On Thursday night I attended the opening night of Opera Omnia's presentation of Francesco Cavalli's opera "Giasone," at Le Poisson Rouge in Greenwich Village. Written to a libretto by Giacinto Andrea Cicognini and premiered in 1649, "Giasone" was reputedly one of the most popular operas of the 17th century. For this production, Opera Omnia General Manager and Artistic Director Wesley Chinn used an English translation by Paul C. Echols and Martin Morell.
Le Poisson Rouge … <Read More>
Last night I attended a Mostly Mozart concert where the accent was French: the conductor was Jeremie Rhorer, and the piano soloist was Bertrand Chamayou. This was quite a marvelous concert.
First, Maestro Rhorer led the orchestra in Joseph Haydn's Symphony in Eb Major, No. 22, which has been nicknamed "The Philosopher." This is unusual for a Haydn symphony in reversing the usual order of movements, beginning with a slow movement, then a fleet Presto, then … <Read More>
Last night the Mostly Mozart Festival presented a no-Mozart concert – a rarity this month! Only two works on the program: Stravinsky's Symphony in C and Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 4. Music Director Louis Langree conducted, and Nelson Freire was soloist in the Beethoven, for a program a bit short by MM standards (about an hour and a half, including intermission).
A complicating factor last night, which may explain some of the empty seats, was … <Read More>
Having had a good experience with the Glimmerglass Opera Festival in Cooperstown, NY, last summer, I decided on a repeat. This time, my husband came along as well as my regular concert-going friend. We drove up from NYC to Cooperstown on Friday morning, arriving in plenty of time to attend the benefit recital by Nathan and Julie Gunn. That evening, we had a sumptuous repast at the American Hotel Restaurant in Sharon Springs. On Saturday, … <Read More>
Tonight I attended a concert in Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall by the International Contemporary Ensemble with guest conductor Matthias Pintscher, the second of two programs presented by this extraordinary chamber ensemble as part of this year's Mostly Mozart Festival. (The previous concert was a collaboration with conductor Pablo Heras-Casado.)
One would not necessarily associate a group called International Contemporary Ensemble with Mozart's music, but it turned out to be a match made in heaven. … <Read More>
Last night I attended a concert at Lincoln Center's "Mostly Mozart Festival" that was entirely devoted to music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with guest conductor Ivan Fischer directing the Mostly Mozart Orchestra, Concert Chorale of New York, and a group of vocal soloists in Ave verum corpus, K. 618, Symphony No. 41 "Jupiter", K. 551, and Vesperae solennes de confessore, K. 339.
Ave verum corpus is a late work of incredible beauty and spirituality. Maestro … <Read More>
Last night I attended the Mostly Mozart concert at Lincoln Center featuring guest conductor Pablo Heras-Casado and violin soloist Joshua Bell. The program of core repertory standards was J.S. Bach's Orchestra Suite No. 4, Max Bruch's Violin Concerto No.1, and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G Minor. I anticipated a relaxed, comfortable evening of old favorites. Boy, was I mistaken.
Nothing is relaxed with Pablo Heras-Casado on the podium. I had been present … <Read More>
When I was first exploring classical music as a youngster, my universe was circumscribed by the pieces assigned by my piano teacher and the small collection of 78 rpm and monaural LP albums owned by my father. Prime in this small universe was an LP by Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra of the tone poems "Four Tales of the Kalevala" by Jean Sibelius, titled on the album cover "Lemminkainen Suite" because the four tales … <Read More>
Pristine Audio, the French-based historical recordings label operated by British audio engineer Andrew Rose, has undertaken a project to digitize and restore the important mid-20th century American musical legacy of Howard Hanson and the Eastman-Rochester Orchestra, originally issued from the early 1950s through the mid-1960s on the Mercury LP label. Hanson, himself an important composer and competent conductor, was the director of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, where he constructed a … <Read More>
I attended the Royal Danish Orchestra's New York debut concert at Lincoln Center on Thursday night, eager to hear a group whose recordings I've enjoyed playing music by Carl Nielsen. We don't hear much Nielsen played live in New York, although the NY Philharmonic recently launched a project to perform and record all of the symphonies over a period of several years, and gave a fine performance of the 2nd Symphony led by Alan Gilbert last … <Read More>