David Bratman

David Bratman is a librarian who lives with his lawfully wedded soprano and a wall full of symphony recordings.

Articles by this Author

Joyce Yang: Everything Relative - Review
February 3, 2012

Joyce Yang: <em>Collage</em>If you’re a pianist — or any musician, really — who’s planning a CD containing multiple works, you can pick related pieces by the same composer and create an entry for the library shelf, or you can structure it like a recital, with a variety of compositions to show off your chops and keep the audience interested through a continuous playing.

Royal Mix From the Across the Pond - Review
January 30, 2012

Charles DutoitThe Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, as its name might suggest even to someone unfamiliar with it, is from Great Britain. To a concert at Berkeley’s Zellerbach Hall on Saturday, it came with Artistic Director Charles Dutoit, who is Swiss, and guest pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, who is French. The music they played was by composers who were German and Hungarian.

Shostakovich, Scores - Review
January 20, 2012

Shostakovich: <em>New Babylon</em>The problem with being a fan of the music of dead composers is that they’re not writing any more of it. Take Dmitri Shostakovich. He left us 15 each of string quartets and symphonies, and much other music; isn’t that enough? Not for Shostakovich fans.

Beethoven at Full Attention - Review
January 3, 2012

Benjamin Simon“I Like Ludwig” was the title that Music Director Benjamin Simon put on the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra’s New Year’s concerts this year, and he didn’t mean Ludwig Spohr. The concert, which I heard in Sunday afternoon’s performance at St. Mark’s Church in Palo Alto, offered two solid hours of the pure essence of heroic, midperiod Beethoven.

Musicians from the San Francisco Symphony - Preview
December 7, 2011

San Francisco Symphony Chamber Musicians Most string quintets, other than Schubert's, don't get played often. The San Francisco Symphony Chamber Musicians have the personnel to do it. They will perform Mozart's K. 516 in G Minor and Mendelssohn's Op.

S.F. Symphony Splits the Honors With Shaham - Review
November 26, 2011

MTTThis San Francisco Symphony season seems to be the year for orchestrations of chamber and piano works. Two weeks ago, Music Director Michael Tilson Thomas led Mahler’s string orchestra transcription of Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” Quartet. In March, he’ll reprise Henry Brant’s orchestration of Charles Ives’ Concord Sonata for piano, a success here two years ago.

Evergreen Schubert at S.F. Symphony - Review
November 14, 2011

Juho PohjonenIs combining orchestral and chamber music in one concert the next new thing? I’ve already attended one such program by the San José Chamber Orchestra and the Cypress Quartet. On Friday at Davies Symphony Hall, it was the San Francisco Symphony’s turn.

Voiceless Wagner in Redwood City - Preview
November 10, 2011

Do you secretly prefer Wagner's The Nibelung's Ring without singers, but would like something longer than the traditional concert chunks?
Shaham: Bold, Brilliant, All-Bach - Review
November 8, 2011

Gil ShahamThe stage at Dinkelspiel Auditorium was almost completely empty for the Stanford Lively Arts program on Sunday afternoon. It held just one man, one violin, one composer.

The St. Lawrence Experiment - Review
October 25, 2011

St. Lawrence String QuartetIn its operning concert of the season for Stanford Lively Arts on Sunday afternoon at Dinkelspiel Auditorium, the St. Lawrence String Quartet gave the first performance of a new work by the Argentine composer Osvaldo Golijov (b. 1960).

Or ... maybe not. Nobody, not even the composer, was sure if this was a premiere or an experimental tryout.

Sphinx Virtuosi Awaken the Past - Review
October 21, 2011

Sphinx VirtuosiThe Sphinx Virtuosi, whose performance on Wednesday was the first Dinkelspiel Auditorium concert in Stanford Lively Arts' season, is a conductor-less 18-member string orchestra of young professional players. It's sponsored by the Sphinx Organization, a Detroit-based nonprofit group whose purpose is to increase the participation of Blacks and Latinos in classical music.

Golijov premiere by the St. Lawrence Quartet - Preview
October 17, 2011

The South Bay's major premiere of the season is a new work by the leading Argentinian-born composer Osvaldo Golijov, performed by the St. Lawrence String Quartet in the Stanford Lively Arts series. It's paired with Schubert's last, glorious quartet, in G Major, and Haydn's Op. 76, No. 2.

Cypress Quartet and Gary Hoffman - Preview
October 17, 2011

Cypress String QuartetThe Cypress String Quartet is bringing in renowned cellist Gary Hoffman to help them play Schubert's masterpiece, the String Quintet in C Major. The Cypress foursome will also perform a Ravel string quartet, and Hoffman will display the suite for solo cello by Gaspar Cassadó, a pupil of the great Pablo Casals. Part of the San Jose Chamber Music Society series.

Double Threat Plays a Triple Concerto - Review
October 3, 2011

Paul Polivnick

Always in Flux, Mostly in Fun - Review
September 19, 2011

As the audience filed into the SOMArts Cultural Center, a warehouselike space deep in San Francisco’s industrial flatlands, on Saturday evening, the houselights were down and a man (Adam Fong) was silentlyLuciano Chessa performs Solo for Violin for Sylvano Bussotti by George Maciunas

South Bay Sounds: A Guide for Fall - Article
August 22, 2011

Though there are fewer big presenters in the South Bay, you don't have to trek north to find great artists playing seriously entertaining music. Here are a few best bets in the San Jose-Palo Alto area.


Stuart Canin

Late Greats at Menlo - Review
August 12, 2011

The Music@Menlo festival season is drawing towards a close, as the directors and administrators who introduce each concert never tire of reminding us. The final of the four Carte Blanche Concerts, on Wednesday at the Menlo-Atherton Center for Performing Arts, was originally scheduled to feature pianist Menahem Pressler, who had to cancel due to a family emergency.

Coping with a Mixed Bill at Cabrillo - Review
August 8, 2011

Related Article

Mysteries of Light Illuminates Cabrillo

August 5, 2011

A Brahms Gem - Review
August 1, 2011

The Music@Menlo chamber music festival focuses this season on Brahms. Its third regular program, at the Menlo-Atherton Center for the Performing Arts on Saturday (repeated from Stent Family Hall on Friday), was built around one particular Brahms work, the String Sextet in B-flat, Op. 18. This is an infrequently played gem of a piece — its successor sextet, Op.

To Brahms and Bax - Review
July 26, 2011

Music@Menlo’s first Carte Blanche Concert of the season, Sunday morning at the Stent Family Hall of Menlo School, was a Brahms piano music recital with something extra added. Alessio Bax was the principal performer, playing in all six of the concert’s pieces, for a total of about two and a half hours (plus intermissions, one of them for lunch) over a four-hour period. He had help in two of the works, from violinist Yura Lee and fellow pianist Lucille Chung. And Brahms had assistance in the composing, too, from Béla Bartók and George Enescu.