Tonight's concert at Washington Irving High School was supposed to present violinist Daniel Hope and pianist Wu Han in an evening of sonatas, but Wu Han suffered an accident this week, announced PSC Manager Frank Salomon from the stage, and the young (age 24) Roman Rabinovich, whom she had recommended, had agreed at just a few days notice to step in. So we had a little instant drama: How would the young pianist handle this challenging … <Read More>
Music
Inhabiting the Hiatus Period….
For every professor who has shared this feeling: after turning in the exams to the Registrar's Office, there is this bloody hiatus while waiting for the students to take them. I try to stuff lots of culture into the hiatus, so herewith a brief report on the past few days.
On Tuesday night, I went to see the Atlantic Theater Company's production of two one-act plays by Harold Pinter, "The Collection" and "A Kind of … <Read More>
Philippe Jaroussky Exhumes Delicious Caldara Castrato Arias
Philippe Jaroussky has done it again! The great French countertenor has been exploring the by-ways of 18th century opera in search of buried treasure and has come up with another winner. After earlier scoring big with a wonderful disc of castrato arias by Johann Christian Bach, composed in mid-18th century London, he has gone to Vienna a few decades earlier for "Forgotten Castrato Arias" from the operas of Antonio Caldara, a Venetian musical polymath who ended … <Read More>
Italian Keyboard Series at Columbia’s Italian Academy
A friend invited me to accompany him to the final of three concerts in the series Italian Hapsichord Music presented at Columbia University's Italian Academy for Advanced Studies in America. Despite the title of the series, this last concert on December 1 did not involve a harpsichord! Rather, the excellent keyboard performer Andrew Appel played a fortepiano, a copy of the kind of piano that Mozart preferred to play and a most appropriate choice for … <Read More>
Weekend Trifecta: City Center Encores; Miller Theater Early Music; 5Boroughs Music Festival
Headlined above are the presenters of my three musical events of the weekend, each entertaining, enthralling, and worth attending.
Saturday afternoon I was at New York City Center for the Encores presentation of "Bells Are Ringing," a 1950s musical with music by Jule Styne and book and lyrics by Betty Comdon and Adolph Green. This was written as a vehicle for Judy Holliday, starring as Ella Peterson, the young telephone answering service employee who becomes … <Read More>
NY Philharmonic’s “Contact” Series at Symphony Space – Lindberg & Grisey
The NY Philharmonic devoted its first "Contact" program this year to a lengthy work for chamber ensemble with soprano soloist by Gerard Grisey (1946-1998) and a lengthy work for chamber ensemble in memory of Grisey by the NYP's composer-in-residence, Magnus Lindberg. The ensembles, drawn from members of the orchestra and conducted by Music Director Alan Gilbert, performed at Symphony Space before a moderately full house. NYC classical radio personality John Schaefer interviewed Gilbert and Lindberg before … <Read More>
Mendelssohn’s “Elijah” at the NY Philharmonic
This week's subscription program at the New York Philharmonic consisted of Felix Mendelssohn's oratorio "Elijah," conducted by music director Alan Gilbert. Gerald Finley sang the part of Elijah. The tenor roles were performed by Alan Clayton, the soprano by Twyla Robinson, and the mezzo solos by Alice Coote. Two different boy sopranos alternated in that brief role; when I attended on Saturday night, Benjamin Wenzelberg was the boy soloist.
The Philharmonic dedicated these performances to … <Read More>
Baritone Discovery – Joshua Hopkins
Maybe I'm late to the game on this, but I've just "discovered" the young Canadian baritone Joshua Hopkins, and I am enthralled — as I always am with a wonderful new singer discovery. This was a double-barrel discovery, since by coincidence I bought his debut recital CD just days before hearing him sing at the NY City Opera in the new production of Leonard Bernstein's opera, "A Quiet Place." So I have had the opportunity … <Read More>
Richard Strauss’s “Intermezzo” at NY City Opera
My first opera of the new season… but, alas, a bore. Richard Strauss's operas are an acquired taste. I've acquired the taste for the earlier efforts – Salome, Elektra, Rosenkavalier - but not so much for his post World War I efforts. (This one dates from 1923.) He's blown up a simple-minded incident from his earlier life into a full-length opera. This is autobiographical, the names changed to protect the guilty, but it could come right … <Read More>
ASO Plays Music from the Bible
For their second concert of the season, Leon Botstein and the American Symphony Orchestra gave us a fascinating glimpse of music from a period not very well represented in our concert life, the 1820s and 1830s. With the exception of the latest works of Beethoven, the contemporaneously produced works of Franz Schubert, and the earliest efforts of Mendelssohn and Berlioz, what works do we hear from this period on symphony programs in the U.S.? Not much. … <Read More>