Author Archives: Alan Rich

The Humanist Once again there is an Anniversary; I have barely gotten through the 179 CDs of Philips’ 1991 compleat Mozart, a splendid highlight of the recording industry as it then flourished. Now there will be another Mozart torrent, even … Continue reading →

Rhine Stones If you raise a questioning eyebrow at the news that the Long Beach Opera is currently offering a reasonable likeness of Richard Wagner’s 18-hour Ring of the Nibelung in something close to 10 hours, that can only mean … Continue reading →

Aching Beauty Three years ago I wrote under the spell of Kaija Saariaho’s L’Amour de Loin, whose American premiere I had attended at the Santa Fe Opera. The recording that was promised at the time has now materialized, a Deutsche … Continue reading →

John ADAMS: An atomic opera in San Francisco and a multimedia Nativity last month here preserved hopes for classical music’s present and future.Heinrich BIBER: Madcap violin virtuosity from Germany’s leading composer pre-Bach. In concerts and on disc, he’s taken over … Continue reading →

The Babe Set Free At its first hearing here (March 2003, at the Old Place), El Niño was warmly received, but with one reservation almost unanimously voiced. John Adams’ musical evocation of the Nativity story is, for most of its … Continue reading →

Andsnes in Depth The Philharmonic has had the admirable idea, for the last couple of years, of inviting some of the more interesting guest artists to tarry in town for more than the usual one-week stint, to display a broader … Continue reading →

Painting by Tahir Salahov,Courtesy Los AngelesPhilharmonicDark Regions E-flat minor is dank and sinister territory. Ascribing personalities to specific tonalities is a shifty business at best; very often mere mechanical considerations of particular instruments make the difference. The E-string is the … Continue reading →

Photo by Robert MillardSacred Richard Wagner’s Parsifal stands as one of opera’s unassailable peaks; full credit is due to any company for attempting the work at all – and, I suppose, to any audience willing to undergo its five-hour dimensions. … Continue reading →

Photo by Walter SchelsPianists: Two of the world’s best began and ended the Philharmonic year at Disney. For starters, Mitsuko Uchida – who does for pantsuits what Olivier used to do for Hamlet – lit magical lights through all five … Continue reading →

Home Away From Home Home, to Sir Simon Rattle, is the familiar musical repertory we most often hear at concerts and on the radio, music from the 19th century or before, when the tunes and the harmonies were friendly and … Continue reading →