Reviews

Jessica Balik - April 27, 2010

On Monday night, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players used French Composer Philippe Hurel’s words — "his own space of freedom" — for the theme of a program featuring four pieces that variously relate to the idea of finding free space.

Jason Victor Serinus - April 27, 2010

Baritone Matthias Goerne, one of the few truly great lieder singers of our age, has now released four volumes of Harmonia Mundi’s ongoing Matthias Goerne Schubert Edition.

Heuwell Tircuit - April 26, 2010

Conductor Christoph Eschenbach took over Davies Symphony Hall last Monday evening for a wildly successful concert of his Schleswig-Holstein Festival Orchestra, aided and abetted by pianist Lang Lang.

Jerry Kuderna - April 26, 2010

As every classical music lover knows by now, this is a big anniversary year for Chopin and Schumann. Still, somehow we are never quite prepared to fully comprehend their vast achievements as composers for the piano. Emanuel Ax’s recital at Davies Symphony Hall Sunday showed how difficult it is to reconcile these two giants of the Romantic period.

Anna Carol Dudley - April 26, 2010

Claudio Monteverdi, already famous as a composer of secular music in the late 16th century, published a Mass and a vesper service in 1610. On Sunday afternoon, in Grace Cathedral, Magnificat celebrated the 400th anniversary of that event.

Georgia Rowe - April 26, 2010

Are opera lovers reevaluating La Rondine? Puccini’s 1917 lyric comedy has always been dismissed as something of a trifle, a one-hit wonder with a single great soprano aria.

Steven Winn - April 26, 2010

Ranging from Bach to Copland to Webern, pianist Simone Dinnerstein’s April 24 recital at Herbst Theatre looked at first glance like a model of eclecticism. In fact, it was a tightly and cannily structured program, with variations as the organizing principle.

David Bratman - April 26, 2010

Eric Kujawsky, music director of the Redwood Symphony, likes sometimes to lead his volunteer musicians into the thorny thickets of Eastern European modernism. This time, on Saturday at the Cañada College Theatre in Redwood City, nobody got seriously lost.

Heuwell Tircuit - April 25, 2010

On paper, last week’s San Francisco Symphony programs looked like meat and potatoes repertory, but Friday evening’s performance in Davies Symphony Hall turned out to be more like servings of Salzburger Nockerl with a well-made Kir Royale to wash it down.

Benjamin Frandzel - April 20, 2010

Michael Morgan long ago mastered the art of making each of his Oakland East Bay Symphony performances feel like a real event, not just the latest subscription program.