Reviews

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Review

Heaven Only for Engineers

Jeff Dunn - June 28, 2009
Channel has released another in its series of Mahler symphonies under Iván Fischer and the Budapest Festival Orchestra, the Symphony No. 4 in G Major. The engineering is by far the most impressive thing about it: This SACD sounded terrific, even on my non-SACD player, displaying impressive depth and clarity of tone.
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Review

Soprano Kate Royal's Sweet Midsummer Night

Jason Victor Serinus - June 22, 2009

For her much-anticipated second EMI recital disc, the elegant British
soprano Kate Royal (b. 1979) graces us with a collection of gorgeously
sung arias from the last century. Inspired by the role of the Governess
in Benjamin Britten’s gothic psychodrama The Turn of the Screw, which
she sang with Glyndebourne on Tour in 2006, Royal hones in on
20th-century operatic females who, in her own words, share the
Governess’ combination of “intensity and abandon.”

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Review

Venturing Onto Kronos' Floodplain

Jeff Kaliss - June 22, 2009

There’s so much music, and more, in Kronos’ latest CD that I felt compelled to question the quartet’s founder and violinist David Harrington at his Sunset District base of operations, seeking details and explanations beyond the liner notes. Much of that conversation will be the source of a future artist profile.

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Review

Esterházy Plays Haydn's Big Hits

Michelle Dulak Thomson - June 16, 2009
The principal delight of the New Esterházy Quartet’s two-year trek through the complete Haydn string quartets has been hearing the works that never get played. The NEQ’s first CD of recordings from the series stuck to the earliest clutch of quartets, the ones eventually called Opp. 1 and 2.
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Review

Embracing Abandon at the S.F. Opera

Olivia Stapp - June 15, 2009

The San Francisco Opera’s new Traviata is a dazzling affair.

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Review

Astonishing S.F. Symphony Premiere

Michelle Dulak Thomson - June 15, 2009
The San Francisco Symphony’s “Dawn to Twilight” festival ended last week with a devastating double bill. Pairing Schubert and Berg might look like the sort of juxtaposition apt to work better on paper than in the event.
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Review

Hearing Haydn

Lisa Hirsch - June 15, 2009
Over the last couple of decades, René Jacobs has assembled a catalog of recordings as a conductor, a major change from his earlier career as a famed countertenor. The bicentennial of Franz Josef Haydn’s death brings a happy pairing of composer and conductor, on a Harmonia Mundi disc featuring the symphonies No. 91 in E-flat Major and No.
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Review

On the Way to Heaven

Janos Gereben - June 10, 2009

It's a long way from Catfish Row to Walhalla, but my money is on Eric Owens traversing the distance.

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Review

Renaissance Pleas for Mercy

Kaneez Munjee - June 9, 2009

To close a season embracing music mostly of the modern era, Chanticleer returned to its founding ideals on Sunday night at San Francisco’s Mission Dolores, with an entirely Renaissance program, sung a cappella.

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Review

Concerto Buon Viaggio

Anna Carol Dudley - June 8, 2009
The Grace Cathedral Choir is going to Italy, where the singers will experience performing Italian Renaissance and early Baroque music in its original physical and cultural context. On Sunday, the choir — 18 boys on the treble parts and a dozen men singing tenor and bass — offered a dress rehearsal for a large, enthusiastic audience, gathered to wish them a buon viaggio.