The greatest of the London Vermeers, The Music Lesson, belongs to the queen and usually hangs in the Queen’s Gallery, near Buckingham Palace. But this summer, it was moved to the palace’s own art gallery, so to see it you had to take the tour — which turns out to be a treat. You pay your money, you wait on line, you get your acoustiguide, and you follow the crowd through glitzy staterooms hard to tell apart from Hilton lobbies. This summer, for the first time ever, the public could see the grand ballroom set up for a glittering state banquet. And since you’re allowed to proceed at your own pace, I could spend as long as I liked looking at that Vermeer or at Rembrandt’s dazzling portrait of Agatha Bas.
The British Museum (with its atrium designed by Norman Foster, architect of the new plan for Boston’s MFA) hasn’t lost its charm. I popped in to see the Parthenon marbles and an expensive exhibit devoted to the Roman emperor Hadrian that didn’t pussyfoot around his homosexuality. The National Portrait Gallery had a memorable little show of incisive portraits by Wyndham Lewis: Eliot, Pound, Spender, Joyce, and a couple of Sitwells among the writers.
And since London has become one of the world’s most international cities, you can eat very well at the now countless extraordinary (though pricy) restaurants. Amazing how many different ethnicities you can devour and how many languages you can overhear — sometimes even English.
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“Something absolutely extraordinary is happening in Venezuela,” announced Tony Woodcock.
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Gustavo Dudamel, in case you hadn’t heard, is the 26-year-old Venezuelan conductor who’s going to save classical music.
- Caravan
James Bolle’s final concert of Monadnock Music’s summer season began with a work that had had its premiere in Keene, New Hampshire, 70 years and three days earlier.
- Isn’t it rich?
The biggest musical celebrity in town last week was Broadway great Stephen Sondheim, who filled Northeastern University’s Blackman Hall “in conversation” with his long-time associate, producer/composer Sean Patrick Flahaven.
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There’s more to Boston’s classical music scene than the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
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Introducing the Longwood Symphony Orchestra’s unusual World AIDS Day program.
- Love and loss
Boston’s biggest classical-music story this year was also its saddest.
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Myles Connor: Mayflower descendant, Mensa member, master of disguise, black belt in karate, self-styled "President of Rock 'n' Roll." And probably the most notorious art thief in the history of the United States.
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The New England Conservatory is bringing to Symphony Hall the hottest of young conductors.
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This year Boston classical music lost some of its most beloved figures — some, like mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, at the very height of their extraordinary powers, others, like opera director Sarah Caldwell and her conductor/collaborator, Osbourne McConathy, after long and gratifying runs.
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People who love the arts are fond of saying that art changes our lives. Slideshow: The New England Conservatory’s Youth Philharmonic Orchestra visits Venezuela and Brazil
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Classical
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, Entertainment, Music, Classical Music, Orchestral Music, Hector Berlioz, Boston Symphony Orchestra, Cultural Institutions and Parks, Museums, Pierre Boulez, Alfred Hitchcock, Less
