Northern Lights ... Jonathan McPhee and The Longwood Symphony Orchestra at Jordan Hall on May 1, 2010 ... ... NEVER MIND THE SIBELIUS This was Nielsen that made you sit up and take notice. (Pictured: conductor Jonathan McPhee.) ... The last time I reviewed a Longwood Symphony Orchestra concert, we got Silvestre Revueltas’s Sensemayá , the Coronation Scene from Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov , and Janácek’s Glagolitic Mass ... Before that, it was Samuel Barber’s Night Flight and
The BSO and Boston Baroque at their best ... Martin Pearlman's edition of Monteverdi's Vespro della Beate Vergine, with inserted antiphons to suggest an actual service, remains a masterpiece of historical research and inspired guesswork ... PARADISE REGAINED? Renée Fleming’s performance of Richard Strauss’s Four Last Songs might have echoed in your dreams ... Many concerts are very good, some are great, and the rare few are a privilege to be present at. In that last category was an
The Gardner Museum takes a chance on the new ... On January 1, 1903, Isabella Stewart Gardner invited 300 guests to a private concert by members of the Boston Symphony Orchestra to celebrate the opening of her new museum on the Fenway. After performances of Bach, Mozart, and Schumann, the mirrored doors of the first-floor concert room rolled open to reveal an extraordinary vision ... INTO THE OLD THROUGH THE NEW From Evans Way, you’ll enter Piano’s addition — center, with its exhibition
The BSO, the Cantata Singers, Discovery Ensemble, and BCMS ... WGBH radio has ended its 58-year tradition of live Friday-afternoon BSO broadcasts, and it doesn't seem that public outcry is going to change that ... NEVER BETTER Having Ton Koopman's small BSO ensemble behind him meant that Yo-Yo Ma didn't have to push to be heard ... The Boston Symphony Orchestra programmed a rocking start to the New Year. Animated Dutch early-music conductor Ton Koopman, in his third BSO gig, led Haydn's Symphony
Beating the quease ... This was a queasy year for classical music ... FULLY ENGAGED: The Borromeo String Quartet delivered the year’s best chamber music in their Béla Bartók quartet cycle at the Gardner Museum ... This was a queasy year for classical music. It began with a grand gesture — classical music at a presidential inauguration. But what the world heard was pre-recorded. Phooey! James Levine was going to conduct his first complete Beethoven symphony cycle with the Boston Symphony
The BSO's Brahms, Ben Zander's Wagner, Collage New Music, and the BEMF's Handel ... In my review of the memorable Brahms performances Sir Simon Rattle led with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra for the Celebrity Series of Boston last month, I should have mentioned that one decision responsible for the beauty and spaciousness of the orchestral sound was the placement of the first and second violin sections on opposite sides of the stage ... BORING BRAHMS: Yan Pascal Tortelier's admirable
Simon Rattle and the BPO, Fabio Luisi and the BSO, John Harbison and Emmanuel Music ... Simon Rattle and the BPO, Fabio Luisi and the BSO, John Harbison and Emmanuel Music ... PHENOMENAL DEPTHS OF SOUND: Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic played Brahms and Schoenberg with layer upon layer of extraordinary richness ... Everyone present at the return of Simon Rattle and the Berlin Philharmonic this past Sunday must feel an enormous debt of gratitude to the Celebrity Series of Boston. And though
There were beginnings and endings at the Boston Symphony Orchestra performance Saturday evening at Symphony Hall. Just not the kind you'd expect ... The beginnings ...