Jonathan Rhodes Lee studied harpsichord in New York, San Francisco, and the Netherlands. He is currently enrolled in the graduate program in historical musicology at UC Berkeley.
Guest conductor Richard Egarr introduced Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra’s first concerts of the new year by inviting the audience to join him at an “English Feast.” Epicureans in the audience may have shuddered at the idea, but Baroque music fans surely knew exactly what he meant. Some standard fare — roast beef and potatoes, really — was balanced with spicier (and rarely sampled) side dishes.
Felix Mendelssohn was once praised, by no less eminent a critic than Robert Schumann, for his ability to “reconcile the contradictions” of his age. It isn’t difficult to interpret Schumann’s remark when considering Mendelssohn’s music, especially his concertos. Mozartean clarity stands comfortably alongside Beethovenian grandeur, the formal creativity of C.P.E.
“On a warm summer day in July, 1518, in the ancient city of Strasbourg, an elderly woman named Frau Troffea stepped out of her front door and began to dance in
the street. ... Thus began an episode of choreomania, the ‘dancing plague.’”
George Harrison: The quiet Beatle. The spiritual traveler. The celebrity who, despite generous communication of his innermost private thoughts, remained something of an enigmatic figure until his very end.
The Mill Valley Film Festival returns this week for its 34th season. It runs from Oct. 6 to 16, with screenings in Mill Valley, Corte Madera, and San Rafael. Bay Area music fans will find a handful of interesting offerings among the festival’s impressive roster of over 100 films, including three documentaries that focus on Californian contributions to the world of music.
Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra inaugurated its 31st season with works of the Classical period. I heard them on Saturday night in Berkeley’s First Congregational Church. Throughout the performance, I was struck by the group’s successful injection of unfamiliar elements into music so omnipresent that it sometimes seems inescapably familiar.
To chat with John Phillips about harpsichords is to tap into two histories at the same time — one local, recent, and personal; the other a rich, old, international tradition. This duality is inherent in the place where Phillips spends most of his days: a state-of-the art harpsichord workshop on Grayson Street in Berkeley.
The Boston Early Music Festival’s Vocal and Chamber Ensembles were formed in 2008 to present operas for small forces. Jointly directed by lutenists Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs, this group has enjoyed great success with their efforts thus far. Their 2009 production of Handel’s Acis and Galatea recently hit the road for a North American tour, making it as far as Seattle.
On Sunday afternoon, the American Bach Soloists capped the first weekend of its new Summer Bach Festival, a weeklong menagerie of concerts, public lectures, and master classes, all taking place at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. The educational setting is reflective of a major facet of the Festival: the ABS Academy, a summer workshop for preprofessional musicians from around the world.
The Schola Cantorum San Francisco will offer a wide-ranging program of Lenten music on April 19 at Noontime Concerts at St. Mary's Cathedral in San Francisco. The program highlights the grace and beauty of the Italian Baroque in all its sensual glory.
Gabriele Cassone came to all his instruments — the modern trumpet, the natural trumpet, and the keyed trumpet — almost by accident. But what a series of happy accidents they proved to be, uniting an enthusiastic and talented performer with gems from the 18th- and early-19th-century repertoire that are rarely heard on the instruments for which they were written.
Illiterate teenage girl, transvestite mystic, military hero, condemned heretic, canonized saint — Joan of Arc was all of these. Her tale of triumphant conquest and pitiful suffering has fascinated historians and artists for centuries, and motivated Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer's movie La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (The Passion of Joan of Arc), which has been hailed as one of the greatest cinematic masterpieces of the silent era.
Concerto grosso ... Vivaldi’s Four Seasons ... “Pre-classic” music — these terms are probably enough to send a seasoned classical music fan running for the hills. They tend to conjure up advertising soundtracks, bargain basement recordings, and, above all, generic interpretations.
Harpsichordist Lars Ulrik Mortensen, heard Sunday with the Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra in Berkeley, is an interpretive genius. That “G-word” always comes with a qualifier. “He’s an interpretive genius, but ...”
The city of Utrecht, Netherlands, is gearing up for a huge celebration in 2013 to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht. This momentous occasion signaled the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, and reaffirmed the European Balance of Power that was so trumpeted by political philosophers of the period. The influence of the Dutch on these proceedings was actually minimal, and their gains from the truce were modest.
Have you heard this complaint? Audience members at early-music concerts, like those at most classical music events, tend to have hair color that lies somewhere between blue and gray. This fact worries many fans, who gripe about cutbacks to school music programs and about a generation more comfortable with instruments with buttons and touch screens than those with five strings or 88 keys. And if this is the state of classical music education in general, then early music’s outlook must be even more bleak. Right?
If ever there were a composer whose music justified the use of old instruments, it is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Modern pianists and orchestras frequently approach Wolfie’s music as if they’ve got kid gloves on. The extremes of dynamics rarely reach above a mezzoforte, since they say that modern instruments are so much louder than period instruments.
To say that Nicholas McGegan has earned an international reputation for his George Frideric Handel interpretations is a bit of an understatement. Indeed, the world actually seems to follow him wherever he goes, so long as he is traipsing hand-in-hand with Handel.
Guest conductor Richard Egarr introduced Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra’s first concerts of the new year by inviting the audience to join him at an “English Feast.” Epicureans in the audience may have shuddered at the idea, but Baroque music fans surely knew exactly what he meant. Some standard fare — roast beef and potatoes, really — was balanced with spicier (and rarely sampled) side dishes.
Felix Mendelssohn was once praised, by no less eminent a critic than Robert Schumann, for his ability to “reconcile the contradictions” of his age. It isn’t difficult to interpret Schumann’s remark when considering Mendelssohn’s music, especially his concertos. Mozartean clarity stands comfortably alongside Beethovenian grandeur, the formal creativity of C.P.E.
Corelli. Vivaldi. Geminiani.
“On a warm summer day in July, 1518, in the ancient city of Strasbourg, an elderly woman named Frau Troffea stepped out of her front door and began to dance in
the street. ... Thus began an episode of choreomania, the ‘dancing plague.’”
George Harrison: The quiet Beatle. The spiritual traveler. The celebrity who, despite generous communication of his innermost private thoughts, remained something of an enigmatic figure until his very end.
Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra inaugurated its 31st season with works of the Classical period. I heard them on Saturday night in Berkeley’s First Congregational Church. Throughout the performance, I was struck by the group’s successful injection of unfamiliar elements into music so omnipresent that it sometimes seems inescapably familiar.
To chat with John Phillips about harpsichords is to tap into two histories at the same time — one local, recent, and personal; the other a rich, old, international tradition. This duality is inherent in the place where Phillips spends most of his days: a state-of-the art harpsichord workshop on Grayson Street in Berkeley.
The Boston Early Music Festival’s Vocal and Chamber Ensembles were formed in 2008 to present operas for small forces. Jointly directed by lutenists Paul O’Dette and Stephen Stubbs, this group has enjoyed great success with their efforts thus far. Their 2009 production of Handel’s Acis and Galatea recently hit the road for a North American tour, making it as far as Seattle.
On Sunday afternoon, the American Bach Soloists capped the first weekend of its new Summer Bach Festival, a weeklong menagerie of concerts, public lectures, and master classes, all taking place at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. The educational setting is reflective of a major facet of the Festival: the ABS Academy, a summer workshop for preprofessional musicians from around the world.
Gabriele Cassone came to all his instruments — the modern trumpet, the natural trumpet, and the keyed trumpet — almost by accident. But what a series of happy accidents they proved to be, uniting an enthusiastic and talented performer with gems from the 18th- and early-19th-century repertoire that are rarely heard on the instruments for which they were written.
Illiterate teenage girl, transvestite mystic, military hero, condemned heretic, canonized saint — Joan of Arc was all of these. Her tale of triumphant conquest and pitiful suffering has fascinated historians and artists for centuries, and motivated Danish filmmaker Carl Theodor Dreyer's movie La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (The Passion of Joan of Arc), which has been hailed as one of the greatest cinematic masterpieces of the silent era.
Concerto grosso ... Vivaldi’s Four Seasons ... “Pre-classic” music — these terms are probably enough to send a seasoned classical music fan running for the hills. They tend to conjure up advertising soundtracks, bargain basement recordings, and, above all, generic interpretations.
The city of Utrecht, Netherlands, is gearing up for a huge celebration in 2013 to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht. This momentous occasion signaled the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, and reaffirmed the European Balance of Power that was so trumpeted by political philosophers of the period. The influence of the Dutch on these proceedings was actually minimal, and their gains from the truce were modest.
If ever there were a composer whose music justified the use of old instruments, it is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Modern pianists and orchestras frequently approach Wolfie’s music as if they’ve got kid gloves on. The extremes of dynamics rarely reach above a mezzoforte, since they say that modern instruments are so much louder than period instruments.
