Author Archives: Alan Rich

The Last Romantic Helmut Lachenmann cuts a solitary figure in today’s musical world. At a time when much of the talk centers on accessibility, on a generation of composer-heroes – Adams, Adès, Reich, Saariaho, Salonen, just for starters – who … Continue reading →

Before There Was Ambien The air was full of memories at the season finale of the “Piano Spheres” concerts last week; the music was too. Ursula Oppens was the pianist – “Oyssla,” as Morty Feldman always called her in his … Continue reading →

Don’t Feed the Animals More of the same: The new guy has come and gone after his two-week Philharmonic guest shot, leaving behind echoes of adoration and tumults of anticipation – next Disney gig: November 24 – and memories of … Continue reading →

Genius, Age 27 He’s real, he’s ours: Gustavo Dudamel. You could almost say they were made for each other, even to a similarity of hairdo – Hector Berlioz, who astounded musical society with his Symphonie Fantastique at the age of … Continue reading →

Not So StinkyEduard Hanslick, a.k.a. Beckmesser, cast one of his notorious thunderbolts in the direction of Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto in 1881 when the ink on its mss. was barely dry, and generations of us hot-pen scriveners have feasted on his … Continue reading →

Good Old Sir Harry Composer Harrison Birtwistle Two of the world’s most endearing originals showed up at the most recent Monday Evening Concert – their music did, at least. One was Ralph Shapey, long gone but long remembered by us … Continue reading →

Lesser Is Better Berlin’s Simon Rattle Wendy Lesser is the founder and editor of The Threepenny Review, a quarterly collection of thinking and, therefore, writing that I find indispensable. I don’t know her musical credentials, but her piece in the … Continue reading →

Edward is 12, loves the piano and is beginning to take lessons at his school in Mar Vista. Sometimes he comes to my house, when his mother comes to clean, and he picks out tunes on the piano. Arnold is … Continue reading →

The Devil in the Deep Blue Pool The lovers afloat There is this problem I have, trying to describe almost any production by the Long Beach Opera. Elektra in a Malibu beach house, Boris Godunov in a corporate boardroom … … Continue reading →

Paradise Lost and Found Robert Millard Verdi’s Otello at the Music Center “We are not the sole owners of our past,” wrote Jordi Savall, music’s great and original spirit, in a note accompanying his marvelous appearance at Disney Hall last … Continue reading →