Archive for the ‘Why I Left Muncie’ Category

Bye-Bye, Spring for Music

Friday, May 23rd, 2014

By Sedgwick Clark The critics’ darling series “Spring for Music” had four good years of thoughtful, sometimes innovative programs played by first-rate American orchestras from the provinces for a mere $25 a ticket in Carnegie Hall, no less. But none of our country’s billionaires or blue-chip companies was willing to chip in a couple mils […]

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(Relatively) Short Takes

Thursday, May 15th, 2014

By Sedgwick Clark New York Philharmonic/Christoph von Dohnányi; Paul Lewis, piano, April 10—If you like your Brahms Germanic, the British pianist Paul Lewis is not your cup of schlag. He has been praised for his Schubert and Beethoven performances in small venues hereabouts and on Harmonia Mundi recordings, but this was his first appearance with […]

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Requiems, British and American

Friday, May 9th, 2014

By Sedgwick Clark In the space of a single week, New Yorkers were treated to a pair of requiems at Carnegie Hall that combined the traditional Mass for the Dead text with modern-day poetry to create strikingly personal visions of final rest. In 1961 Benjamin Britten composed his War Requiem, interspersing anti-war poems by Wilfred […]

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April in New York

Thursday, May 1st, 2014

By Sedgwick Clark Last week’s blog (April 24) was written, but for some reason in the posting process didn’t reach this stage. I wrote about the New York Philharmonic’s performance of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd, a recital by Murray Perahia, and a Philharmonic concert in which Manfred Honeck deputized for Gustavo Dudamel. It is available […]

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Sweeney, Perahia, and Honeck

Thursday, April 24th, 2014

By Sedgwick Clark I often attend some 20 concerts a month, with many going unreported. The death on April 2 of my long-time friend and colleague Harris Goldsmith occupied my thoughts completely, and my tribute to him appeared as a Musicalamerica.com news story on April 7. Instead of several separate reviews, last week’s blog dealt with […]

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Gianandrea Noseda Scores in the Outskirts

Friday, April 18th, 2014

By Sedgwick Clark My introduction to Italian conductor Gianandrea Noseda was his emotionally devastating performance of Britten’s War Requiem with the London Symphony Orchestra at Lincoln Center in October 2011. Since then I’ve made a point of hearing as many of his New York concerts as possible. He has been hereabouts for the past three […]

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Here’s Whoopi!

Friday, March 28th, 2014

By Sedgwick Clark Just as New York Philharmonic audiences had gotten used to hearing Alec Baldwin’s subdued tones asking them to turn off their cell phones, they were surprised to hear Bryn Terfel and Emma Thompson making a Sweeney-themed plea before the orchestra’s five performances of Stephen Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd (3/5-8). And then, before Alan […]

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Dudamel and Gilbert Score

Friday, March 21st, 2014

By Sedgwick Clark  I’ve heard nearly every one of Gustavo Dudamel’s New York concerts. At first I had my quibbles, but I always walked out of the hall with a smile. His music-making made me feel good to be alive. In two concerts at Avery Fisher Hall this past weekend, his Los Angeles Philharmonic played […]

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Two Wozzecks and a Salome in Concert

Friday, March 14th, 2014

By Sedgwick Clark Which is more important, asks Richard Strauss’s opera Capriccio: the music or the words? With the Vienna Philharmonic onstage at Carnegie Hall and surtitles cuing every vocal line, the question (and answer) may be less whimsical than ever. Franz Welser-Möst led New York’s favorite visiting orchestra on February 28 at Carnegie Hall’s […]

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Vienna Phil in Carnegie Hall

Friday, February 28th, 2014

By Sedgwick Clark The Vienna Philharmonic is in town for Carnegie Hall’s “Vienna: City of Dreams” Festival. Undoubtedly, music critics ranging from the Times to cub bloggers will swallow the orchestra’s p.r. bandwagon of tradition and aver how its magnificent sonority has remained the same over the years. I first heard the Vienna Philharmonic on […]

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