Author Archives: Alan Rich

It was a strange evening of contrasts, but at least — on Tuesday night, six performances into the summer schedule — Hollywood Bowl finally achieved its official opening concert. Nancy Reagan was there, in the very next box to your … Continue reading →

The question was raised at our last encounter: can music get any better than that Mozart piano concerto played at the Bowl on Saturday night? The answer was quick to arrive, as the Emerson Quartet gave the first of its … Continue reading →

The best new record in weeks is Telarc’s compact disk of six orchestral works of P.D.Q. Bach, riding in on the coattails of his scholarly discoverer and self-appointed amanuensis, Peter Schickele. All of the music is new, not previously recorded. … Continue reading →

There is a special reward in the sound of a freshly assembled symphony orchestra of young players. This year’s Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute Orchestra, which gave the inaugural concert of its summer season at UCLA’s Royce Hall on Sunday night, … Continue reading →

From all accounts, the musical celebration of the French bicentennial is going fairly well — everywhere, that is, except in Paris. Here at home we’ve not done too badly so far, what with Pierre Boulez at the Philharmonic and Beaumarchais … Continue reading →

In local cultural annals these few weeks are generally thought of as the musical doldrums, the uneventful time between the end of the Philharmonic season and the Bowl. This year, however, this interval has hardly lived up (or down) to … Continue reading →

“The Gould problem,” intones the oracular voice as if from the very slopes of Delphi, “has not gone away.” The Gould problem, the Callas problem, the Rubinstein mystique, the Toscanini magic…these are the essential propositions on which the video documentary … Continue reading →

Some good new music in a good new locale: that sums up the events  at California State University Los Angeles (CSULA from now on), as the three-day First Pacific Contemporary Music Festival ended on Saturday night, with everybody on stage … Continue reading →

The Abbe Prevost had his Manon Lescaut die in a “desert near New Orleans”; Alexis de Tocqueville brought home to France glowing reports on the American political system; Albert Bierstadt painted our rivers and mountains. Foreign visitors have always reacted … Continue reading →

Never let it be said of your doting correspondent, that he flinched from undergoing the tortures of Hades on behalf of the edification and uplift of his loyal readers. He did just that last Sunday afternoon, in fact, forsaking domestic … Continue reading →