Reviews

Lou Harrison's seductive setting offers cross-cultural history and eroticism in a Javanese structure that begs for more pianos to be retuned for concertos featured on this disc.

A last-minute substitution at Menlo and a change of programming fares for the better with late works by Brahms and Chopin played by pianist (and replacement) Jeffrey Kahane and the members of the Emerson Quartet.

Claudio Abbado delivers a radiant, believable version of Beethoven’s sole opera, aided by a sterling cast, including Jonas Kaufmann and Nina Stemme.

An atmospheric symphonic poem, a tribute to tango master Astor Piazzolla, and a movie-music-style piano concerto mark a Cabrillo mixed bill.

Over 20 years of making new music, Marin Alsop has taken the Cabrillo Music Festival to illustrious heights.

In the latest production of Rossini's Barber of Seville the young Merolini strut their stuff with a mix of ambition, stress, anxiety, and giddy abandonment.

A new disc of John Blow’s Venus and Adonis stands as a worthy addition to the library of Baroque opera aficionados.

Despite several performer mishaps, four singers and their accompanists valiantly presented intimate songs of love by Brahms and cohorts.

On the musical/dramatic edge, a new opera drawn from The Tempest is both vastly entertaining and a chance to hear a marvelous tenor and promising newcomer soprano.

A passionate, Romantic Brahms sextet headlines a Music@Menlo program that also features Vivaldi, Bach, and a rarely heard Clara Schumann work.