Posts Tagged ‘Ravel’

Bumps and Bychkov at MPhil

Thursday, June 25th, 2015

By ANDREW POWELL Published: June 25, 2015 MUNICH — 2014–15 has been a rough transitional season for the Munich Philharmonic. Lorin Maazel’s sudden resignation a year ago forced its managers into much recasting, and some feeble programs. Then, midseason, came worse news. An irksome pact between Munich’s Bürgermeister Dieter Reiter and Bavaria’s Minister-Präsident Horst Seehofer […]

Read the rest of this article »

Carydis Woos Bamberg

Sunday, January 4th, 2015

By ANDREW POWELL Published: January 4, 2015 BAMBERG — When the Bamberger Symphoniker replaces its Chefdirigent next year, it could do worse than hiring Constantinos Carydis. The intense but discreet Athenian secured creative and technically superb playing in a Nordic and Impressionist program Nov. 29 here at the Joseph-Keilberth-Saal, confirming skills he has shown in […]

Read the rest of this article »

Plush Strings of Luxembourg

Wednesday, December 31st, 2014

By ANDREW POWELL Published: December 31, 2014 MUNICH — Lëtzebuerg Stad, a.k.a. Luxembourg-Ville, population 100,000, holds a spiffier position these days in the musical firmament. Its orchestra has graduated from the legendary but somewhat seedy aegis of Radio Luxembourg — once a commercial thorn in the national broadcasting sides of France and Britain — and […]

Read the rest of this article »

On Wenlock Edge with MPhil

Thursday, January 9th, 2014

By ANDREW POWELL Published: January 9, 2014 MUNICH — Sullen, virile, often disembodied voices speak bluntly in Vaughan Williams’s On Wenlock Edge (1909). They are lost and living British Empire soldiers. Their plights, in six Housman texts, shape the 22-minute song cycle and its mildly chromatic “atmospheric effects,” resulting in music of stimulating directness — […]

Read the rest of this article »

Benjamin and Aimard

Saturday, November 2nd, 2013

By ANDREW POWELL Published: November 2, 2013 MUNICH — George Benjamin programmed strongly around his own Duet in a welcome conducting engagement Oct. 21 with the Bavarian State Orchestra. Alas, doing so overshadowed the subtle 2008 composition in its local premiere, even with dedicatee Pierre-Laurent Aimard as persuasive soloist. One of only three works published by […]

Read the rest of this article »

Tutzing Returns to Brahms

Wednesday, October 16th, 2013

By ANDREW POWELL Published: October 16, 2013 MUNICH — Some festivals strive to be on your radar twelve months of the year, with unending publicity. Others revel in a few days. Take the annual Brahms Days in tranquil Tutzing, south of here on Lake Starnberg. Its scale is intimate, its setting gemütlich. Its focus — […]

Read the rest of this article »

Nézet-Séguin performs Epic Romance with the Berlin Philharmonic

Friday, June 22nd, 2012

By Rebecca Schmid Conducting the Berlin Philharmonic is no small feat for a 37-year-old, and Yannick Nézet-Séguin—returning to the orchestra’s podium for the first time since his 2010 debut—had no intention to the make the event a small affair. The newly minted music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, seen at the Philharmonie on June 16, […]

Read the rest of this article »

Dresdener Musikfestspiele pay Tribute to Eastern Europe

Tuesday, May 29th, 2012

By Rebecca Schmid The theme of this year’s Dresdener Musikfestspiele, “Herz Europas” (the Heart of Europe), inventively returns the East German city to its roots as a thriving cultural hub. While today’s united Germany is roiled by the end of the ‘Merkozy’ era and Eurobond controversy, the emphasis of the festival (May 15-June 3) on […]

Read the rest of this article »

Hillary Hahn and Hauschka join Forces on ‘Silfra’; Riccardo Chailly and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig

Friday, May 18th, 2012

By Rebecca Schmid Hillary Hahn’s taste for the unconventional has in recent years taken her career onto a trajectory unlike that of most violin prodigies. Last October, she appeared on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert Series improvising to traditional American melodies that inspired the works of Charles Ives, donning a fedora for the occasion. She maintains […]

Read the rest of this article »

Lifting Ballerinas

Monday, May 7th, 2012

Have you ever wondered what it would take to partner a female ballet dancer? The May 6 matinee at New York City Ballet was an excellent primer for any one considering that question. In each of the four works from the All (Jerome) Robbins program, at the former New York State Theater, the male lead rarely left the side of his female partner.

Read the rest of this article »