have caused me more misery than almost any other piece of music in history. How many hours have I spent backstage fretting, knowing that there will be several insufferable know‑it‑alls in the audience, with their 700 recordings and deeply considered opinions? How many hours have I spent practising those passages where the two hands climb over each other, then turn around (as if revisiting the site of an accident) and head for each other again? They have caused me misery – but I still can’t get enough.”
Jere]]>... Wed, 07 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16107
J. El-Khoury, E. Dupuis


Many years ago, while visiting Rome in the company of my late brother, he pointed out Palazzo Corsini where Queen Christina of Sweden resided during her exile in Rome (1659‑1689). He expressed his astonishment regarding the supposed mystery of having abdicated the throne of Sweden, of embracing Catholicism and moving to Rome. Indeed, the beauty of her palace, its surroundings and the overall charm and temperate climate of Rome are vastly more appealing than the cold austerity of Sweden, aptly described by one of the opera’s characters as “le royaume sans joie.”


The subject is known to many th]]>... Sat, 03 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0100 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=16122