Recital

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Review

Cold Case

Stephanie Friedman - April 23, 2009

As was announced before the concert by Ruth Felt, the gracious president of San Francisco Performances, Magdalena Kožená had been battling a nasty cold for several days, but the mezzo-soprano had decided to go through with her Herbst Theatre recital nevertheless. Red flags went up in my mind. A singer singing with a cold can present a problem for a reviewer: How to evaluate what the ears pick up?

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Preview

Frederick Rzewski

Michael Zwiebach - April 21, 2009
Frederick Rzewski

Frederic Rzewski is still playing his 1975 masterwork, The People United Will Never Be Defeated, 36 variations on a Chilean song associat

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Preview

Krystian Zimerman

Catherine Getches - April 14, 2009
Krystian Zimerman

Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman is known for his technical polish, recently seen here

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Review

Songs Without a Happy End

Anna Carol Dudley - April 7, 2009
Kurt Weill and several of his cabaret contemporaries from the “Roaring Twenties” in Berlin roared into the Martin Meyer Sanctuary at Temple Emanu-El Sunday afternoon.
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Preview

Krystian Zimerman

Catherine Getches - March 31, 2009
Krystian Zimerman

Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman is known for his technical polish, recently seen here

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Review

Splendor in the Voice

Georgia Rowe - March 29, 2009
Like other great countertenors before him, David Daniels established his career singing works from the Baroque repertoire. Since then, he’s made a point of expanding his horizons — and the public’s perception of what the high male voice type can do — with composers from other eras up to the present.

Alfonso Alberti:The Music of Niccolò Castiglioni

Michael Zwiebach - March 24, 2009
A rare opportunity to hear one of the 20th century’s underplayed composers. Though Niccolò Castiglioni (1932-1996) isn’t often mentioned in histories of 20th-century music, his music seems more contemporary than many composers who are.
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Preview

A Century’s Worth of Piano

Heuwell Tircuit - March 24, 2009
One of the best-planned and at the same time oddest-looking piano recitals I’ve ever encountered is coming up two Sundays hence, in San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre. There, the distinguished French pianist Pascal Rogé will play a survey of basic French piano music from 1830 (Chopin’s Op. 10 Étude No. 1) to 1929 (Poulenc’s First Nocturne).
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Preview

Schiff at the Summit

Jerry Kuderna - March 21, 2009
Hans von Bülow once described Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier and Beethoven’s 32 Piano Sonatas as the Old and New Testaments of music.
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Preview

Murray Perahia

Jason Victor Serinus - March 11, 2009
The last two decades have not been easy for Murray Perahia. Complications from the much-publicized cut to his right thumb, followed by surgery for a bone spur, have continued to haunt him, causing at least rounds of cancellations. But Perahia has reacted to his misfortune by embracing his challenges as opportunities for growth. He initially devoted his hiatus to deep study of the works of J.S.