In the presence of a master, you think about ancestors and legacies — what you might call “ghosts.” The audience in Carnegie Hall understood what John Williams meant as he greeted this “iconic room,” with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the “ghosts within the walls that fly around and sing and dance.”
“Hush!” The ladies seated near me in the audience of Geffen Hall were being shushed by the row in front of them. They were chattily swooning in admiration of pianist Bruce Liu, making his New York Philharmonic debut in Rachmaninov’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, as he began his second encore of the night (a transcription of Bach). A rarely performed overture by Louise Farrenc and Dvorak’s Seventh Symphony completed the evening.
The pianists’ niche musical partnership proved an ambitious force of nature in this serious and sensuous program. From Schubert’s Fantasie in F Minor, classic of the genre, to Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring, the pair invited the audience into their world, sharing a performance that was sharply accurate, gracefully manicured, impressively athletic, and artistically probing.
Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center explored the essence of French chamber music over the centuries in Sacred and Profane, circulating flute and stings, harp and piano, with a touch of French Baroque, a taste of 1950s modernism, and a healthy dose of early 20th-century favorites by Debussy and Ravel.
Artistic directors of Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han, manifest what chamber music is all about. Their connection and mutuality was apparent as they revisited the first work commissioned for them as a duo, Bruce Adolphe’s Couple for cello and piano, buttressed insightfully by two emotionally challenging sonatas by Debussy and Shostakovich.
If music is either Song or Dance, Inon Barnatan’s solo recital at the 92NY Kaufman Hall — a full-throated essay the pianist called Symphonic Dances — teetered on the border between them, and proved that greatness lies in the balance between them.
CadenzaNYC’s February 2024 Classical Music Guide to New York City. What’s Playing on concert stages across the city this February.
Antonin Dvořák’s long neglected Requiem, Op. 89, received a rare performance at Carnegie Hall, courtesy of the American Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Leon Botstein. Featuring the Bard Festival Chorale, and a quartet of superb vocal soloists, these sizable and expert forces made a strong case for this grand Requiem mass to be rescued from the shadows of the warhorses by Mozart and Verdi, and for that matter, the composer’s own Stabat Mater.
The Cleveland Orchestra, in the second of two concerts as part of Carnegie Hall’s festival Fall of the Weimar Republic: Dancing on the Precipice, revived this avant garde masterpiece, contrasted ingeniously with Anton Webern’s 1928 Symphonie, Op. 21. Composed under threatening political scrutiny under Stalin’s regime, yet during a period when he cleverly evolved a language that defied obvious interpretation, the Fifth Symphony is one of Prokofiev’s most gratifying creations. Welser-Möst’s generous and thoughtful rendering brought New York’s audience to its feet.
Kaufman Music Center’s Merkin Hall fell under the charm of Elia Cecino, an Italian pianist of prodigious virtuosity, at Tuesday’s matinee, witnessing his auspicious New York debut. In a rich program, at once searching and revealing, Cecino carved a distinctive niche on the concert stage. At the precocious age of twenty-two, Cecino embodies the archetype of young hero — teeming with desire and ambition — but also an old soul, wise beyond his years.
Jakub Hrůša conducted the New York Philharmonic this week in a program that featured violin soloist Hilary Hahn being awarded the Avery Fisher Prize. The hall (and lobby, where the NY Phil concerts can now be seen and heard) was impressively full on Saturday night — the last of three concerts featuring this busy superstar of the violin world as she joins the Philharmonic as Artist-in-Residence for the 2023-24 season.
Chornobyldorf — receiving its US Premiere as part of the tenth season of the Prototype Festival — is described by its creators as an Archeological Opera. Permeating the cavernous blackbox Ellen Stewart Theater at La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, this ambitious multimedia work indeed expands the definition of opera.
New York’s American Modern Opera Company, under the leadership of Julia Bullock, has devised a version — greatly abridged and reduced in forces — they call El Niño: Nativity Reconsidered. The orchestra, under Reid’s graceful baton, performed with electric precision, sending Adams’ rich tonal harmonies and nervous rhythmic patterns spinning around the cathedral, as if channeling the elements in the air and stone. The Choir of Trinity of Wall Street sounded glorious, and with projected supertitles providing translation, the text was always clear
Like Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah," they have no obvious connection to the holiday season, but they have nonetheless become a beloved holiday ritual for many. I caught the last of three performances at Alice Tully Hall. The musicians performed standing, except of course for the harpsichordist and the cellists, and without a conductor. They used modern, rather than Baroque instruments (again, except of course for the harpsichordist). Solo and ripieno chores were shared, with everyone getting a moment in the spotlight as well as some time in the backup band.
Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the ultimate chamber ensemble, presented a riveting — and all too rare — reading of Perkinson’s Sinfonietta No. 2, “Generations,” and New York Philharmonic principal clarinetist Anthony McGill joined Orpheus for a stunningly collaborative performance Copland’s Clarinet Concerto.
Sergei Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf might be the greatest musical work of the twentieth century, for one important reason — its lasting impact introducing countless children to classical music. Guggenheim’s Works & Process series has kept the tradition alive for more than a decade, presenting Peter and the Wolf every December, in a delightful production conceived, directed, narrated, and designed by Isaac Mizrahi.
The musicians of Ekmeles approached the work with reverence, under the baton of conductor Jeffrey Gavett, the performance was impressive for its cleanliness and lack of sentimentality. The percussion clangor was an eerie death knoll in the crypt’s acoustics, but never overpowered the tender, rounded vocals. Well-balanced, and perfectly in tune, and with floaty, unadorned diction, Lang’s Passion is a perfect showcase for the virtuosity of Ekmeles.
Visionary virtuoso Conrad Tao pounced onto the 92NY stage with an electrifying … program, which Tao called Rachmaninoff Songbook, explores his theory that upon Rachmaninoff’s move to New York in 1918, the Russian composer’s interest in American popular song and jazz influenced his compositions, and vice/versa.Zigzagging across time, Tao made his argument in an eclectic curation reflecting his varied enthusiasms and limitless skills.
Copland’s Statements, five movements for orchestra from 1935, have suffered the fate of being, as Botstein remarked, “the ugly duckling” of Copland’s orchestral output. Yet, they are precisely of a piece with the themes in the Met’s exhibit. This is Copland’s musical portrait of America during the Depression.
