Music
1944 results
Page 106
Orchestra 2001 plays Crumb and Gorecki
From Hitler to Apollo, in just 30 years
Small music groups get short shrift in this year's Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts. Orchestra 2001 earned a spot by contriving a program that focused on two wildly different historic events.
Articles
4 minute read
My ticket to glory, 1950 (a memoir)
How do you get to Philadelphia? Practice, practice
I was a small town boy of eight when I was drafted into a children's accordion band. My musical efforts paid off with a TV appearance and my first mind-boggling visit to a real city— Philadelphia— where I rode my first elevator and subway train, ate in my first automat, and saw my first black people.
Articles
10 minute read
Verdi's "I Lombardi' in concert in NY
Verdi's forgotten stepchild
Verdi's much-neglected I Lombardi has much to offer in the way of innovative music and vivid scenes. A concert version featuring the superb voices of Angela Meade and Michael Fabiano may help rescue it from its undeserved obscurity.
Articles
4 minute read
Chamber Orchestra's "Fall of the Berlin Wall'
Another rebirth of freedom
The Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts commemorated a major 20th Century event with the right music conducted by the right conductor.
Articles
5 minute read
Bach's Passions, two ways (3rd review)
Ethereal music, disturbing words
Until a few decades ago, audiences who weren't German were not cognizant of the words in Bach's Passions. Now, with projected translations, audience members notice, and some of them are disturbed— and rightly so.
Articles
6 minute read
We speak in music
To peek inside the human soul, stop reading and listen
Our written language may be poetic, but a large part of our spoken communication is music. And often it's our music rather than our words that reveals our inner landscape to each other.
Articles
7 minute read
Bach's Passions, two ways (2nd review)
Back-to-back Bach, or: Sympathy for Pontius Pilate
The Philadelphia Orchestra's dramatic production of Bach's St. Matthew Passion won't soon be forgotten. But it benefitted from its juxtaposition with a traditional performance by Vox Amadeus.
Articles
5 minute read
Borodin Quartet plays Shostakovich and Beethoven
Shostakovich, by those who knew him well
The Borodin Quartet, in its first Philadelphia visit in 15 years, brought a more burnished Shostakovich than we're accustomed to hearing. That's because these Russian musicians are no longer “discovering” Shostakovich, as the West still is.
Articles
6 minute read
Orchestra plays Bach's "St. Matthew Passion' (1st review)
The paradox of genius
In a magnificent performance of Bach's transcendent St. Matthew Passion, Yannick Nézet-Séguin made the most of the drama and emotion contained in the story of Christ's betrayal and crucifixion. That wasn't necessarily Bach's choice, but a work of genius lends itself to multiple interpretations.
Articles
5 minute read
Who saved the Opera Company?
Nothing succeeds like a successor, or: Philadelphia opera history, rewritten
Robert Driver claims he saved the Opera Company of Philadelphia in the 1990s— and the Inquirer critic has swallowed his self-serving narrative. As Driver's predecessor, I can attest that he takes credit that he doesn't deserve.
Articles
5 minute read