Reviews

To some, John Cage is a joy guide, a trickster, a brilliant confounder of established expectations. To others he is a constantly vexing presence: an incontrovertibly original iconoclast who changed the course of modern composition by giving artists permission to do any one of a number of things at any given time.

A substantial crowd filled St. Mark's Episcopal Church in Berkeley on Friday for the opening of Volti's 29th season. The concert, titled "Adventures in Life, Love, and Longing," presented recent works (the oldest of which was written in 1987) by six living composers, many of whom were in attendance at the performance. Four works were premieres.

At one time, Italian music meant throbbing voices soaring unashamedly through ornate melodies, propelled by the pulsating oom-pah-pah of an orchestra masquerading as a massive guitar. In its latest concert, last Monday at the Green Room of San Francisco’s Veterans War Memorial, the Left Coast Ensemble took stock of recent Italian music.

It makes a neat, string-quartet Rorschach test. You've just played all three Brahms quartets at a single sitting. Quick: What do you do for an encore? A conventionally minded, reasonably sane quartet would pick something light and attractive from around the same time — the finale of Dvořák’s "American" Quartet, say, or a transcription of one of the Brahms Hungarian Dances.

Edward Villella was new to the New York City Ballet when Igor Stravinsky and George Balanchine were in the studio with the dancers, making Agon. It was 1957. "Neither of them talked much to us — it wasn't what they did,” Villella said Sunday, after Miami City Ballet, where he's artistic director, ended its visit to Cal Performances at Zellerbach Hall.

Mark-André Hamelin’s appearances have become a regular feature in San Francisco’s concert life. Moreover, it seems that the Canadian-born, Philadelphia-based pianist is building some continuity into his San Francisco concert series.

Gluck's masterpiece, Iphigénie en Tauride, is getting the production it deserves. Seen at the Seattle Opera on Friday, in the next to last performance of its run before going to the Metropolitan Opera next month (with Susan Graham, Placido Domingo, and Paul Groves), this was an exemplar of how to revive a masterwork with integrity.

When Philippe Jordan conducted the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra at the Proms in London last year, a critic wrote that Jordan and his ensemble could "whip up musical Viagra." With all that testosterone, the Swiss conductor seemed certainly capable of striding effortlessly to the summits of Richard Strauss' gargantuan Eine Alpensinfonie at Davies Symphony Hall Friday, and he did so admirab

Everyone knows organists play their instrument with their feet as well as their hands. Pedals have long been a hallmark of the organ's sound and of the organist's skill — so much so that on most organs nowadays, a recital of music with little or no pedal could sound at best unimpressive, at worst a poor reflection on the performer.

Musicality, discipline, and good programming were much in evidence Friday evening as the San Francisco Girls Chorus presented "Music Fit for a Queen," consisting entirely of music from the British Isles, all sung from memory. The first half was devoted to rarely heard music, the second half to more familiar works.