Concert Reviews
Exploring the Boston Scene
The Boston Scene After a couple of weeks without concerts and opera I am finally starting to explore the Boston music scene (again). So far, most of the non-campus events were disappointing: 1) Boston Symphony Orchestra under James Levine played Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto (with Christian Tetzlaff) and Mahler’s 9th Symphony. This concert was a […]
Salzburg Wrap-up
Ok, this year’s festival was a short one for me. I saw only a couple of performances but some of these were really excellent!
Grisey’s Les Espaces Acoustiques in Salzburg
This was an amazing concert. The Basel Sinfonietta under Stefan Asbury and Geneviève Strosser (viola) performed Gérard Grisey’s Les Espaces Acoustiques at the Salzburg Festival. Having thought a lot about an aethetics of spacial music listening I found yesterday’s concert to be a perfect stimulus. It was incredible to hear this piece in its entirety […]
Gerhard Oppitz in Munich
Spätwerk (= Late works). There are two basic implications when talking about late works. First, the conventional view that late works are rich compositions by a mature and wise composer. This approach stresses the dignity and complexity of the compositions and implies that they embody the summit of an artist’s compositional development. Seen in this […]
A Flowering Tree in Berlin
For those of you who live in Berlin: rush over to the Berliner Philharmoniker website and buy a ticket for today’s (December 22) performance of John Adams’ newest opera “A flowering tree”. For those of you who cannot make it in time: read on …
Munich Opera House
Last night, Seda and I went to the Munich Opera House where we saw the Bayerisches Staatsballett with a very interesting program featuring Century Rolls (Davide Bombana, John Adams), In the Country of Last Things (Michael Simon, Heiner Goebbels), and Elemental (Jacopo Godani, 48nord). A couple of weeks ago I read an illuminating article in […]
Vengerov just wants to have fun
– Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Adagio in E major K 261 (arranged for violin and piano by Max Rostal – Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 7 in c minor Op. 30 No. 2 – Sergey Prokofiev: Sonata for Violin and Piano No. 1 in f minor Op. 80 – Dmitri Shostakovich: Selection […]
Delicate miniatures and melancholic sonatas
This season, the Konzerthaus Berlin has put up some intriguing programs celebrating the 100th birthday of Dmitri Shostakovich. Among these concerts were performances by the Jerusalem Quartet (all string quartets), the Konzerthausorchester (Concerto for Piano, Trumpet and String Orchestra), as well as the Berlin Sinfonietta (Chamber Symphony). In an engaging performance on Thursday night, Alexei […]
Don Menza and Harald Rüschenbaum Trio
Yesterday night I went to the Munich Jazzclub “Unterfahrt”. Very nice location (good service, nice interieur, and non-smoking!), go check it out some time. The concert was great. Don Menza is 70 years old but he plays like a young man. What I found most interesting was the contrast between the American style of playing […]
Sting to perform at the Yellow Lounge
I first heard the rumour at JP’s birthday party last Friday: Sting will be the special guest performing at the next yellow lounge event on Monday in Berlin. The yellow lounge? It’s a marketing move from Universal Music to promote their label Deutsche Grammophon. The idea is pretty straight forward: combine a classical music DJ […]
musica reanimata revives music of Karel Reiner
musica reanimata is the name of an ambitious association of musicians and musicologists in Berlin that revives the music of composers persecuted by the Nazis. The association organizes concerts, conferences, and publishes books. For their efforts they have recently been awarded the prestigious Kritikerpreis für Musik 2006. Yesterday, at the Konzerthaus Berlin, musica reanimata hosted […]
Arditti Quartet Plays Webern, Berg, and Harvey
What a great program! Anton Webern Fünf Sätze für Streichquartett op. 5, Alban Berg Lyrische Suite für Streichquartett, and then, after a short intermission, Jonathan Harvey’s String Quartet No. 4 with live electronics. The Arditti Quartet gave yet another memorable concert and again the hall was half empty. This is something I just cannot understand. […]
Birtwistle, Britten, Strauss and Schulhoff at the Musikfest Berlin
Inescapable doom and a melancholic fate were looming large yesterday at the Philharmonie, where the Bamberger Symphoniker under Jonathan Nott gave a spectacular concert that included Birtwistle’s The Shadow of Night, Britten’s Violin Concerto, and Strauss’s Tod und Verklärung. The concert was spectacular for two reasons: First, for the subtle programming of the evening, and, […]
Trio Wanderer and Gérard Caussé: Mozart and Schedl
Today at twenty past seven my girlfriend got a call from a festival manager in Salzburg: “Can you be here in 10 minutes to turn pages in a chamber music concert?” She could … and she took me along, too. We had no idea what was on the program, nor did we know who actually […]
(5′ -> 3′) ATGGAATTCTCGCTC
Reading the program notes can sometimes be very illuminating. Yesterday, for instance, at the concert of the Ensemble Wien-Berlin and Denes Varjon (piano), I learned something about molecular biology and its application to music. York Höller’s Klangzeichen for piano and wind quintet is a piece based on a Klanggestalt, a melodic structure from which all […]
Recent Comments