Monthly Archives: May 2000

It was billed as a “gala”; the ticket prices bespoke “gala,” and so, I’m told, did the fancy sit-down dinner upstairs after the music ran out. The farewell entertainment concocted by the Los Angeles Opera last week to wish Godspeed … Continue reading →

I‘m still obsessed with memories of Marino Formenti’s piano concerts at LACMA; you would be, too, if you‘d been there. On the third concert, he pulled off an acrobatic marvel, performing simultaneously on two pianos, tuned a quarter-tone apart, set … Continue reading →

One hundred years after his birth, 50 years after his death, Kurt Weill can finally be measured. Against all the news about the abandonment of serious music by the giants of the recording industry, EMI Classics has produced the first-ever … Continue reading →

There was chamber music in town last week, the wrong pieces beautifully played. On Wednesday, three delightfully earnest and talented young musicians from overseas — the violinist Christian Tetzlaff, his younger sister the cellist Tanja, and the pianist Leif Ove … Continue reading →

A gap of 166 years separates the C-minor Piano Concerto of Mozart (K. 491) from the Piano Sonata of Jean Barraqué, but they share at least this: the ability to wreak sheer violence upon an audience, to numb the ears … Continue reading →