Conductor Michael Tilson Thomas opened two weeks of his minifestival of Stravinsky-Plus-One last week in Davies Symphony Hall. The San Francisco Symphony programs of both last week and this week are essentially a survey of Stravinsky's wide interests, but with each program offering an important piece by one other composer.
Measha Brueggergosman is a trip. A statuesque soprano with a larger than life personality, her eye-catching hair, nose ring, huge smile, and propensity to perform barefoot toy with us as if to say, "Here I am, boys and girls.
An ad hoc chamber group can sometimes be more interesting to listen to than a full-time professional quartet. With the latter, you get glossy perfection, with every detail planned in the course of endless hours of rehearsal.
Pocket Opera's concert-version of Handel's Flavio, presented on Saturday at the Florence Gould Theater in the Legion of Honor, combined humor, drama, and musicianship, all signatures of Donald Pippin's company.
In the 40 or so years that I've been attending Richard Goode's concerts, none has failed to challenge me to hear music with fresh ears. His solo recital Monday night at Davies Symphony Hall, presented by San Francisco Performances, was no exception.
The historic love-hate relationship between England and France found a musical solution Friday in Old First Church, when artists affiliated with the San Francisco Opera presented a mixed program of almost entirely 20th-century vocal works as their "Basically British X" program.
Trio Mediæval returned in triumph to San Francisco on Sunday night. The Trio continues to produce hit recordings, and we are lucky that San Francisco Performances has had the wisdom to present them two years ago and again this year. In Herbst Theatre its program of religious music, grounded in 12th- and 13th-century Roman Catholic music, was expanded to include early nonliturgical music and new settings of ancient texts, as well as traditional Norwegian hymns.
Ah, a Takács Quartet recital. Another few months gone (the violist-groupie in me thinks), another rare chance to hear Geraldine Walther play. Only I find that I'm not really thinking about the Takács' visits like that anymore. Walther is a great violist, but the Takács with her in it is something more interesting — a great quartet, and one that seems to become greater by the minute.
![pippin.d[cmyk]_wide.jpg](/sites/default/files/styles/teaser_image_400x275/public/images/archive/pippin.d%5Bcmyk%5D_wide.jpg?h=8cc1eaa6&itok=KfTY3ItD)
