Reviews

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Review

Everything Is Illuminated

Jason Victor Serinus - March 22, 2009
Is it a sign of things to come? After announcing his hopes to eventually expand the San Francisco Opera Orchestra’s scope to include orchestral performances, SFO Music Director Designate Nicola Luisotti stepped before the San Francisco Symphony for the first time in an all-orchestral program at Davies Symphony Hall.
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Review

Unforgettable Artistry

Jason Victor Serinus - March 21, 2009

Why did we have to wait until after Lorraine Hunt Lieberson's passing to receive so many live, undoctored documents of her greatness?

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Review

Glories of the Baroque

Rebekah Ahrendt - March 17, 2009

The members of the California Bach Society deserved all the applause they received on Sunday afternoon, plus more. Until then, I had not had the opportunity to hear the group since Paul Flight became artistic director.

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Review

Stretching Summer Festival Season

Robert P. Commanday - March 17, 2009
A summer-style music festival in the middle of March? There it was, full-blown in Boca Raton, Florida, the resort community's third annual Festival of the Arts Boca, March 5-15. Of course mid-March is summer there, both weather-wise and in the lifestyle of the seasonal residents who swell the local population this time of year, the snowbirds from New York and the Northeast.
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Review

Soul-Touching Profundity

Jason Victor Serinus - March 17, 2009
Estonian-born Arvo Pärt is especially prized for the universal resonance of his haunting blend of Russian Orthodox Christian mysticism and modern harmonies. Even those with strong aversions to the Church’s long history of reactionary and punitive intervention in social and political affairs are often transported by the transcendental nature of the 74-year-old composer’s music.
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Review

Twin Spirits

Scott Cmiel - March 16, 2009
The twins Peter and Zoltán Katona have created a guitar duo noted for spirited interpretations, amazing virtuosity, and an uncanny ensemble that many attribute to their shared genetic heritage. The brothers from Budapest move and breathe together, and they mark changes of mood with an exchange of glances that highlights their musical decisions.
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Review

Truths Out of Time

Jerry Kuderna - March 16, 2009

The pianist Rudolf Serkin took a year off from concertizing to study the Bach Cantatas because, as he said, “They are such beautiful music.” On hearing the American Bach Soloists perform four of them Saturday at the First Congregational Church in Berkeley, and after witnessing the vitality, spirit, and timeless human truths that they contain, I realized it would take a lifetime to fully get to know the wonders of this music.

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Review

The Best and the Beast

Jeff Dunn - March 16, 2009

It has been said that passion arouses the best and the beast in man. On Saturday, visiting conductor James Conlon’s passion for the music to Dmitri Shostakovich’s opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District unchained the beast in the music, and let it terrorize listeners in Davies Symphony Hall.

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Review

Pellucid Perfection

Anatole Leikin - March 16, 2009
The program that Evgeny Kissin played at Davies Symphony Hall on Thursday brought together Sergei Prokofiev, a flamboyant 20th-century extrovert — the “Russian Liszt” (as Francis Poulenc called him) — and Frederic Chopin, a reticent bard of the 19th-century piano.
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Review

Major Schubert

Lisa Hirsch - March 10, 2009
On Sunday, at Hertz Hall, the Takács Quartet played the second of their two Berkeley concerts this season. As with the first concert, an eminent guest joined the quartet. This time, we were lucky enough to hear Peter Wyrick, associate principal cellist of the San Francisco Symphony.