David Bratman

If there’s a Great American Symphony, it’s Roy Harris’ rugged Third from 1938, a fitting companion for “Decoration Day” from Charles Ives’ Holiday's Symphony also on the program from an intrepid amateur community ensemble, the Palo Alto Philharmonic.

Heavy holiday fare takes some time to digest, as served up by Symphony Silicon Valley, with soloist Peter Serkin.

This combination ought to make people sit up and take notice: conductor George Cleve and pianist Peter Serkin performing Brahms’ First Piano Concerto. 

Always a seasonal highlight, the annual joint holiday concert of the Stanford Symphonic Chorus and the Peninsula Symphony, will this year feature a typically vivid pairing.

The Calder Quartet filled in at the San Jose Chamber Music Society in a program of fairly severe pieces that push, in one way or another, at the edge of the quartet idiom practice of their time.

A program that the S.F. Symphony will play on an upcoming tour featuring Rachmaninov’s Symphony No. 2 will show the Asian audiences what our orchestra and its music director are really made of.

From the U.K., the Carducci String Quartet play Haydn, Mendelssohn, and Debussy in a captivating, clean, clear style.

Whether taking listeners on a pilgrimage or in a funeral march, pianist Cecile Licad plays to the heart of Liszt and Chopin.

The always-intriguing Ives Quartet plays a quirky Cowell work, an emotionally gritty Smetana, and an ethereal Haydn.

Performance, conducting, and solos impress at the San Francisco Symphony in a program that was intricate, complex, and pulled-off with elegance.