Category Archives: A Little Night Music

Only Partly Used Memories around John Mauceri come to mind as he begins his final season as the Hollywood Bowl’s Man of Much Music. They start back in 1973, as the Yalie with the golden curls, still John MOSS-ery to … Continue reading →

Please Send No Flowers Old Sourpuss has been heard from again. “A large chunk of masonry fell off the music industry last week . . .” announced the London-based critic, observer, editor (of a book of mine, even) and all-around … Continue reading →

The Mundane Earlier this month, the Philharmonic ended its Disney Hall season with Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, music as familiar to me as the oldest shoe in my closet. I don’t wear that shoe anymore, yet I went to the concert with … Continue reading →

Blackbirds at Dawn The sun broke through only in the last minutes of this year’s Ojai Festival, embracing the final Bach chorus in that legendary pink twilight that is part of the local legend. This was the 60th, the third … Continue reading →

A Tradition Upheld If life followed the standard operatic scenario, the Grendel that ensued on the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion stage last week – after the chaos that delayed its opening, cost the L.A. Opera some $300,000 in added expenses on … Continue reading →

The Antic Romantic Concerts of all six of Bach’s “Brandenburg” Concertos drew capacity, turn-away crowds to Disney Hall last week. Music by Harry Partch, downstairs in the small theater known as REDCAT, likewise, had people begging tickets out on the … Continue reading →

Wanderings Claude Vivier was born in Montreal in 1948 to anonymous parents, raised in an orphanage and then by foster parents named Vivier. Honored eventually as a brilliant if disturbing composer, he ended up in Paris, where, at 34, he … Continue reading →

Hybrids Even in his much-regretted absence, the late Lou Harrison remains a glowing presence. The paltry three concerts of his music in Orange County over the past few days that have been passed off as this year’s Pacific Symphony American … Continue reading →

The Only Other Music György Ligeti’s Requiem first makes itself known in your lower spine, moves overpoweringly upward and explodes into full awareness. Deep, dark harmonies resound from the low voices in the two interwoven choirs, further colored by the … Continue reading →

Unfinished but Polished One question immediately surfaced, as a near-capacity audience cheered itself hoarse at the sublime artistry of Ian Bostridge and Leif Ove Andsnes, and the performers had run out of encores: Why aren’t there more concerts like this? … Continue reading →