Reviews

Despite its rare appearance in concerts today, it takes little effort to grasp why William Boyce's Solomon enjoyed such extraordinary popularity during the second half of the 18th century.

The San Francisco Symphony, flush with the success of its European tour, played the opening subscription concert Wednesday to a fair number of empty seats. I was surprised to see this, given the orchestra's praiseworthy recent Mahler interpretations.

Mozart Dances, which finally arrived here via Cal Performances last Thursday, achieved the impossible by exceeding its rapturous reviews. Jane Glover, conducting the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra and joined by Garrick Ohlsson and Yoko Nazaki on piano, gave a performance of warm dynamics and perfect unity.

Sometimes a creative artist produces a work that releases more energy and inspiration than it costs, and suggests paths to the future, as well. Mozart's Il rè pastore (The shepherd king) is a case in point. The 1775 serenata, or modestly sized serious opera, is filled with glorious music from beginning to end, particularly in the second act.

For those who can't (or won't) see the forest of an opera for the trees of performance minutiae, here's the word about the San Francisco Opera's new production of Wagner's Tannhäuser that opened on Tuesday night: Donald Runnicles' Opera Orchestra and Ian Robertson's Opera Chorus give a magnificent account of the music, which is among Wagner's most sweeping and bewitching. Runnicles and Ge

The death of Jacques Offenbach before the 1881 premiere of Tales of Hoffmann left opera companies with a confusing mass of performance choices. In the end though, the textual decisions matter far less than whether a company succeeds musically with the piece.

"It is only the modern that ever becomes old-fashioned." — Oscar Wilde

In a radio interview almost 30 years ago, the Bay Area composer Wayne Peterson spoke about a new piece of his for violin and piano, remarking that "problems of line, of melody, and the relationship of the piano counterpoint and so forth are concepts that are rather old-fashioned, I'm afraid." How thing

Judging by the small audience in attendance, you probably weren't in Old First Church on Friday evening as mezzo-soprano Miriam Abramowitsch and pianist George Barth presented a program of early 20th-century art songs. If you were, you witnessed one of the major intellectual events of the season.

Every so often, a Russian performing group rides through town and brings out what seems to be the entire Russian émigré community, filling one of the largest halls to capacity. Its program typically offers a serious or traditional first half followed by arrangements of favorite tunes from the war years or Soviet cinema.