In November 1728, Prince Leopold of Cothen passed away all too young at age 34.  A few years earlier, he had been the royal patron of Johann Sebastian Bach, and the call went out from the prince's family to their former music director to provide suitable music for the funeral observances, which were to take place in the spring of 1729.  Bach provided a sequences of arias, recitatives and choruses to make up a grand … <Read More>

That's New York Philharmonic and London Symphony Orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center.  On Saturday night I attended the NYP concert, conducted by Lorin Maazel, of music by Richard Strauss.  On Sunday afternoon I attended the LSO concert, conducted by Gianandrea Noseda, of Benjamin Britten's "War Requiem."  I thought the LSO concert was much the better of the two.

I was not a big fan of Maazel during his term as music director of … <Read More>

Last night the American Symphony Orchestra presented the first concert of its 2011-12 Carnegie Hall series, a tribute to Johann Sebastian Bach viewed through the prism of his influence on German music in the period between World Wars I & II.  Under the title "Bauhaus Bach," the program presented transcriptions and arrangements of Bach's music by Max Reger, Arnold Schoenberg, and Wolfgang Graeser, interspersed with performances of newly-commission orchestrations of three Bach-inspired fugues by Lyonel … <Read More>

Last night in the Kaplan Penthouse at Lincoln Center the New York Philharmonic presented a marvelous bonus for major donors to the orchestra – a brief chamber music concert performed by four excellent musicians drawn from the string section of the orchestra, Michelle Kim and Joo Young Oh, violinists, Robert Rinehart, violist, and Eileen Moon, cellist.  The violinists performed movements from two Duo Concertante compositions, Op. 57, of De Beriot, and the entire group played … <Read More>

This afternoon I attended a most unusual concert at St. Ignatius of Antioch Episcopal Church on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.  Two early music vocal groups, one based in Boston, the other English, came together to present a program of 16th century music from England and Spain.   Blue Heron, the Boston-based group started in 1999 by its music director, Scott Metcalfe, has a wide-ranging repertory focused on renaissance polyphony, somewhat in the style of … <Read More>

The 112th season of Peoples' Symphony Concerts in Manhattan opened tonight with a concert by the Guarneri String Quartet.  Well, that was a surprise to me when I showed up.  The Guarneri announced their retirement from the concert stage in 2009, and I don't recall seeing any reviews of concerts by them in New York City since then.  The publicity for this concert said it was going to feature violinist Pamela Frank "and others".  The printed … <Read More>

Last night I had a delightful excursion into the wonder world of Johannes Brahms with violinist Gil Shaham and the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.  This was the first concert in the Orpheus series at Carnegie for the 2011-12 season.  Orpheus is the conductorless chamber orchestra that takes on the most exacting technical challenges in performing work based on the principles of chamber music, and one doesn't necessarily expect to hear them performing the … <Read More>

The big news at the New York Philharmonic this week was the world premiere of "One Sweet Morning," for Mezzo-Soprano and Orchestra, by John Corigliano.  The piece was co-commissioned by the Philharmonic and the Shangai Symphony Orchestra (interesting coupling?) to mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington.  And, at the second performance, which I attended last night, it was a palpable hit, helped along considerably by the excellent … <Read More>

Virgin Records have released a CD by Paavo Jarvi and the Orchestre de Paris of music by Gabriel Faur

Shortly after Gustav Mahler died in 1911, his symphony for voices and orchestra, Das Lied von der Erde, was performed for the first time.  To mark the centenary of this momentous occasion, the Orchestra of St. Luke's decided to put on a series of performances.  But since this piece calls for a full symphony orchestra and they are but a chamber orchestra, they had the idea of instead using a chamber ensemble drawn from their … <Read More>