Category Archives: A Little Night Music

Rousing the Dead Christopher Rouse burst upon the scene in the 1980s, with a barrage of orchestral works bearing titles such as Bump, Phantasmata and Infernal Machine and, in sheer decibel power, living up to their names. Later on, he … Continue reading →

Julius Who?If the name of Julius Reubke means nothing to you, that’s understandable; mine, however, is the even greater guilt. I’d seen the name for years, on posters and programs, record catalogs and small entries in encyclopedias, always connected with … Continue reading →

Opus 110 As Alfred Brendel’s recital at Disney Hall last week amplified, in no work does the voice of Beethoven – defiant, despairing, triumphant, vulnerable – resound more compellingly than in the next-to-last of his 32 piano sonatas. I’ve never … Continue reading →

The Sound Ringing Forth Years of listening to his symphonies through Hollywood Bowl amplification can leave you with a distorted sound image of Tchaikovsky’s remarkable orchestral language – what old Bernheimer used to refer to as the “slush pump.” The … Continue reading →

Potpourri To San Francisco I journey for John Adams’ music; it is his shrine. Last season, his Doctor Atomic at the Opera House celebrated the blotting out of the sun; this past weekend, A Flowering Tree at Davies Symphony Hall … Continue reading →

It is hardly news that Esa-Pekka Salonen, the Philharmonic’s spellbinding music director, draws a turn-away crowd at a personal appearance. The difference, on a recent Thursday night, is that this appearance is without the usual 106-member Philharmonic as backup, and … Continue reading →

Zip Notes on an uncommonly splendid week at Zipper Concert Hall – and what a valuable asset to musical life that handsome, small room has become! The second in the reborn Monday Evening Concerts drew an almost-capacity crowd, despite there … Continue reading →

Immersion, Conversion “The last 80 years,” writes Ned Rorem in Facing the Night, his latest collection of terse and invigorating personal observations, “have been the sole period in history wherein music of the past takes precedence over the present .?.?. … Continue reading →

Turning Point Mahagonny is back in town, and it’s time to take to the trees. Eighteen years ago, when the steel-edged words and music of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill were last at the L.A. Opera, they were accorded polite … Continue reading →

Stormin’ Norman When the Monday Evening Concerts began in 1939 – they were called “Evenings on the Roof” back then – the first composers bore names strange and unfamiliar to local audiences: Béla Bartók, Charles Ives, Ferruccio Busoni. Audiences came, … Continue reading →