Daniel Barenboim and Charles Dutoit share their insights, plus we look at John Adams, Alma Mahler, Rostropovich and more. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
To celebrate John Adams' 70th birthday, Andrew Mogrelia will conduct scenes from Nixon in China for Opera Australia.
Steve Davislim's Tito will also be among the highlights to catch the ears of Aussie audiences.
Opera Australia performs at Vivid Live for the first time with a concert featuring music by Adams, Dessner and Greenwood.
The Finnish musician may not intend to commit murder but he certainly hopes for redemption. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
John Adams frequently references tradition in his music, using contemporary sonorities and forms to comment on the past. His most recent major orchestral work, Scheherazade.2, is only on the surface a nod to Rimsky-Korsakov’s symphonic poem, taking a more contemporary approach in telling the famous story. Remarking on the disturbing violence committed against women in stories from The Arabian Nights, Adams was inspired to reinvent the principal tale, imagining a strong and empowered ‘modern’ Scheherazade. The composer gives voice to this powerful retelling in a massive four-movement work that’s part symphony, part concerto, with a dramatic solo violin part embodying the Scheherazade character (another cursory nod to Rimsky-Korsakov’s original). The work receives here its premiere recording with the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and David Robertson (also Chief Conductor of the SSO) with the soloist for whom it was written, Leila Josefowicz. Josefowicz’s performance is outstanding, negotiating the virtuosic solo part with passion, assurance and an ironclad tone. She slides, ducks and weaves around an often-aggressive orchestra that’s given an exotic flavour thanks to the addition of a Cimbalom – a Hungarian dulcimer. The St. Louis orchestra’s sound is simply magical and perfectly balanced in this recording under… Continue reading Get…
The American composer talks about new works, the loneliness of composing and the future of music. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
★★★★½ Robertson delivers a tale well told, whichever way you look at it. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
★★★★☆ Eclectic musical mix bodes well for ASQ’s latest iteration. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
Limelight’s Recording of the Year heads a bumper edition to take you into 2016. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
Messiaen’s masterwork goes for the lot: rocks, birds and throws in the song of the star Aldebaran for good measure. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
San Francisco’s latest Post-Minimalist outing raises two musical smiles for the price of one. Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
This new recording on the San Francisco Symphony’s own label presents two works written three decades apart by American composer John Adams. Although Adams is most commonly associated with Minimalist compositional techniques, these are only very obliquely in evidence in this world premiere recording of Absolute Jest (2013 Most unusually, the work is scored for string quartet with symphony orchestra – “pretty much a repertory black hole,” as Adams notes dryly. This piece takes as its starting points phrases from late Beethoven string quartets, predominantly Op. 131, 135, and the Große Fuge (Op. 133), weaving them into “a colossal 25-minute scherzo” with orchestral elaborations, digressions and counterpoints, and nods to other Beethoven works. “Absolute Jest is playful, in the literal sense of scherzo as joke, but it is by no means lightweight” It’s hugely playful, in the literal sense of scherzo as joke/jest, but it is by no means lightweight, flippant or ironic. Rather, it’s a vivacious, lively homage, a recent example in a long line of composers (including Brahms and Stravinsky, to name but two) looking back and ‘sampling’ the work of their… Continue reading Get unlimited digital access from $4 per month Subscribe Already a subscriber? Log in
