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By Paul E. Robinson on March 19, 2015
These performances were recorded live during the Pull Out All the Stops Festival launching the refurbished Royal Festival Hall organ, fully operational again for the first time since 2005. The organ sounds terrific and the performances are first-rate...
(Continue reading)By Paul E. Robinson on March 14, 2015
Elgar is practically part of the DNA of a certain group of Canadian classical music lovers; it goes with their Anglo-Saxon heritage and recognition of the Queen of England as their sovereign. For many classical music lovers in the United States and beyond, it is a different matter. Elgar’s music, while regularly programmed by British orchestras, was never widely performed or appreciated in the USA or Europe in the past and that is still the case today...
(Continue reading)By Paul E. Robinson on March 6, 2015
On the day that I played this new DVD celebrating the opening of the new Mariinsky Theatre in St. Petersburg, world news networks were reporting that prominent Russian opposition leader Boris Nemtsov had been murdered on the street near the Kremlin in Moscow. Yet another example of the ruthlessness of the Putin regime? Perhaps...
(Continue reading)By Paul E. Robinson on March 2, 2015
German baritone Christian Gerhaher recently performed in Toronto and those who heard him won’t have to be told what a fine artist he is. This new recording provides even more evidence, as if it were needed, of the beauty of his voice and the keen intelligence with which he uses it. This is somewhat esoteric repertoire, but the collaboration between Gerhaher and conductor Daniel Harding is consistently compelling...
(Continue reading)By Paul E. Robinson on February 12, 2015
Tchaikovsky wrote ten operas, but only two of them, Eugen Onegin and Pique Dame, are performed with any regularity in opera houses outside Russia. His last opera, Iolanta, composed just before the Pathétique symphony, has recently received a good deal of attention, thanks to Anna Netrebko’s interest in it. In addition to being the subject of this new recording starring Netrebko, the opera is currently in production at the Met and will be screened Feb. 14 (encore/Feb. 18) as part of the Met’s Live in HD movie theatre series. Finally, tenor Sergey Skorokhodov will appear in a Dallas Opera production of Iolanta conducted by Emmanuel Villaume (April 10-18)...
(Continue reading)By Paul E. Robinson on January 29, 2015
Ukraine has often been in the news lately, and for all the wrong reasons. It is not easy sharing a border with Russia, especially after gaining its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. Russia under Vladimir Putin resents Ukraine’s aspirations to move closer to the West and has acted militarily to crush them. First it was Crimea and now it is eastern Ukraine. NATO has been acting to support Ukraine but whether its efforts will be enough remains to be seen...
(Continue reading)By Paul E. Robinson on December 16, 2014
Here we have two complete cycles of the 15 Shostakovich string quartets. How to choose between them? Actually, anyone seriously interested in this music needs have both of them. The Beethoven Quartet cycle is practically self-recommending. The original members of the quartet worked together for the first time in 1923 as the Moscow Conservatory Quartet and regularly thereafter into the 1970s. As the Beethoven Quartet this great Soviet ensemble worked closely with Shostakovich for most of his life and gave the premieres of most of his quartets. The details of the relationship between Shostakovich and the Beethoven Quartet are well told by producer Jacob Harnoy in his liner notes. He quotes first violinist Dimitry Tsyganov on the subject of how they went about preparing the composer’s new quartets...
(Continue reading)By Paul E. Robinson on December 1, 2014
Just over a month ago the London Philharmonic and its music director Vladimir Jurowski gave a concert in Roy Thomson Hall that elicited rave reviews. The major work on the program was the Symphony No. 8 by Shostakovich. Clearly, Jurowski had a special affinity for the music of this composer. Here they are again, on a new CD on the orchestra’s own label, and again playing symphonic music by Shostakovich. And again it would be appropriate to reach for the superlatives.
(Continue reading)By Paul E. Robinson on November 26, 2014
In the spring of 2012 the Philadelphia Orchestra presented a “Stokowski Celebration” in the orchestra’s old home, the Academy of Music. The programs consisted of music associated with Stokowski, the longtime music director of the orchestra, and there was a well-curated display of Stokowski memorabilia in the lobby and on the orchestra’s website. Yannick Nezet-Seguin conducted all the concerts and in one remarkable moment Stokowski “passed” the baton to Yannick by means of lifelike holograms on either side of the proscenium. A year later Yannick made his first recording with the Philadelphia Orchestra and it included several of the works played at the Stokowski Celebration.
(Continue reading)By John Terauds on November 18, 2014
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