Reviews

A Master of Intimate Works

Jerry Kuderna - April 3, 2007
In the 40 or so years that I've been attending Richard Goode's concerts, none has failed to challenge me to hear music with fresh ears. His solo recital Monday night at Davies Symphony Hall, presented by San Francisco Performances, was no exception.

Welcome Guests

Michael McDonagh - April 3, 2007
Having people over for the first time can be a trial. You don't know whether to say a convivial "pleased to meet you," or sit on your hands.

Singing Across the Channel

Heuwell Tircuit - April 3, 2007
The historic love-hate relationship between England and France found a musical solution Friday in Old First Church, when artists affiliated with the San Francisco Opera presented a mixed program of almost entirely 20th-century vocal works as their "Basically British X" program.
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Review

Marian Devotion From Scandinavia

Anna Carol Dudley - March 27, 2007

Trio Mediæval returned in triumph to San Francisco on Sunday night. The Trio continues to produce hit recordings, and we are lucky that San Francisco Performances has had the wisdom to present them two years ago and again this year. In Herbst Theatre its program of religious music, grounded in 12th- and 13th-century Roman Catholic music, was expanded to include early nonliturgical music and new settings of ancient texts, as well as traditional Norwegian hymns.

Review

Setting the Bar in Beethoven

Michelle Dulak Thomson - March 27, 2007
Ah, a Takács Quartet recital. Another few months gone (the violist-groupie in me thinks), another rare chance to hear Geraldine Walther play. Only I find that I'm not really thinking about the Takács' visits like that anymore. Walther is a great violist, but the Takács with her in it is something more interesting — a great quartet, and one that seems to become greater by the minute.
Review

Setting the Bar in Beethoven

Michelle Dulak Thomson - March 27, 2007
Ah, a Takács Quartet recital. Another few months gone (the violist-groupie in me thinks), another rare chance to hear Geraldine Walther play. Only I find that I'm not really thinking about the Takács' visits like that anymore. Walther is a great violist, but the Takács with her in it is something more interesting — a great quartet, and one that seems to become greater by the minute.

Shining Early Cantatas

Kathryn Miller - March 27, 2007
When you think of imagery and text painting in Baroque music, you are likely to think first of the era’s early Italian composers and the madrigal tradition. The American Bach Soloists, however, remind us that despite his reputation as a composer of highly technical and complex music, J.S.

Neoclassical Temperaments

Jules Langert - March 27, 2007
Everything came together beautifully in the finale of Thursday’s concert by the New Century Chamber Orchestra at St. John’s Presbyterian Church in Berkeley, and it was Paul Hindemith’s strikingly original concerto for piano and strings, The Four Temperaments, that was the catalyst.

A Mendelssohn Masterpiece Receives Its Due

Heuwell Tircuit - March 27, 2007
Rarely do audiences anywhere get the chance to hear any full-scale choral-orchestral works other than the Messiah, which tyrannically monopolizes the Christmas season. So last Thursday’s performance of Mendelssohn’s masterful oratorio Elijah, with the inestimable strengths of conductor Herbert Blomstedt, formed the high point of at least my season.

Beautifully Unsatisfying

Be'eri Moalem - March 27, 2007
The casinolike Paramount Theatre in downtown Oakland is an architectural marvel. Its Art Deco interior, if not beautiful or elegant, is bold and stunning. The opposite was true of the music at the Oakland East Bay Symphony’s concert on Friday night — it was mostly beautiful and elegant, but not bold and stunning.