Recordings of the year
Christmas stockings could easily overflow with terrific recordings by Boston musicians. Scott Wheeler's opera The Construction of Boston (Naxos) is an enchanting souvenir of a 2007 Boston Cecilia concert, with a fine cast wonderfully conducted by Donald Teeters. On BMOP's own label, Gil Rose leads John Harbison's complete Ulysses ballet, Charles Fussell's Wilde (baritone Sanford Sylvan as Oscar Wilde), and works by Michael Gandolfi, Lukas Foss, Lee Hyla, and Eric Sawyer. Peggy Pearson's Winsor Music has a CD of Mozart's sublime Gran Partita Serenade conducted and narrated (!) by Craig Smith. On Lorraine at Emmanuel (Avie), the astonishing, heartbreaking Lorraine Hunt Lieberson is accompanied by the Emmanuel Orchestra under Craig Smith and John Harbison (with Christopher Krueger's heavenly flute) in two arias from Bach cantatas and all the arias of the jealous, demented Dejanira in Handel's Hercules. Her loss is still so painful, I was afraid to listen; now I don't want to hear anything else.
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Puccini goes punk, World music, Erwartung . . ., More 
- Puccini goes punk
Perched on the lid of a lace-draped baby grand, a bobblehead quivers along with Christine Teeters's vibrato as she powers through a Tuesday-night voice lesson in the Steinway Piano Building on Boylston Street.
- World music
There’s more to Boston’s classical music scene than the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
- Erwartung . . .
BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA music director James Levine will be back in February to continue his survey of Beethoven and Schoenberg with Metropolitan Opera diva Deborah Voigt in Beethoven’s “Ah! perfido” and Schoenberg’s Erwartung (“Awaiting”), along with Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture and Eighth Symphony (Symphony Hall, February 1-3).
- From Knoxville to Swan Lake and back
As our most prestigious classical-music institution, the Boston Symphony Orchestra ought to be every year’s headliner, and once again, under the adventuresome direction of James Levine, it is.
- Beloved of God
Johannes Chrisostomas Wolfgang Gottlieb (Amadé) Mozart was born 250 years ago last Friday, January 27.
- Flirting with Beethoven
It is said that Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) “got around.” Even today, the old dog arouses the interests of performers and seduces listeners.
- Chamber music revival
Classical and rock ‘n roll music suffer the same identity crisis.
- Quartet for a very long time
Any opportunity to see Maurice Ravel’s String Quartet in F Major performed by musicians of this caliber should always be taken.
- Making small bigger
Chamber music originated in the 17th and 18th centuries for nobles and aristocrats, written by personal house composers.
- Finding inspiration
The newly formed Portland Chamber Orchestra will perform in Gorham, showcasing chamber music ranging from the Baroque period to the 20th century.
- Beethoven summer
The only music festival in Maine to be mentioned in the New York Times "Summer Stages" segment, this spectacular music fest can be appreciated by classical connoisseurs and novices alike.
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Classical
, Entertainment, Music, Lynn Torgove, More
, Entertainment, Music, Lynn Torgove, Craig Smith, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Elliott Carter, Richard Pittman, Daniel Barenboim, David Hoose, Mark Morris, Less
