Reviews

Strangely enough, listening to achingly poignant music can be pleasantly addictive at times. Rather than making you disheartened, sometimes such music seems to uplift. Pieces with wide emotional contrasts can heighten the boost, as moments of blitheness offer easy respite from the solemnity.

What if you programmed an orchestral concert and then proceeded to ignore the orchestra? Hearing Philharmonia Baroque's concert set "The Majesty of Christmas" Saturday at Berkeley's First Congregational Church, I got the sense that conductor Konrad Junghänel had somehow managed this dubious achievement.

Every so often there's an ideal confluence of conductor, orchestra, and city that produces historic results. San Francisco is currently enjoying such a boon, as was evident at Thursday's all-Berlioz program in Davies Symphony Hall.

When, in the winter of our discontent, carols are pressed into the service of commerce in stores and TV commercials, it is refreshing to hear a concert focused on peace, the core of the original Christmas story. Such a concert was provided Saturday by Voci Women's Vocal Ensemble, at St. Mary Magdalen Parish in Berkeley.

A music teacher returned to his old school on Saturday night, three decades after writing his breakout piece there, and the brilliant concert that took place exceeded all expectations of such an occasion.

Continuing a long-standing tradition, the San Francisco Bach Choir presented a joyful holiday program on Saturday night. The large sanctuary of Calvary Presbyterian Church in San Francisco resounded with Renaissance and early Baroque works, as well as traditional music of the season. SFBC's program, titled "Psallite!

Programming contemporary works with standard repertoire seems tricky: The danger is that the new, unfamiliar piece might easily sound like commentary on the towering masterwork.

The Takács Quartet favored the Bay Area with fairly regular visits even before our own Geraldine Walther became a member in 2005, but in these last two years we have, gratifyingly, heard a lot of them.

The current San Francisco Opera production of Madama Butterfly is pure Puccini perfection. Casting, conducting, and stage design are so ideally aligned that this is one of the most satisfying productions that I have ever experienced. Foremost is the superior interpretation of Patricia Racette.

One thing’s for certain: Alarm Will Sound wants its audience to have a good time. Committed to what the group describes as "innovative performances of today’s music,” the former artists-in-residence at Dickinson College (Carlisle, Penn.) often indulge in a host of choreographed visual effects more associated with rock and pop ensembles than with classical music.