Music
1939 results
Page 160
Philadelphia Orchestra's Berlioz Requiem
The French contender in the heavyweight Requiem division
When the extra brass units sounded from the balconies and the chorus and Orchestra started going full blast, the heavens really did open. Nobody does Dies Irae like Berlioz.
Articles
2 minute read
Opera Company's "Rape of Lucretia' (2nd review)
Raging and raping: Christians and Greeks together
The Rape of Lucretia is the only musical creation I know of that places both the Judeo-Christian and the Greco-Roman traditions on the same stage.
Articles
4 minute read
"Battle Hymns' at Hidden City Philadelphia (1st review)
Making sense of war: Musicians invade the Armory
The Hidden City Arts Festival presents a remarkable choral and dance response to war that merits comparison with the works of writers like Hemingway and George Orwell.
Articles
6 minute read
Orchestra's season finale
Odd couple: The Orchestra's difficult season ends
The Philadelphia Orchestra ended its season with a program that unprofitably yoked Debussy's meandering composite, Images, with the Shostakovich Fifth Symphony. The latter, though unevenly played, sent the musicians home with a standing ovation that, one hopes, will leave them with a final good memory of what has been a difficult year.
Articles
4 minute read
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Opera Company's "Rape of Lucretia' (1st review)
Raping Lucretia, raping Europa
The Opera Company of Philadelphia's deft staging of Benjamin Britten's The Rape of Lucretia is both a welcome revival of a pioneering work of chamber opera and, in the midst of our own current wars, a timely reminder of man's inhumanity to man.
Articles
3 minute read
The Crossing's unique niche
Class act
Donald Nally's choir, The Crossing, occupies a unique niche in the musical ecosystem: Its singers perform new and unfamiliar music for a small chamber choir. It presents novel, beautiful, complex music that requires precise coordination and first-class voices.
Articles
4 minute read
1807 & Friends season finale
The Archduke also rises
Three of the city's most active chamber musicians transmit a chronic infection to their audience.
Articles
4 minute read
Harp Music Festival's third edition
What Fellini and John Williams knew about the harp
Harpist Saul Davis Zlatkovski mounted the third edition of his welcome addition to the fading days of the Philadelphia music season. Zlatkovski has put some impressive organizational work into this project, but he can use help with the administrative details.
Articles
4 minute read
Orchestra 2001: Three composers, four soloists
The surprising 20th Century
Orchestra 2001 ended its season with a program guaranteed to please most audiences: four attractive concertos featuring four first-class soloists.
Articles
4 minute read
Philadelphia Orchestra's eclectic program
The turn of two centuries: Three Romantics and a modern
Guest conductor David Robertson, in an eclectic Philadelphia Orchestra program, offered three works of a century ago, and one of our own moment: the Philadelphia premiere of Thomas Ades's impressive new Violin Concerto, with Leila Josefowicz.
Articles
6 minute read