Reviews

In Yuja Wang's first orchestral recording the pianist enthralls, ravishes, and demonstrates a kind of magic in what the pianist describes as “red-hot" reportoire.

A new CD release of Brahms' Ein deutsches Requiem of Nikolaus Harnoncourt, with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Arnold Schoenberg Choir, is an often lovely, often puzzling performance — sometimes innocently affectionate, sometimes seeming to be making historical points in a way that aren't necessarily beneficial.

In the Marin Symphony’s lively pops-cum-masterworks concert Sunday, Bay Area composer Nathaniel Stookey ran away with the show.

To pianists, Chopin’s formidable Études have always seemed akin to waterboarding. Canadian pianist Louis Lortie certainly earned his place among those who attempt them by recording the entire set in 1986, and since then has made the program an important component of his career.

A recent BluePrint concert offered a disconcerting, echoing trope in a major new work offered at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, just one piece in a series of experimental works that impressed.

I’m a curious cat, intrigued by unusual things, so I went to a double-bass recital as part of the Music at the Mission chamber music series. The lesson of the evening’s repertoire was that composers who write solo pieces for the double bass are apt to be slightly eccentric.

The Berkeley Symphony Orchestra closed its 2010-2011 season with a concert at Zellerbach Hall that both segregated and showcased the ensemble’s considerable musical assets.

Something special is happening at the Livermore Valley Opera, which has taken the care to stage Puccini’s Madama Butterfly with a cast that does the opera and the company proud.

To prolonged high-pitched cheers and applause, Munich-born tenor Jonas Kaufmann, 41, strode onto the stage of Zellerbach Hall for his Bay Area debut, offering a unique instrument and experience; one of the most versatile, compelling, and vexing recitals in memory.

The latest release from the Bay Brass, an ensemble made up of some of the best musicians in the S.F. Symphony, Ballet, and Opera orchestras offers attractive compositions and more than belies prejudices often conjured up by brass ensembles, with excellent playing and first rate sonics.