Recital

The Spanish guitarist Margarita Escarpa offered a recital notable for finely wrought emotion, beautiful sound, and flawless technique on Saturday at the Green Room of San Francisco’s War Memorical Veterans Building.

The American song repertoire is often an afterthought for recital singers, but soprano Nicole Cabell made it the centerpiece of her program Sunday afternoon at Hertz Hall on the UC Berkeley campus. It was a wise choice, one that showed the young artist’s voice to better advantage than the more traditional repertoire that comprised the balance of the program.

After I was admitted to the Conservatory in the Hague, I was allowed to see my adjudication sheet. The director had written one sentence: “He has fast fingers.” Bemused, I showed this to my teacher, who clasped me on the shoulder, and said in the most comforting way possible, “That was not a compliment, my boy.”

The soprano and teacher discusses her upcoming concert of André Previn songs, her professorship at Salzburg’s Mozarteum, and life on the links.

You performed songs by André Previn in a San Francisco Performances recital at Herbst Theatre on Feb. 25 at 8 p.m. This was the U.S. premiere. Have the songs been premiered in Europe? 

Mendelssohn’s great violin concerto, premiered in 1845 with the same Gewandhaus Orchester Leipzig heard on this CD, has been subject to any number of interpretations.

British pianist Paul Roberts’ Friday night recital-lecture at Old First Church turned out to be a rather iffy affair. On the whole, he left the impression that he’s more scholar than polished pianist. His objective was to untangle the roots of what would evolve into French Impressionism from Liszt’s piano style.

How can a critic fully convey the scope of Cecilia Bartoli’s magnificent artistry without running out of superlatives?

While he was alive, Max Reger enjoyed considerable popularity as a composer of chamber and orchestral works, but since his untimely death in 1916, he has been sparsely represented in concert halls. Not so with his organ music.