By Sedgwick Clark One of Yuri Temirkanov’s goals when he became music director of the Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) Philharmonic in 1988 was to give it a more “international” sound—to smooth over the deliberately edgy sonority cultured by the ensemble’s long-time maestro, Yevgeny Mravinsky (1903-1988). Why, I wondered? The orchestra’s four concerts of Russian music […]
Read the rest of this article »by Sedgwick Clark Bernard Haitink led the Boston Symphony this week in a pair of concerts at Carnegie Hall. He made his debut with the BSO in 1971 and became its principal guest conductor in 1995 and conductor emeritus in 2004. This is his 60th season as a conductor. He was principal conductor of the […]
Read the rest of this article »by Sedgwick Clark The musicians of the Philadelphia Orchestra were all smiles at their most recent Carnegie Hall concert, on Monday, February 3. Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin led Smetana’s The Moldau, Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3, with Radu Lupu as soloist, and Dvořák’s sunny Symphony No. 6. It’s a happy orchestra now, after several years […]
Read the rest of this article »by Sedgwick Clark The Philadelphia Orchestra had the reputation in the Ormandy days of a well-oiled machine that played in a predictably beautiful, glossy manner no matter the maestro. Ormandy’s successor, Riccardo Muti, sought to change the corporate Philadelphia Sound into a “composer’s sound” (and now he’s saying that again about his current American orchestra, […]
Read the rest of this article »by Sedgwick Clark Forgotten repertoire is usually forgotten for a good reason. But the industrious Pacifica Quartet and Canadian pianist Marc-André Hamelin hit pay dirt with the Piano Quartet of Leo Ornstein at Zankel Hall on November 19. Ornstein (1893-2002) studied violin at St. Petersburg Conservatory. After his family migrated to New York City, he […]
Read the rest of this article »by Sedgwick Clark Our Musical America Awards party was on Tuesday (12/17). As always, I got behind on my weekly blogs while preparing for the party. As always, in receiving their awards, our honorees spoke eloquently in words that left us all in awe of their commitment to their art. Susan Elliott provided a full […]
Read the rest of this article »by Sedgwick Clark British composer Benjamin Britten was celebrating his 50th birthday on November 22, 1963, when news came of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Fifty years later, we in New York’s major concert halls were somehow able to salve our memories of that world-altering tragedy and at the same time honor the […]
Read the rest of this article »By Sedgwick Clark So it’s time for my annual paean to the Juilliard Orchestra. I love to hear these young musicians—their passion, their commitment, their maturity, their technical polish. Last Friday (11/15) they played a varied program of 20th-century works by Adams, Barber, R. Strauss, and Ives. Conductor Jeffrey Milarsky, whose work I had admired […]
Read the rest of this article »by Sedgwick Clark I’ve blown hot and cold on Michael Tilson Thomas’s considerable abilities over the years. I vividly recall a masterful Ein Heldenleben (10/9/02) and an emotionally affecting Das Lied von der Erde (2/13/02) at Carnegie Hall with the San Francisco Symphony, of which he has been music director since 1995 and raised to one […]
Read the rest of this article »by Sedgwick Clark Deep thought of the day: Every performance is different. Second deep thought: Every listener hears the performance differently. Two weeks ago I wrote at the end of my “Valery the Variable” blog that opening-night critics had lambasted Valery Gergiev’s conducting of the Met’s Eugene Onegin (9/23) as unbearably slow and stodgy. Having […]
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