Author Archives: Alan Rich

In Tokyo last Tuesday night, a crowd of nearly 3,000 clapped and cheered and went joyously mad after a concert by a visiting American orchestra. Another crowd of similar size had done the same on Monday, and on each of … Continue reading →

[*] STEVE: This comes in early because I’m off to Japan next week, (leaving Sunday 12/29) along with the Hollywood Bowl Orchestra for its concerts in Osaka (New Year’s Eve) and Tokyo. We get back on January 8, so my … Continue reading →

For this final Sunday of the Mozart year, another fond glance at music’s purest genius might be in order.The admirable project begun by Philips, to amass a complete recording of the Mozartian heritage in its numerical and radiant fullness, nears … Continue reading →

Some brain-dead hobgoblin decreed some time ago that the Christmas season is a time of silence. Our concert halls are empty, except for a stray sing-along “Messiah.” Home from the holidays, the kids might, you’d think, find diuersion or self-improvement … Continue reading →

Two veterans of the local battlefields have been back among us these weeks. Zubin Mehta is currently here at his old stand, the Los Angeles Philharmonic podium; the first of his three programs here will be repeated this afternoon at … Continue reading →

SUGGESTED HED: CONTEMPORARY MUSIC, NEW AND OLDSome music, like some great stage ‘n’ screen stars, never shows its age. Some music, like minor luminaries, begins to wrinkle right at birth. You never know.After as much Mozart as we’ve heard in … Continue reading →

STEVE: I have art for opera; will bring by Tuesday noonishRossini’s “Barber of Seville” — exquisitely comic, meticulously timed, both supple and subtle — has been put forward by the Music Center Opera as a mindless, vulgar laff show. Imposed, … Continue reading →

Fame in music, as in other endeavors, comes and goes. Five years ago, for example, nobody could have foreseen the return to favor of Franz Schreker. Now here we are with three new recordings of Schreker operas. This past weekend, … Continue reading →

Women conducting symphony orchestras: what will they think of next? This is meant in jest, I hastily add; the phenomenon is, as of some years now, a fact of life. And yet, in all the Los Angeles Philharmonic’s 72-year history, … Continue reading →

Until this past week, the local cultural forces had honored the Mozart bicentennial with no particvlar distinction. There were lots of routine programs of predictable substance, and a half-hearted attempt by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, to commission a series … Continue reading →