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Classical

Julian Kuerti takes BSO conductor reins

Musical chairs at the BSO, the Pacifica at Longy, the Boston Philharmonic's three B's, and the Cecilia's Bach B-minor Mass
With only one rehearsal, 31-year-old BSO Assistant Conductor Julian Kuerti confronted a challenging two-and-a-half-hour program of not-quite-standard 19th- and 20th-century repertoire.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | November 24, 2008

Review: Jane Ring Frank's ambitious Boston Secession

Boston Secession, the Takács Quartet and Muzsikás, Russell Sherman
Jane Ring Frank's Boston Secession, which calls itself a "professional choral ensemble," began its 12th season with a short but ambitious program.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | November 24, 2008

Lexington Symphony disagree with Tchaikovsky

Irina Muresanu gave an emotionally compelling performance, even if her view of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto didn’t always jibe with conductor Jonathan McPhee’s.
The word “concerto” comes from the Italian for “to bring into agreement,” and it’s not always as easy as soloists and symphony orchestras make it seem.

By: JEFFREY GANTZ | November 14, 2008

Review: Carmina burana at Symphony Hall

The BSO’s Carmina burana, the Cantata Singers, the Boston Camerata, and BLO’s Tales of Hoffmann
Probably most music lovers wouldn’t head their greatest-composer list with Carl Orff, despite the popularity of his violent, garish, sumptuously tuneful Carmina burana .

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | November 13, 2008

Isn’t it rich?

Sondheim and Follies , the BSO’s French evening, and Boston Baroque’s Xerxes
The biggest musical celebrity in town last week was Broadway great Stephen Sondheim, who filled Northeastern University’s Blackman Hall “in conversation” with his long-time associate, producer/composer Sean Patrick Flahaven.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | November 03, 2008

Boston Symphony delivers knock-out performance

Maurizio Pollini returns to the BSO; Opera Boston’s Der Freischütz
Last week’s Boston Symphony Orchestra program looked odd on paper, but the concert was a knockout.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | October 24, 2008

Old and new

Leon Fleisher at 80, Harry Christophers with the Handel and Haydn Society, André Previn and James Levine at the BSO
There was hardly a concert I was more eager to hear than the Celebrity Series of Boston’s celebration of pianist Leon Fleisher’s 80th birthday.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | October 16, 2008

Classical: BSO Gala 2008

James Levine’s gala and Brahms, Russell Sherman’s Liszt, the Bostonians’ Kurt Weill
The most moving moment of this year’s Boston Symphony Orchestra opening gala came before the concert started — the standing ovation for James Levine, who looked rested and recuperated after his kidney surgery this summer, an operation that forced him to cancel most of his Tanglewood season.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | October 01, 2008

It’s about time . . .

The Ditson Festival of Contemporary Music starts in Boston
It’s been 17 years since Boston’s last local festival of contemporary music, the New Music Harvest organized by composer Charles Fussell: 19 programs (several free), a celebration of composer Ned Rorem, an opera production performed by BU students, and the participation of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | September 25, 2008

Suburban Mozart that swings

Lexington Symphony at Cary Hall, Lexington, MA, September 13, 2008
It’s a tribute to the quality of Boston’s classical-music scene that a suburban orchestra like the Lexington Symphony is capable of a performance to attract the attention of those who live closer to Symphony Hall.

By: JEFFREY GANTZ | October 09, 2008

Russian, Spanish, American . . .

Music in all accents comes to the concert halls
What everyone is looking forward to this fall is the return to the podium of Boston Symphony Orchestra music director James Levine.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | September 11, 2008

Letter from London

The foggy joys of Europe’s most international city
How could you not fall in love with this city?

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | September 05, 2008

Night music

The Pops aces Sondheim
Classic musicals make substantial enterprises —this is now the best thing the Pops does.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | July 01, 2008

Grand finales

The Cantata Singers’ Weill retrospective, Mark Morris leading Dido , Chorus pro Musica’s Carmen
Jeffrey Rink has just ended his 18th and final season as music director of Chorus pro Musica. He’ll be missed.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | June 03, 2008

Epic undertaking

Berlioz’s Les Troyens at the BSO; Opera Boston attempts Verdi’s Ernani
The act four sequence of quintet, septet, and love duet is non-stop musical orgasm.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | May 12, 2008

On (and off) track

Boston Lyric Opera’s Seraglio , BU’s Barbiere di Siviglia , Andy Vores’s No Exit , the BPO’s Bartók and Brahms
It’s an expensive, elegant set, a lovingly detailed theatrical reproduction of railway cars on the Orient Express, the famous train connecting Paris and Istanbul.

By: LLOYD SCHWARTZ | April 29, 2008