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Anniversaries and other occasions

Masur's Mendelssohn, Orfeos from Norrington and Levine, the Discovery Ensemble, and the Inauguration 'performance'
Anniversaries, however fabricated, can still be useful. This year commemorates the 200th birthday of Felix Mendelssohn, the 150th birthday of Victor Herbert (both recently celebrated with intensive "orgies" on WHRB), the 200th anniversary of Haydn's death, and the 250th anniversary of Handel's death.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | January 27, 2009

Puccini goes punk

Faced with diminishing mainstream opportunities, Boston's young opera singers are going small and making the repertoire their own
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.

By: SARA FAITH ALTERMAN | January 23, 2009

Ring in the new

Haydn trios, Kirchner's 90th-birthday concert, Cantata Singers' Britten, Teatro Lirico's Aida
If 2009 lives up to the grace and power of some of the concerts that began it, we can look forward to a vintage year.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | January 20, 2009

Lift every voice!

Classical goodies for 2009
Opera is the big word for 2009.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | December 30, 2008

Year in Classical: Celebrate!

Comings and goings
In Handel's Hercules, the demented Dejanira's loss is still so painful, I was afraid to listen; now I don't want to hear anything else.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | December 22, 2008

Phenomenal!

Elliott Carter turns 100
Living for a century is still a milestone; for a great and still-productive artist to do so is virtually unheard of.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | December 19, 2008

A song to sing, O!

Seiji Ozawa returns to the BSO, Boston Early Music Festival's 17th-century chamber operas, the Bostonians' Yeomen of the Guard
Seiji Ozawa returns to the BSO, Boston Early Music Festival's 17th-century chamber operas, the Bostonians' Yeomen of the Guard

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | December 02, 2008

Over (and under) the top

Musical chairs at the BSO, the Pacifica at Longy, the Boston Philharmonic's three B's, and the Cecilia's Bach B-minor Mass
With only one rehearsal, 31-year-old BSO Assistant Conductor Julian Kuerti confronted a challenging two-and-a-half-hour program of not-quite-standard 19th- and 20th-century repertoire.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | November 24, 2008

Wild things

Boston Secession, the Takács Quartet and Muzsikás, Russell Sherman
Jane Ring Frank's Boston Secession, which calls itself a "professional choral ensemble," began its 12th season with a short but ambitious program.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | November 24, 2008

Vertical energy

Irina Muresanu gave an emotionally compelling performance, even if her view of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto didn’t always jibe with conductor Jonathan McPhee’s.
The word “concerto” comes from the Italian for “to bring into agreement,” and it’s not always as easy as soloists and symphony orchestras make it seem.

By: JEFFREY GANTZ | November 14, 2008

Woof!

The BSO’s Carmina burana, the Cantata Singers, the Boston Camerata, and BLO’s Tales of Hoffmann
Probably most music lovers wouldn’t head their greatest-composer list with Carl Orff, despite the popularity of his violent, garish, sumptuously tuneful Carmina burana .

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | November 13, 2008

Isn’t it rich?

Sondheim and Follies , the BSO’s French evening, and Boston Baroque’s Xerxes
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.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | November 03, 2008

Magic bullets

Maurizio Pollini returns to the BSO; Opera Boston’s Der Freischütz
Last week’s Boston Symphony Orchestra program looked odd on paper, but the concert was a knockout.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | October 24, 2008

Old and new

Leon Fleisher at 80, Harry Christophers with the Handel and Haydn Society, André Previn and James Levine at the BSO
There was hardly a concert I was more eager to hear than the Celebrity Series of Boston’s celebration of pianist Leon Fleisher’s 80th birthday.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | October 16, 2008

Opening pitch

James Levine’s gala and Brahms, Russell Sherman’s Liszt, the Bostonians’ Kurt Weill
The most moving moment of this year’s Boston Symphony Orchestra opening gala came before the concert started — the standing ovation for James Levine, who looked rested and recuperated after his kidney surgery this summer, an operation that forced him to cancel most of his Tanglewood season.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | October 01, 2008

It’s about time . . .

The Ditson Festival of Contemporary Music starts in Boston
It’s been 17 years since Boston’s last local festival of contemporary music, the New Music Harvest organized by composer Charles Fussell: 19 programs (several free), a celebration of composer Ned Rorem, an opera production performed by BU students, and the participation of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | September 25, 2008

Suburban Mozart that swings

Lexington Symphony at Cary Hall, Lexington, MA, September 13, 2008
It’s a tribute to the quality of Boston’s classical-music scene that a suburban orchestra like the Lexington Symphony is capable of a performance to attract the attention of those who live closer to Symphony Hall.

By: JEFFREY GANTZ | October 09, 2008