Pascal Rogé made a strong impression at last year’s New York Chamber Music Festival, and returned this evening for a program of collegial music-making.
Category Archives: Blog
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New York’s Classical Music Pre-Season Off to an Impressive Start
New York’s classical music “pre-season” is off to an impressive – and momentous – start.
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Classical Press Piles on Levine Story (… plus a bonus zing at DG)
The press is piling on in the day and a half since the Metropolitan Opera announced that James Levine is withdrawing from the fall portion of the company’s 2011-12 season. A few are worth a read, including Zachary Wolffe at the NY Observer, who writes:
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James Levine’s Withdrawal: Reading Between the Lines
Daniel Wakin follows through on yesterday’s breaking news about James Levine’s decision to withdraw from the entire fall portion of the MET season due to a new and serious back injury with a more detailed article just posted to nytimes.com. Again, a number of details leap off the page:
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Tributes to Salvatore Licitra, 1968-2011
Tenor Salvatore Licitra’s death following a scooter accident in Italy is not completely surprising, given reports about the extent of his injuries, but it still comes as a sad shock to opera fans. It’s a huge loss to the world of singing. Licitra, who was slated to sing Radames at Chicago Lyric Opera this coming March, had more of a career in Europe in recent years than on this side of the Atlantic, but impressed this writer with his solid portrayals and ringing voice that consistently conveyed emotion and dramatic momentum. There is a moving video tribute (narrated in Italian) on Licitra’s official web site; both the NY Times obituary and Tim Ashley’s tribute at guardian.co.uk are worth a look, as well as the comments section of La Cieca’s post at Parterre Box (including some choice YouTube videos) and Opera Chic’s post (I especially enjoyed Andrew Powell’s comment). And don’t miss Instant Encore’s repost of an insightful 2009 interview with Licitra.
UPDATE: Licitra’s organs are already saving lives
NY Times Reports James Levine Pulls Out of MET Fall Season
Dan Wakin has the scoop at the Times. This detail jumped out at me:
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Like garlic to a vampire
I am not surprised at all to read this. New York City’s Port Authority hub at West 42nd Street does the same thing.
And We’re Back
Our beloved web host made a change to server security and forgot to tell us, in effect shutting down the site database. Well, we fixed it with the addition of three characters toa configuration file, and all is well. New stuff to follow by Monday. You’ll like it!
Another Reason I Like Alex Ross
His recent post on the best Bruckner recordings on CD comes pretty close to mine (though I’m not as sanguine about the Welser-Möst/Cleveland Orchestra Bruckner DVDs I’ve seen). Besides, how can I not like a guy whose first LP was Jascha Horenstein’s mighty Bruckner Ninth on Vox?
I’ll add two alternate first choices to Alex’s short list: the Eighth with Herbert Blomstedt and the Gewandhausorchester Leipzig on Querstand, and the Ninth with Evgeny Mravinsky conducting the Leningrad Philharmonic on Melodiya.
Is He the Greatest Recording Era Conductor You’ve (Probably) Never Heard Of?
It was Ray Edwards – at the time buyer for Tower Records’ legendary, late, lamented classical department on West 4th and Broadway – that recommended I check out the recordings of British-born, Russian-raised conductor Albert Coates (I believe we’d been talking about the ever-popular “Toscanini vs. Furtwängler” debate and my having come down decidedly on the side of Willem Mengelberg).
Continue reading Is He the Greatest Recording Era Conductor You’ve (Probably) Never Heard Of?