The Classical Music Network (English) Sun, 11 Oct 2026 03:45:54 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/ http://www.concertonet.com/images/concertonet.jpg http://www.concertonet.com/ ”I push Brahms away contemptuously. His music is a noisy, reverberating void. Only once or twice is Brahms expressive of an original emotion, and that emotion is the feeling of despondency, grief, melancholy….around in him by a sense of his own emotional impotence.”


Boston Musical Record, 1900


”’Zarathustra’ doesn’t speak. He shouts and whispers, mumbles and roars. He does everything but speak.”

Boston Daily Advertiser, 1897
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V. Ólafsson (©Deutsche Grammaphon)




The opening Brahms First Piano ]]>... Sat, 10 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17863
Momenta Quartet (© John Gurrin)


“Microtonal harmony can make chords more pure and consonant, countering the common perception that it only produces dissonance.”
Harry Partch


“To express that which is in you in sincerity, in the clearest and most perfect manner, would seem to me the ultimate goal in art.”
Gabriel Fauré


The Momenta Quartet lived up to its name last night. For the first of two nights in their eleventh Momenta Festival, they plunged through the micro-temporal spaces of Matthew Greenbaum’s In Transit, filled those quantum spa]]>... Wed, 07 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17859
Expulsion clip from Die Stadt ohne Juden (© Film Clip)


“...the Germans love frankness and honesty. It is so convenient to be frank and honest. This confidingness, this complacence, is probably the most dangerous and most successful disguise which the German is up to nowadays.”
Friedrich Nietzsche


“It pounds daily on the nerves: the insanity of numbers, the uncertain future... An epidemic of fear and naked need: lines of shoppers, long since a customary sight, once more form in front of shops, first in front of one, then in front of all... The lines always send the same s]]>... Sun, 04 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17850
Y. Nézet-Séguin (© Diana Antal)


There seems to be an endless need for short pieces for large orchestras. I must have heard half a dozen such works on programs featuring Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9, some custom‑written, others pulled from the archives. Composing such small but high‑impact pieces is a great way for contemporary composers, especially woman and people of color, to get a foot in the door to having their music played. Sometimes, that is as far as it goes, and we miss hearing what these new composers would say if given a half hour or more to share their musical thoughts.


L]]>... Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17849
P. Herreweghe (© Antoine Saito)


The pairing of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto and Schubert’s Ninth Symphony offered more than an attractive juxtaposition of two monuments of early Austro-German Romanticism. It also brought together two works whose historical relationship was unusually intimate: Mendelssohn, an ardent admirer of Schubert, had championed the latter’s neglected C major Symphony, conducting its first public performance in Leipzig in 1839, eleven years after its composer’s death. The OSM’s programme thus traced a musical kinship as well as a succession of masterpieces. Yet Thursday’s concert]]>... Thu, 01 Oct 2026 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17842
M. Hundeling, K. MacKinnon (© Vivien Gaumand)


Giacomo Puccini’s Turandot occupied an anomalous place in his œuvre. It was the culmination of the composer’s theatrical genius and, at the same time, the work in which he most radically abandoned the intimate verismo-inflected lyricism of La bohème, Tosca and Madama Butterfly. Its gigantic orchestral apparatus, harmonic audacity and fascination with colour announced a composer already looking toward the musical language of the twentieth century. Yet Turandot was also, irreducibly, a fairy tale. Its ancestry was literary rather than historical]]>... Sat, 26 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17835
Y. Nézet‑Séguin, A. Kantorow (© Pete Checchia)


What an opening to a new season! The Philadelphia Orchestra under Yannick Nézet‑Séguin launched 2026-2027 with a dazzling debut and a world premiere of global significance. I’m referring to French pianist Alexandre Kantorow performing the Brahms Piano Concerto No. 1, followed after intermission by an adaptation for orchestra of Bernstein’s MASS by Garth Edwin Sunderland.


Let me say flat out that I have never heard such a performance of the Brahms’ concerto. Like Yannick (revealed in his opening remarks and reminiscences), I have ]]>... Fri, 25 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17833
L. Lang, R. Payare (© Antoine Saito)


The advertised sovereign of the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal’s September 23 concert was, naturally, Lang Lang. Yet the evening’s most intriguing discovery came before he had played a note, in Mayer’s Overture No. 2. And its most tantalizing promise came in the opening movement of Sibelius’s Second Symphony, a promise that Rafael Payare’s subsequent interpretive choices did not entirely fulfill. Between those two discoveries stood a Beethoven Emperor that proved considerably more rewarding than anticipated.


Emilie Mayer (1812-1883) deserves]]>... Wed, 23 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17832
New York Polyphony at Utstein Kloster, Mosterøy, Norway
(© Nino Felbab)


“Singing is the only way to know where Nature has bestowed the benefit of a good voice: which gift is so rare, as there is not one among a thousand that has it: and, in many,that excellent gift is lost, because they want Art to express Nature.”
William Byrd


“...And how one can imagine oneself among them/I do not know;/It was all so unimaginably different/And all so long ago.”
Louis MacNeice, October


Poet Louis MacNeice in his stunning October was referrin]]>... Sat, 19 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17822
(© Marie Staggat)


There are composers whose juvenilia one admires out of historical curiosity, and then there is Mahler. Das klagende Lied, begun when its composer was barely twenty, is not so much an apprentice work as an artistic premonition: a gigantic, occasionally unruly canvas in which the future First, Second and Third Symphonies can already be glimpsed in embryo. Wagnerian catastrophe, German Romantic folklore, grotesque humour, funeral music, fanfares, supernatural revelation and orchestral extravagance are all present, if not yet entirely domesticated.


The OSM’s]]>... Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17819
J. Sigerson, Schiller Institute NYC Chorus (© Schiller NYC Chorus)


“Beethoven always sounds to me like the upsetting of bags of nails, with here and there, a hammer dropped.”
Artist John Ruskin


“At a certain place in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, he might feel that he is floating above the earth in a starry dome, with the dream of immortality in his heart; all the stars seem to glimmer around him, and the earth seems to sink ever deeper downwards.”
Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human: A Book for Free Spirits


Last night, the 25]]>... Fri, 11 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17810
B. Rae, L. Brownlee (© Dominic Mercier)


Mitridate, re di Ponto, an opera by the 14‑year‑old Mozart, has enjoyed a short but memorable run with Opera Philadelphia, an ensemble renowned for its productions of new works, underperformed classics, and traditional repertoire. The production features some splendid singing and dramatic verve, real‑life valor by a soprano stand‑in and a breathtaking French horn and soprano pas de deux.


The opera takes place in 63 BC in Turkey near the coast of the Black Sea, where King Mitridate—defeated by the Romans—finds that his two s]]>... Wed, 09 Sep 2026 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17817
T. Hampson, V. Petrenko (© Menuhin Festival Gstaad/Bailey Davidson)


Une soirée à hauts et à bas, mais une soirée profondément humaine. A Gstaad, le Royal Philharmonic Orchestra et Thomas Hampson (qui dirige désormais l’Académie vocale du festival) avaient placé Mahler au cœur de leur programme : des mélodies d’Alma Mahler pour commencer, puis les Rückert‑Lieder et, pour terminer, la Cinquième Symphonie. Une affiche somptueuse qui aura surtout révélé les vertus de l’engagement lorsque la perfection technique fait défaut.


Thomas Hampson était indisposé. Et cela s’est immé]]>... Fri, 28 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17801
A. Rubinstein, H. Chen
(© Painting by Ilya Repin/https://www.hanchenpiano.com)


“If you don’t walk away from a buffet feeling like you need a nap, you’re doing it wrong.”
Anon


At first glance, the program for “Reimagining Classics” resembled a menu of the most variegated buffet. Nine “dishes” in the space of 90 minutes. Composers either obscure or with obscure titles. Bits and pieces from longer works. Artists ranging from a young Taiwan‑born glittering pianist to a pair of iconic 20th Century artists. Music ranging from a virtuosic mid-19th Century sonata to a jazzy ver]]>... Thu, 27 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17798
(© Lena Laine)


Cinq jours après Berlin et trois après Salzbourg, l’Orchestre philharmonique de Berlin a donné le même concert à Lucerne, sous la baguette de son chef titulaire, Kirill Petrenko. Et comme à Berlin, la soirée s’est terminée par une ovation debout et sous les acclamations enthousiastes d’un public ravi d’avoir entendu cette fabuleuse phalange que sont les Berliner, tellement impressionnante techniquement. La prestation musicale de la formation et du chef ayant déjà été analysée en détail ici, on n’y reviendra pas. On mentionnera s]]>... Wed, 26 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17800
A. Windred, R. La Spina, H. Dix, S. Gallop, C. Hillier (© Robin Halls)


To mark the 100^th birthday of one of Melbourne Opera (MO)’s beloved founding patrons, Dame Joan Sutherland, the company dedicates this new production of one of her most lauded roles as Leonora in Il Trovatore. First performed in 1853, the opera is one of the three giants from Verdi’s middle‑period composed simultaneously with La Traviata and Rigoletto.


Despite the wealth of memorable music, the intensity of the dramatic situations and the nearly encyclopaedic catalogue of human emotions, the o]]>... Sun, 23 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17794
S. de Peppo, H. Wilson, C. Creed, M. Hao, L. Botstein (back), A. Blake (© Giselle A.Cat)


“Too beautiful for our ears, my dear Mozart, and monstrous many notes.”
Emperor Joseph II after the first performance of Abduction from the Seraglio.
“Only as many notes as are needed.”
Mozart’s riposte

Decapitations, or deportations to Equatorial Guinea would befall any composers/librettists or directors who dared produce a musical comedy about our “Nine‑Eleven”. But from the time of Cervantes (who was indeed a prisoner) through Rossini and Bizet, comed]]>... Sun, 16 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17775
M. D’Elia, M. Mancini, G. Toia (© Ennevi Foto)


There was something particularly appropriate about the Rossini Opera Festival entrusting the opening of its 2026 Concerti di Belcanto to two young baritones who had already begun making their mark in Pesaro. Matteo Mancini and Giuseppe Toia appeared at the Teatro Rossini, accompanied by Michele D’Elia, in a recital devoted exclusively to Rossini. Both singers were also appearing in the festival’s revival of Jean‑Pierre Ponnelle’s L’occasione fa il ladro, Mancini as Don Parmenione and ]]>... Fri, 14 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17771
(© Ennevi Foto)


La scala di seta belongs to the group of one‑act farse with which the young composer established his reputation. Its plot—a clandestine marriage, an unsuspecting suitor, a meddlesome servant, an ineffectual guardian and a succession of concealments and misunderstandings—is hardly substantial. Yet Rossini’s musical imagination transforms this flimsy material into a remarkably sophisticated theatrical mechanism.


The work inevitably recalls Cimarosa’s Il matrimonio segreto, not least in its domestic setting, marital complications and gallery of comic types. But if Cima]]>... Thu, 13 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17769
(© Ennevi Foto)


Rossini’s L’occasione fa il ladro, first performed in Venice in 1812, may be one of the composer’s lesser‑known operas, but the performance at the Rossini Opera Festival showed just how much fun this little comedy could provide. Full of mistaken identities, exchanged suitcases and romantic confusion, it was a light‑hearted work that relied on quick pacing, lively ensemble scenes and singers who could act as well as sing. In Pesaro, all these elements came together to highly entertaining effect.


The story was deliberately simple. After a storm, two travellers accident]]>... Wed, 12 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17767
V. Berzhanskaya (© Amati Bacciardi)


It was an excellent idea to present Le Siège de Corinthe at this year’s Festival, as it marked the bicentenary of the opera’s Parisian première. Rossini’s first French opera also offered Pesaro an opportunity to revisit one of the most intriguing episodes in the composer’s theatrical afterlife: the transformation of Maometto II, his great Neapolitan tragedy of 1820, into the grand opéra Le Siège de Corinthe, first performed in Paris in 1826. The latter was far more than a French translation of its predecessor. Rossini substantially remodelled the score, redistri]]>... Tue, 11 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17764
(© Ennevi Foto)


Puccini’s Turandot proved once again to be an opera particularly suited to the immense setting of the Arena di Verona. In Franco Zeffirelli’s spectacular production, the performance combined powerful singing, impressive orchestral playing and the visual grandeur that the Arena can offer. The historic character and enormous scale of the ancient amphitheatre seemed especially appropriate for an opera built around a legendary story from a distant and almost imaginary world.


Zeffirelli’s production is undoubtedly a major achievement, particularly when considered in relation to the en]]>... Fri, 07 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17760
(© Bayreuther Festspiele/Enrico Nawrath)


By the time Götterdämmerung brought Bayreuth’s anniversary Ring to its cataclysmic conclusion, the experiment in artificial intelligence had ceased to resemble an experiment and begun to look rather more like a punishment. Eleven hours of visual improvisation had taught the machine remarkably little about Wagner, dramaturgy or the elementary principle that an image on stage ought to have some reason for being there. The problem was not AI itself, but that Bayreuth had given it a Wagnerian vocabulary without teaching it the grammar.


The premise had]]>... Sat, 01 Aug 2026 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17753
R. Alagna (© )


The Arena di Verona presented a curious study in operatic contrasts this summer, offering two Aidas that could hardly have embodied more divergent conceptions of the work: Stefano Poda’s and Franco Zeffirelli’s. After encountering Poda’s Nabucco the previous evening, I found Zeffirelli’s venerable production, first seen by me in 2018, almost reassuring in its unapologetic theatricality. It was hardly a subtle affair. Verdi’s ancient Egypt had been ]]>... Thu, 30 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17762
(© Bayreuther Festspiele/Enrico Nawrath)


By the third evening of Bayreuth’s AI-assisted Ring, one could no longer pretend that bewilderment was merely the inevitable companion of experimentation. What had initially been announced as an exploration of the dialogue between artificial intelligence and Wagnerian theatre increasingly resembled the visual equivalent of an internet search gone spectacularly astray. The evening unfolded beneath an incessant torrent of projections—historical photographs, fragments of previous Ring productions, political iconography, abstract textures and algorithmic hallucinations—that]]>... Thu, 30 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0200 http://www.concertonet.com/scripts/review.php?ID_review=17747