Author Archives: Alan Rich

Strange are the workings of the Fates. A couple of weeks ago, as I rummaged through the collected writings of Olin Downes in search of his adulatory bloviations on the matter of Jan Sibelius, the telephone rang with the news … Continue reading →

Tod Machover’s Hyperstring Trilogy, on the Oxingale label and by some distance the most exhilarating disc release of these otherwise drab summer months, sets off memories of the not-too-distant past and stirs up all kinds of hopes for a not-too-hopeless … Continue reading →

“There is the feeling of the vasty deep,” wrote Olin Downes in the days when music critics coined not only phrases but actual words, “of the thresh of waters and the sough of winds . . .” At the Hollywood … Continue reading →

Something about La Traviata, fragrant creation from Verdi’s early mastery, takes hold no matter what. At the Los Angeles Opera it has survived several reruns of Marta Domingo’s clumsy staging; Linda Brovsky’s San Francisco Opera production, brought down to Costa … Continue reading →

Photo by James Minchen The timing was, as usual, immaculate. Only one aircraft penetrated the space over the Hollywood Bowl on opening night of the Tuesday/Thursday “classical” series, but that transgression occurred during the evening’s quietest moment. In the slow … Continue reading →

Thanks to the separate efforts of the record company called Naxos and the Web site–cum–magazine known as Andante-dot-com, recorded music’s past appears in better shape than its present – and probably its future as well. I wrote last week about … Continue reading →

Read a chapter or two of Remembrance of Things Past, or watch the wonderful movie (Time Regained). Nibble on a plate of madeleines dipped in lime-leaf tea; now you’re ready to listen to the singing of Maggie Teyte. Her dates … Continue reading →

At the Los Angeles Opera, Don Giovanni sang his seduction music to Zerlina while escorting her toward a blood-red bed built for two. In Long Beach, cops and thugs and modern-day terrorists stalked the streets of 18th-century Peru. In San … Continue reading →

It was 41 years ago when Pierre Boulez, the newly arrived dark cloud on the New York scene, first sat down with me to discuss the future of the C-major scale and similar weighty matters. He had only recently emerged … Continue reading →