By ANDREW POWELL Published: August 29, 2014 MUNICH — Staged works and the legendary Lied evenings hold the limelight here at the annual Opernfestspiele, begun 139 years ago. But veins of chamber music and, since 2008, choral programming run through the five-week schedule, lending scope and affirming organizer Bayerische Staatsoper’s depth of musicianship. The chamber […]
Read the rest of this article »By Sedgwick Clark Hearing Frans Brüggen’s recording of Mozart’s 40th and Beethoven’s First on Philips was a “eureka” moment: at last, someone from the authentic-performance school who was equally illuminating and individual to stand with Walter’s early-’50s Mozart, Szell’s Beethoven, and selected performances by Toscanini, Furtwängler, Monteux, Klemperer, and others from whom I first learned […]
Read the rest of this article »By Sedgwick Clark Lincoln Center was once a place I avoided like the plague in the summer—staid programs, mediocre performances—but there’s no denying that the kinks have long been worked out of its two major summer festivals. One may have one’s likes and dislikes, as I expressed last week about three of this summer’s Lincoln […]
Read the rest of this article »Leon Fleisher All the Things You Are Bridge Records CD 9429 At 85, pianist Leon Fleisher remains as compelling a musician as ever. Since the mid-1960s, due to battling an affliction called focal dystonia that affected two fingers on his right hand, Fleisher is best known for championing repertoire for the left hand alone. […]
Read the rest of this article »One of Australia’s foremost composers, Peter Sculthorpe, has passed away at the age of 85. Sculthorpe’s extensive body of work (including eighteen string quartets) addressed a wide range of subjects, including the Iraq War, the plight of detained immigrants seeking asylum in Australia, and climate change. His music demonstrates a polyglot palette that includes Aboriginal and […]
Read the rest of this article »By Sedgwick Clark The Tsar’s Bride What a night at the concert opera, primarily due to the conducting of Gennadi Rozhdestvensky! Returning to New York after far too many years for a pair of performances of Rimsky-Korsakov’s opera, he reminded listeners once again of the importance of character in a musical performance. A silly, self-evident […]
Read the rest of this article »
