Jeff Dunn

I’ve covered so many scrape-a-thon concerts of new music featuring the cello that I’ve almost forgotten what a gorgeous, melodious instrument it is. With cellist David Finckel and pianist Wu Han’s release (on the ArtistLed label) of four duos they commissioned, the lyrical cello returns with welcome suffusion.

If search-engine hits are the Web election determining America’s most popular poet, then Emily Dickinson is currently in second or third place (along with Henry Longfellow), behind Walt Whitman. But unlike Whitman, her intensely personal poetry seeks a sympathetic reader, not a vast public sphere. And perhaps that is what drew the composer Gordon Getty to her. His song cycle on Dickinson's poetry, The White Election, will be performed, appropriately, on a Tuesday, Feb. 23.

The Armenian proverb “We learn more from a clever rival than a stupid ally” was much in evidence in the second half of Friday’s Oakland East Bay Symphony concert. During that segment, the music of three little-known Armenian composers proved that derivative music can nevertheless be persuasive.

Talk about shocking revelations — British composer/conductor George Benjamin, toast of the San Francisco Symphony in its Jan. 7-17 programs, gets bolts of inspiration literally, from lightning. As he related to me last month, "I’ve always been fascinated by thunderstorms; they’ve influenced many of my works. ... I remember lightning flashes I’ve seen."

Sometimes, I feel like I’ve heard the four Brahms symphonies more times than the Bay Area weather people notify me the next day will be sunny. But Simon Rattle is no ordinary weatherman in his new release of these concert-hall stalwarts. With Rattle, there's no boringly familiar, stupid smiling sun slapped up on the map, and calling it a day.