classical

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Vive la France

French music at the BSO; French opera at Boston Conservatory; plus, Peter Wispelwey, Judith Gordon, Russell Sherman and Frank Kelley, and Collage New Music
French music is tricky. It has an unmistakable accent, inflection, scent.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | February 08, 2012

Helios Early Opera's Charpentier; plus, the BSO's Mendelssohn Lobgesang

Hello, Helios!
There's a new group in town doing Baroque opera — not an easy ambition.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | February 01, 2012

Photos: Boston Symphony Orchestra & Claremont Trio

Good musical news
The Claremont Trio inaugurated the Gardner Museum’s new Calderwood Hall, and John Harbison's Symphony No. 6 performed by the Boston Symphony Orchestra, under the baton of David Zinman.
By STU ROSNER AND MICHAEL J. LUTCH | January 31, 2012

Some good musical news in troubled musical times

Pain and pleasure
What a turbulent time we've been having in Boston's musical life.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | January 26, 2012

Shuffling conductors at the BSO, and 10 concerts you should hear

Musical chairs
There's lots of music to look forward to as we approach the end of winter.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | December 30, 2011

2011: A very mixed year for classical music in Boston

Valedictions and salutations
Classical news good and bad.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | December 21, 2011

Ludovic Morlot's second week with the BSO; plus, Boston Early Music Festival's Charpentier

Hi-Def
In his second week with the BSO, Ludovic Morlot led another stunning program originally designed for James Levine.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | November 29, 2011

Ludovic Morlot at the BSO; Philippe Jaroussky with Apollo's Fire

Morlot's fire
Former BSO assistant conductor Ludovic Morlot has returned for two programs planned by and for former music director James Levine.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | November 21, 2011

Review: George Li, plus Gidon Kremer and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos with the BSO

Lightness of being
Sixteen-year-old Boston pianist George Li is prodigious in more than one way. He's not merely a technical wizard, but a thoughtful and serious musician.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | November 02, 2011

Opera Boston's Béatrice et Bénédict, plus Masur at the BSO, Boston Baroque's Creation, and Andréas Scholl

Merry war
Opera Boston began its season of relative rarities (two of them based on Shakespeare) with Berlioz's enchanting last opera, Béatrice et Bénédict, centered around the two most compelling characters in Much Ado About Nothing — witty antagonists who, in their "merry war," renounce love, until they are forced to admit they love each other.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | October 27, 2011

Yo-Yo Ma at the BSO, Gidon Kremer at Longy, Ilya Kaler with the Boston Philharmonic

Stringing along
For a moment, it seemed as if the Boston Symphony Orchestra was back in its full ripeness.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | October 19, 2011

Anne-Sophie Mutter, Susan Davenny Wyner, and Courtney Lewis

Popularity contest
The season-opening concerts I've been going to have made me think about two kinds of musicians: those whose performances become transparent, who allow the listener into the heart of the music; and those for whom their own abilities — technical marvels — seem an end, not a means to a higher end.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | October 06, 2011

Review: Mozart's Sister

Wolfgang's understudy sister fights for the limelight
When first seen in René Féret's speculative story about the older sibling of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Maria Anna "Nannerl" is pissing in the snow.
By PETER KEOUGH | October 04, 2011

Emmanuel Music's B-minor Mass; Lexington Symphony's Debussy and Holst

Celestial voices
Johann Sebastian Bach wasn't the first composer to recycle previous material, but he might have been the first to put together his own greatest-hits album.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | October 03, 2011

Guerilla Opera's Loose, Wet, Perforated

Huh?
Australian born, Harvard-educated Nicholas Vines is a compellingly original composer, and his new Loose, Wet, Perforated (through September 25) is full of fascinating music.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | September 20, 2011

Boston Midsummer Opera's The Italian Girl in Algiers

Dream Girl ?
This year Drew Minter and BMO gave us the young Rossini's The Italian Girl in Algiers , composed when he was 21 (it was his 11th opera!). It's an energetic comedy about a wily young woman who outwits the warlord who wants to add her to his harem.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | August 02, 2011

BOC's delightful Falstaff and Michael Endres playing Schubert at Newport

The essence of youth
Boston Opera Collaborative is, in its own words, "a non-profit membership organization dedicated to providing opportunities for emerging artists." Its members share in both the artistic and administrative work. Now in its sixth year, it has created a stir.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | July 25, 2011

The BSO opens its summer home without Levine, but with Mark Morris & Yo-Yo Ma

Tanglewood report
It was especially sad that Levine, who cancelled his entire Tanglewood season and then resigned as BSO music director as of September (he just underwent another major surgery on his spine), couldn't lead this particular program.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | August 10, 2011

Three pianists, and some impressive chamber music

Prestidigitation
Three remarkable pianists who couldn't be more different from one another have made some major appearances in the past few weeks.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | June 29, 2011

report by Jeffrey Gantz from the Boston Early Music Festival

The Boston Early Music Festival Exhibition

Crumhorns calling
What with the operas and the big-name visitors and the demonstrations and mini-classes and workshops and symposia and society meetings, to say nothing of the Early Music America Conference and Young Performers Festival, it would be easy to overlook the Boston Early Music Festival's Exhibition.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | June 17, 2011

Boston Baroque's Rameau, Opera Boston's Donizetti, BSO's Berlioz, the Met's new Walküre

Something old, something new
As the season wound down, one of the most applauded concerts was Boston Baroque's semi-staged version of Jean-Philippe Rameau's early 18th-century extravaganza, the "opéra-ballet" Les Indes galantes (roughly, "The Romantic Indies").
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | May 25, 2011

Moving out

88 keys, 2 songwriters, 1 grand plan
At the heart of the cover-band craze that's recently swept Portland is a very simple concept: musicians getting paid.
By SAM PFEIFLE | May 04, 2011

BLO does Britten's Midsummer Night's Dream

plus Dawn Upshaw, Natalia Gutman with the BPO, and Simon Trpceski at the BSO
After last season's The Turn of the Screw, Boston Lyric Opera has returned to Benjamin Britten with A Midsummer Night's Dream, an adaptation of Shakespeare (at the Shubert Theatre through May 10).
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | May 11, 2011

St. Petersburg Philharmonic, Dubravka Tomsic, and Emmanuel's Rake, plus BSO visiting conductors

No substitutions
Three recent musical high points in Boston actually went on as originally announced: no changes, no cancellations, and nothing to do with James Levine, who had his own triumphs out of town, leading Berg's Wozzeck at the Met and a concert with the Met Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | April 26, 2011

The word from Yanni

A conference call with the man himself
We should all be so lucky as to live the Life of Yanni: While the rest of us concern ourselves with mundane day-to-day trials and tribulations wrapped within a greater shell of global anxiety, Yanni has been able to fashion a musical identity where he can pursue genre-defying instrumental music for the gratification of a dedicated worldwide following.
By DANIEL BROCKMAN | April 06, 2011

Tod Machover's Death and the Powers, plus Norrington's C.P.E. Bach and the Cantata Singers' B-minor Mass

Robotics
In her director's note for the American premiere of Death and the Powers: The Robots' Opera , Diane Paulus, artistic director of the American Repertory Theater, wrote that this "work of music-theater . . . has brought together artists from the widest range of disciplines — from theater and film to modern dance and the cutting-edge technology of the MIT Media Lab."
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | March 25, 2011

Handel from BLO and the Cecilia, musicals at the conservatories, and Teatro Lirico's farewell

Play on
Boston Lyric Opera is presenting (at the Shubert Theatre through March 22) Handel's first hit opera, Agrippina, a black comedy about ruthless power, lust, and the shreds of nobility. Anyone who still thinks Handel is unrelievedly solemn should rush to the Shubert for a big surprise.
By LOYD SCHWARTZ | March 16, 2011

Bard, Bach, Borromeo: Boston's Spring classical music preview

Three B's and more this spring
The classical-music season continues at full throttle this spring. The Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Celebrity Series of Boston, and our local companies and schools have some of their most exciting offerings in store. Here are some of the events between March 24 and May 31 I'd be happiest to attend.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | March 15, 2011

Heavy metal: Opera Boston’s Cardillac

Plus another Levine cancellation, H&H’s Handel, the Takács Quartet, and Dmitri Hvorostovsky
One of the major musical events of the season, Opera Boston’s New England premiere of Paul Hindemith’s Cardillac, was upstaged by the depressing announcement by BSO managing director Mark Volpe, just before the first of the BSO’s four performances of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony, that James Levine was not going to conduct.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | March 03, 2011

Levine resigns

Poor health forces the BSO’s first American director to give up his position
I’m heartbroken. I’ve just heard that James Levine, after another serious setback to his health, has resigned as the BSO’s music director, a year before his contract was scheduled to expire.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | March 04, 2011