Christmas time is here, by golly. Time to mix a punch of Baroque orchestral music, sacred vocal music of various periods, and a medley of Christmas carols and Hanukkah songs. That's what the New Century Chamber Orchestra served up for its December concerts last weekend. I heard Friday's performance at First United Methodist Church, the "concrete tent," in downtown Palo Alto.
Masterworks Chorale, of San Mateo, stuffed Mozart's great big Mass in C Minor, K. 427, into the small confines of Trinity Presbyterian Church in San Carlos on Sunday afternoon. A lively and exciting time was had by all.
It's easy to make a secularly appreciative remark like that about this Mass, which Mozart wrote in a burst of enthusiasm over his wedding to Constanze Weber.
Economic crisis. Unedifying political campaigns. Fires, droughts, and earthquakes. What better to do with your anxieties on the night of the third presidential debate than spend the evening with Dmitri Shostakovich, whose problems were greater than yours? Wednesday's encounter with Shostakovich at Dinkelspiel Auditorium, under the auspices of Stanford Lively Arts, was hosted by the talented musicians of the Emerson String Quartet.
I confess that I had not heard of the Santa Cruz Chamber Orchestra until I learned of the concert with which it opened its third season on Saturday. But it was a honey of a program that I wouldn't have missed for anything.
The Rose of Persia, currently being performed by Lyric Theatre at the Montgomery Theater in San Jose, was originally produced in 1899. It was probably the most successful operetta penned by Sir Arthur Sullivan after his collaboration with W.S. Gilbert.
In its three years of existence, the Escher String Quartet has built a reputation as a highly intellectual ensemble of mechanical perfection but one that, at its worst, plays aridly without genuine emotion.
Last week was “The Romantic Generation” week at Music@Menlo, and by the Romantic generation they mean Middle European Romantics. The music on the main concert program, which I heard on Monday at St.
Whatever work that Music Director Marin Alsop decides to program at the Cabrillo Festival of Contemporary Music, you know it will at least be interesting and intellectually provocative. Whether it's beautiful or ultimately satisfying is more subjective, but I found Saturday's "Triple Play" concert fairly successful on those counts, as well.
The best thing about the Carmel Bach Festival, besides that it's in Carmel, is that, as Calvin used to say to Hobbes, "The days are just packed." Except that, unlike Calvin's day, one at the festival really is packed.
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