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

Cadenza: New Beginnings

David Bratman - October 7, 2009
The former Santa Cruz Chamber Orchestra is kicking off its first season under a new name with two energetic and attractive modern works for strings and trumpet: Arthur Honegger’s Symphony No. 2 and Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 1, the latter with pianist Brenda Tom.
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Review

Let Us Now Arrange Famous Composers

David Bratman - September 14, 2009
Compared to other forms of music-making, classical music is noted for keeping to the original score rather than arranging works anew for each performer. Leonard Bernstein once even suggested that “exact music” would be a better name.
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Feature

The Season Ahead: A Preview of Fall Concerts

David Bratman, Georgia Rowe, Janos Gereben, Jason Victor Serinus, Jeff Dunn, Lisa Hirsch, Michelle Dulak Thomson, Scott Cmiel - September 6, 2009

With autumn upon us, the Bay Area's classical music groups are tuning up for hundreds of intriguing events. San Francisco Classical Voice asked several of our critics and editors to comb through the performance announcements available to date and pick their favorite choices for September through December.

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Review

Seriously Mendelssohn

David Bratman - August 3, 2009
A cycle of the Mendelssohn string quartets: It sounds like a reasonable programming idea, yet it isn’t done very often. Felix Mendelssohn wrote seven full quartets, plus a small assortment of individual movements, just about the right amount of music for a set of three concerts.
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Review

Menlo Does a Must-Play Mendelssohn

David Bratman - July 27, 2009
In an ideal musical world, there would be a law: Whenever two string quartet ensembles collaborate on a concert, they must perform Felix Mendelssohn’s Octet for Strings in E-flat, Op. 20. It’s that good a work. The St.
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Review

Mass for a Troubled Time

David Bratman - June 8, 2009
Saturday night’s Symphony Silicon Valley concert at the California Theatre in San José was full of interesting resonances and connections. For one thing, it was the anniversary of D-Day. What better time, as the organization’s President Andrew Bales pointed out in his welcoming talk, to hear a Mass, a work ending with the words “Dona nobis pacem” (Grant us peace)?
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Preview

Lynn Harrell and Friends

David Bratman - May 18, 2009
Lynn Harrell

Lynn Harrell is a very fine, light-toned cellist who’s played concertos in the Bay Area and is capable of outshining his conductors.

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Review

Medium-Rare Roasted Swan

David Bratman - May 18, 2009
Everybody knows Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. Each century has its standard, default large-scale choral work (Messiah, Verdi’s Requiem), and, like it or not, Carmina Burana fills that role for the 20th.
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Review

Masters Without Apology

David Bratman - May 11, 2009
“Spring Symphonies” is the title that Symphony Silicon Valley gave to its May program, which I heard Saturday at the California Theatre in San José. Sure, it’s adequately descriptive for a concert performed in the spring. Yet neither of the symphonies on the program had Spring or Pastoral in their titles, or any other obvious programmatic connection with the season.
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Review

Byzantium in Rome

David Bratman - May 5, 2009
Stanford University’s Memorial Church turned into a Byzantine abbey for two hours on Sunday evening, with a concert of medieval Byzantine chant performed by the vocal group Cappella Romana, from Portland, Oregon.