Reviews

Tis the season for late Brahms, and the San Francisco Symphony under late replacement conductor Asher Fisch delivered a somber, powerful reading of the composer’s last symphony.

We were all grateful for Esa-Pekka Salonen’s tenure as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. But we’re even happier to see him creating works like this brilliant Violin Concerto.

From the U.K., the Carducci String Quartet play Haydn, Mendelssohn, and Debussy in a captivating, clean, clear style.

That sublime pianist András Schiff reveals rarely heard colors and complexity in his performance of Book II of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier.

First-rate playing marks a novel recital for violin, harpsichord, and the ungainly yet fascinating dulcian.

In a new production of Wagner's Lohengrin at the San Francisco Opera everyone is a star — great soloists, Ian Robertson's Opera Chorus, and Nicola Luisotti leading an orchestra on fire.

Alonzo King's new evening-length work Constellation takes his Lines Dance Company ballerinas off-pointe and away from the naturalistic environment of last year’s stunning Resin.

Conductors matter. This week, Vladimir Jurowski made his SFS debut, and under his baton the orchestra and Ragnar Bohlin's SFS Chorus were as powerful as Siberian tigers, as majestic as the Volga flooding at springtime.

Times Bones, termed a "preview" by its creator, is already luxuriously full of everything you might expect from the master choreographer Margaret Jenkins.

The Sacramento Philharmonic Orchestra features the prodigy-pianist/emerging-composer Conrad Tao in a memorable program.