Copyright 2011 The New York Sun Thu, 27 Oct 2011 09:23:54 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Fred Kirshnit :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/authors/Fred+Kirshnit admin@nysun.net (Seth Lipsky) webmaster@nysun.com en-us FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/coucheron-siblings-soar-at-weill-echoing/87540/ Thu, 27 Oct 2011 09:22:51 EST One of the greatest joys of a music critic is looking back over a long career and remembering fondly those performers that, as young people, clearly would rise to the upper echelon of performers if indeed that was their wish. At Weill Recital Hall in 2000 I heard Janine Jansen make her American debut at 21, although looking all of 15. I wrote at the time that she was exceptional and on her way. Today she is a superstar and deservedly so. Not every wunderkind craves the limelight. The best young... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/personal-demons-powerful-messages/86742/ Mon, 29 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST My fondest memory of the old Metropolitan Opera House comes from New Year's Day of 1964, when I heard Roberta Peters sing Zerbinetta in a production of "Ariadne auf Naxos" by Richard Strauss. It was hilarious to see her gracefully frolic in the ocean surrounding the rather pompous and deadly serious Bacchus and Ariadne. But what I most remember was the young woman who radiantly sang the role of the composer, a certified star in the making. Her name was Teresa Stratas. On Thursday, Ms. Stratas... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/deborah-voigts-bold-gambit/86648/ Fri, 26 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST American soprano Deborah Voigt has had an up-and-down career over the last decade. Although some of her appearances at the Metropolitan Opera House have been powerful, especially her Sieglinde under both maestros Gergiev and Maazel, she has also disappointed as Elisabeth in "Tannhaeuser" and especially as Floria in "Tosca," where her rendition of Vissi d'arte on opening night was remarkably unmoving. At this point, she needs to prove herself at every appearance. Thus it may have been a bit of a... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/pulling-out-the-stops/86546/ Thu, 25 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST The G Major String Quintet, which was the featured work on an excellent program on Monday evening presented by the chamber group Concertante at Merkin Hall, was intended by Brahms to be his final effort, a rich, valedictory summing-up of his 56 years of aesthetic and life experience. His satisfied, autumnal mood lasted for approximately one year, until he met the clarinetist Richard Muehlfeld and began to compose once again, creating his great series of pieces for this instrument and arguably... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/a-gauzy-haze-a-holy-relic/86277/ Mon, 22 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Arguably the greatest aspect of Beethoven's genius was his certitude from an early age that he was to have an earthshaking effect on the history of music. Strolling with his good friend on a narrow path one day, he was horrified when his chum stepped off the stones to let a nobleman pass. "You are Goethe; I Beethoven!" he exclaimed. "Let him walk in the mud." The composer was also remarkably aware of time, inspired by the turn of the 19th century to revolutionize his art just as the calendar... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/iannis-xenakiss-architectural-sound/86081/ Thu, 18 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Scholars often speak of musical architecture, but it is very rare for an architect to become a composer. Iannis Xenakis, born in Romania to Greek parents, rose to become chief assistant to Le Corbusier before abandoning his craft to devote his creative energies to music. On Tuesday evening, Miller Theatre presented his only opera, "Oresteia." The program lists the date of this multimedia piece as 1992, but actually the music was written as incidental background to a protracted production of the... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/on-board-with-becks-beethoven-survey/85791/ Mon, 15 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST In Beethoven's lifetime, his two most popular pieces were the "Moonlight Sonata" and the Septet in E-flat major. Guess which one had some of its material featured on Saturday evening as pianist Steven Beck continued his complete survey of the master's 32 piano sonatas aboard Bargemusic. Wrong. The "Moonlight" was nowhere to be found, as Mr. Beck has established a rule for these concerts: only one nicknamed sonata each evening (we will get to it in due time). No, it was indeed the jaunty septet... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/soheil-nasseri-keeps-his-word/85588/ Thu, 11 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST Pianist Soheil Nasseri, who gave a recital at Merkin Hall on Tuesday evening, and composer Samir Odeh-Tamimi apparently never got the memo announcing the end of the 1960s. Mr. Nasseri spent one quarter of his performance time burrowing around inside his piano, thwacking its strings with open palms — Glenn Gould was so protective of his appendages that he wouldn't even shake hands — or striking his keyboard, or rather the extreme upper and lower regions of it, with various body parts other than... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/wrapping-up-mostly-mozart/84493/ Mon, 25 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Never has the title of Mostly Mozart's series at the Kaplan Penthouse been more appropriate than on Thursday, when A Little Night Music presented the last great work of the 19th century: Arnold Schoenberg's string sextet "Transfigured Night." One of the most moving aspects of "Verklärte Nacht" is its remarkable ability to re-create the atmosphere of the original Richard Dehmel poem, a startling juxtaposition of the frigid attitudes of polite society and the warm glow of inner beauty. The woman... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/beethoven-vs-beethoven-at-mostly-mozart/84300/ Thu, 21 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Coinciding nicely with the new century — it was conceived in 1800 — the Piano Concerto No. 3 of Beethoven, which was given a lively reading at Avery Fisher Hall on Tuesday evening as part of the Mostly Mozart Festival, is the first piece of music to deify the creator-performer. Without this elevation of the auteur as the force majeure, there would be no piano concerti of Brahms or Schumann, Tchaikovsky or Greig, Prokofiev or Rachmaninoff. For the first time, the artist is at least the equal, if... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/a-moveable-finnish-feast/84038/ Mon, 18 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST The Mostly Mozart Festival is celebrating Finland: Two conductors, three soloists, and one composer took up residency on the Upper West Side in a moveable feast of musical events showcasing the nation currently most dedicated per capita to the cause of our beloved art form. On Saturday evening, Osmo Vänskä, who moved to Minneapolis in order to feel that he had stayed home on the Baltic, led the Festival Orchestra in an interesting program at Avery Fisher Hall. The evening featured a familiar... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/new-york-grand-operas-aida-extravaganza/83930/ Fri, 15 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST If ever there were a perfect opportunity to mount a production of "Aida" featuring elephants, it was Wednesday night in Central Park. The vast, wide-open spaces could hold any and all elements of a true spectacular. Alas, the New York Grand Opera does not have a budget for a pachyderm parade, but it did mount a pretty fabulous extravaganza within the bounds of its limited resources. Many companies are afraid of "Aida." Its sheer grandeur daunts the potential director. Before the New York City... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/variety-vs-quality-at-mostly-mozart/83814/ Thu, 14 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST The Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra is greatly improved since the appointment of music director Louis Langrée. But it reached a plateau a few seasons ago and has not made any significant strides forward since. Tuesday evening at Avery Fisher Hall provided an illustrative case in point. Admittedly the group had little to do during the first half of the program. The guest conductor, Jiri Belohlávek, brought some music from his homeland, the Serenade No. 2 of the Czech composer Bohuslav Martinu... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/giving-grief-a-light-touch/83559/ Mon, 11 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST One of the highlights of last season's Mostly Mozart Festival was a sensitive performance conducted by Louis Langrée of the "Pavane for a Dead Princess" of Maurice Ravel. Maestro has just the proper Gallic sensibilities to communicate this haunting, spectral dance in a stately and dignified manner. On Saturday evening, he led the Mostly Mozart Festival Orchestra in two French works that again showcased his ability to develop surprising color from a smallish summer instrumental ensemble. Ravel's... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/jeremy-denks-labyrinthine-lyricism/83431/ Fri, 8 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST Michael Tilson Thomas has made the perspicacious argument that the history of Western music would have looked very different if Alban Berg had not died at a young age. On Wednesday at the late-night recital of the Mostly Mozart Festival at the Kaplan Penthouse, the pianist Jeremy Denk offered music of the man whose untimely demise left the biggest hole in the progression of the art form. No, it's not Mozart. Of course, Wolfgang died young and, had he lived, would have undoubtedly given to the... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/a-charming-slapdash-affair/83163/ Tue, 5 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST The success of the Da Ponte trilogy overshadows Mozart's penultimate opera, "La Clemenza di Tito" ("The Clemency of Titus"), which was given a spirited performance on Sunday at the Rose Theater as part of the Mostly Mozart Festival. Written in 1791 and having its premiere just three weeks before the Magic Flute — and just nine weeks before the composer's death — the work was not staged in America until 1952 at Tanglewood. For many it remains, like Shakespeare's "Titus Andronicus," a piece that... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/shimmering-technique-sound/83136/ Mon, 4 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST The Mostly Mozart Festival has begun, and two of the featured composers this season are Mozart and Beethoven. Before diving into the deep end of the pool, a visit to another venue that showcases these composers seemed appropriate. So on Saturday evening I attended an orchestral concert at Bargemusic in Brooklyn. An orchestral concert at Bargemusic? Yes, indeed. This unique floating venue for chamber music does sometimes cram in a smallish full ensemble to perform for a large crowd. This night... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/a-modern-mass-with-notes-of-messiaen/82771/ Tue, 29 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST The Summer Festival of Sacred Music at St. Bartholomew's Church features an all-encompassing variety of mass settings, from High Renaissance polyphony to modern jazz. Hearing the same subject in the same words treated by composers of many countries, periods, and stylistic bents allows the regular attendee to develop a much clearer picture of the evolution of church music over time, and its subtle shades of difference and harmonic color. But what of contemporary American classical music? In an... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/fallen-statues-and-febrile-stories/82689/ Mon, 28 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Back when CD stores still existed on the Upper West Side, a Juilliard student I knew applied to work in one of them. The manager asked him one question: What opera features the popular aria "O mio babbino caro"? The student continued his job search somewhere else. This incredibly well-known air, heard in spaghetti sauce commercials and Andre Rieu concerts, is from a rather underplayed Puccini one-act titled "Gianni Schicchi," itself one-third of the larger "Il Trittico." New York enjoys a... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/reviews-sara-daneshpour-at-mannes-college/82244/ Mon, 21 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST If a performer begins and ends well, few will remember what he or she did in the middle. Unfortunately, the opposite also holds true. At the International Keyboard Institute and Festival on Thursday at Mannes College, the fine pianism of Sara Daneshpour more than compensated for a hesitant start and a timid conclusion. Ms. Daneshpour is a graduate of the Curtis Institute, where she studied with Leon Fleisher. She continues her studies at present with Oleg Volkov. She chose an aggressive program... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/new-york-grand-operas-traviata-in-the-park/82142/ Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST Summer in the city can be a difficult time for music lovers: The surging river of New York culture dries up to a mere trickle in a dry bed due to the mass exodus of the finest musicians to the comfort of the country and its wealth of interesting festivals. One of the few bright spots of the season is New York Grand Opera, which mounts fully staged productions of the Italian repertoire under the stars at the Naumburg Bandshell in our own verdant escape from urbanity, Frederick Law Olmsted's... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/rare-jewels-from-the-jupiter-symphony-chamber/81961/ Wed, 16 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST If you Google the composer Vincenzo Gambaro, the search engine attempts to redirect you to Vincenzo Gambino, a Milanese doctor who has apparently discovered a miraculous cure for baldness. This gambit is understandable, as there is considerable doubt about the existence of Gambaro. His chimerical qualities, however, have not deterred the intrepid explorers of the Jupiter Symphony Chamber Players, who presented his Quatuor Concertant for Four Winds as part of an excellent concert at the Church... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/feeding-the-spirit-and-the-mind-at-the-summer/80992/ Tue, 1 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST England's Coventry Cathedral is best known in the history of 20th-century music as the bombed ruin whose restoration inspired the creation of the Benjamin Britten masterpiece "War Requiem." But other pieces were commissioned for this miraculous architectural project, including the "Missa Brevis" of Sir William Walton, which was featured Sunday at the Summer Festival of Sacred Music at St. Bartholomew's Church. The series presents a different view of the Mass each Sunday and allows a critic the... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/phil-caters-to-a-festive-crowd/80681/ Thu, 26 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST After ending its subscription season on Saturday, the New York Philharmonic kicked off its hot-weather repertoire on Tuesday with a stirring concert on the Great Lawn of Central Park. Dressed not in white jackets but rather open collars and shirtsleeves, the group projected more of a workaday look, as if this was an open rehearsal. The audience seemed to treat the performance as casual as well, remaining virtually silent as concertmaster Glenn Dicterow entered to tune the orchestra — although... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/the-met-arrives-in-prospect-park/80451/ Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Even though Senator Schumer, introducing the festivities in Prospect Park on Friday, stated that the summer solstice was the "longest night of the year" — it is, of course, just the opposite — the time seemed to fly by as the Metropolitan Opera presented soprano Angela Gheorghiu and tenor Roberto Alagna singing a program of highlights and arias. This was typical summer fare: Everything was fine, nothing was great. I have profound admiration for Ms. Gheorghiu. Her steadfast refusal to appear in... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/maazels-chicken-and-egg-situation/80454/ Mon, 23 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Despite the happy talk of some critics, improvisation in classical music is a lost art. In the 18th and 19th centuries, however, composers were frequently asked to play extemporaneously, often to great effect. One heralded evening, Anton Bruckner sat at the organ and interwove themes from his new Symphony No. 8 with those of Siegfried's Funeral Music from Richard Wagner's "Götterdämmerung," in what, by all accounts, must have been a glorious and inspiring manner. The Nowak version of the Eighth... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/puccini-overload/79622/ Tue, 10 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Bringing opera to the masses by way of the silver screen may be a boon to audiences, especially in the hinterlands, but it has its deleterious side for opera companies already concerned about their bottom lines. Further exacerbating the situation, the Graham Vick production of the Puccini's "La Rondine," or "The Swallow," from Teatro La Fenice in Venice was shown at Symphony Space on Sunday afternoon. The great Viennese composers of his day loved Puccini. Gustav Mahler championed Puccini's "La... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/mozarts-wickedly-symmetrical-sexagon/79541/ Mon, 9 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST 'Cosi fan tutte," Mozart's wickedly symmetrical sexagon with the untranslatable title — it has been known as "The School for Lovers," "Women Are Like That," "All for Love," and even "As You Like It" — was presented Friday evening at the Amato Opera House with a great deal of flair. A musical delight, a crabbed puzzle, a revolutionary mix-up of the social order, it was all of these things and more. The Amato stage is a tiny one and often the directors have to be extremely inventive to realize... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/little-orchestra-society-veers-from-vivaldis/79337/ Thu, 5 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Antonio Vivaldi occupies an unusual place in the performance history of the early 21st century. Although he composed more than 1,000 works, including several dozen concertos for violin and orchestra, he is known almost exclusively for but a quartet of these pieces grouped together as "The Four Seasons." On Tuesday evening at Zankel Hall, the Little Orchestra Society took the plunge and ignored the most popular of his works in order to present something somewhat different. This is the 18th year... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/brahms-the-original-kurt-cobain/79036/ Mon, 2 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Although it would be logical when listening to the Brahms C Minor Piano Quartet, which was presented at the Juilliard School on Friday evening by Ensemble ACJW, to think of the Schumann Piano Quartet on which it is modeled, for the past dozen years or so the piece of music that invariably comes to my mind is the Nirvana song "Something in the Way." The Brahms is a unique work; two movements, written when the composer was a young man, consist of passionate music about suicide, and two movements... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/ny-philharmonic-kicks-off-the-music-lovers-summer/78800/ Thu, 29 May 2008 00:00:00 EST The joke in San Francisco used to be that, before its renovation, Davies Symphony Hall, with its pronounced echoes, was the best venue for music because the listener heard everything twice. Applying this same logic, lovers of the New York Philharmonic must have been in heaven Monday evening as the orchestra presented its annual Memorial Day concert at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine. The concert is free and is a welcome gift to New York, the unofficial start of a music lover's summer. The... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/less-than-the-sum-of-the-philharmonics-parts/78602/ Tue, 27 May 2008 00:00:00 EST One of the most frustrating aspects of covering the New York Philharmonic on a regular basis is the realization that many of its individual members are very fine musicians, but their aggregate sound as an ensemble is often dry and pedestrian. No series of concerts emphasizes this phenomenon more distinctly than the Saturday matinees, which consist of a piece of chamber music followed by a symphonic work. Last week at Avery Fisher Hall was no exception. Mozart's fondness for puckish humor... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/misfires-and-enchantment-at-bargemusic/78603/ Tue, 27 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Elena Ulyanova studied the piano in her native Crimea before entering the Gnessin State Musical College in Moscow, eventually receiving her Master of Music degree from the Tchaikovsky Conservatory. On Friday evening, she gave a recital before a packed house aboard Bargemusic at the Fulton Ferry Landing in Brooklyn. Fittingly for a concert held on the water, the highlight of this soiree was Ms. Ulyanova's delicate performance of Claude Debussy's "Ondine." She wove a diaphanous web for her... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/valery-gergievs-many-guises/78612/ Tue, 27 May 2008 00:00:00 EST In London, when it was announced in 2005 that Valery Gergiev had been appointed principal conductor — and therefore de facto music director — of the London Symphony, I was able to gauge the reactions of a surprised listening public and critical community. They were not entirely favorable. The dean of British critics and author of the definitive volume on the LSO, Richard Morrison, wrote that this was the beginning of the end of that celebrated ensemble's discipline. Mr. Gergiev almost... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/clean-and-crisp-for-brahmss-tragic-overture/76853/ Thu, 22 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Brahms and Wagner were both enchanted by the Faust legend, but each only composed one overture on the subject. The Brahms entry, that we now know as the "Tragic" — Brahms let his publisher pick the title — opened the program of the Oratorio Society of New York on Tuesday evening at Carnegie Hall. The orchestra of the society is a relatively small one, about the size that Brahms would have been working with at the time. Once the listener became accustomed to their rather thin sound, the... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/before-muti-a-stellar-mahler/76620/ Mon, 19 May 2008 00:00:00 EST The downside of the splendid decision by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to engage Riccardo Muti as their new music director is that it underscores the finitude of their current regency, now destined to last only two more seasons. Having two of the world's greatest musical minds, Pierre Boulez and Bernard Haitink, as caretakers, the ensemble could afford to take its time and make the proper decision. In its first appearance in New York since the inception of the Muti era, Maestro Haitink led the... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/stephen-beus-plays-bold/76469/ Thu, 15 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Attending a recital by a young pianist relatively early in his career has its own special rewards. It is inspiring to contemplate the future of such an aspirant, and the listener can forgive the occasional technical slip or immature phrasing as a necessary step along the way to mature poetic communication. For the first half of his appearance at the Merkin Concert Hall on Tuesday, 2006 Bachauer winner Stephen Beus did not afford his audience that kind of experience. Rather, he intoned like a... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/lost-in-compilation/76249/ Mon, 12 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Many Carnegie Hall listeners felt lost during the first half of the recital of pianist Mitsuko Uchida on Friday evening, which was exactly the effect for which Ms. Uchida had been striving. The late sonatas of Franz Schubert are sophisticated temporal experiments, the composer destroying our established notion of linear time by abandoning classical balance in favor of what at first glance seems like disproportionate variations in the length of individual movements. He creates a similar... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/speculating-about-the-future-of-philly/76084/ Thu, 8 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 8, presented by the Philadelphia Orchestra on Tuesday evening at Carnegie Hall, ushered in Mahler's last period of composition. He returned to the glorious sound of the human voice in a work combining the power of oratorio with the drama of opera. Mahler was by profession an opera conductor, and it was only a function of a lack of time that he never composed for the stage (he did reconstruct the Weber opera "Die Drei Pintos"). In the Eighth Symphony, however, he... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/precious-recording-and-a-tashi-reunion/75919/ Tue, 6 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Any record collector worth his salt possesses a copy of the RCA pressing of Olivier Messiaen's "Quartet for the End of Time" by the chamber group Tashi. The foursome celebrated its 34th reunion on Sunday with a free concert at Town Hall. I was born too early to have lost my virginity to this particular recording, but for many from the intellectual wing of the late hippie movement, the LP holds significant memories. The record jacket features pictures of a hirsute Tashi (Peter Serkin, piano, Ida... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/where-a-symphony-competes-with-snacks/75829/ Mon, 5 May 2008 00:00:00 EST On Saturday afternoon, a film of a concert led by the enigmatic Carlos Kleiber was part of a series of films celebrating Beethoven at the Walter Reade Theater. Kleiber was the son of the great Erich Kleiber, who, among many other accomplishments, conducted the world premiere performance of "Wozzeck" by Alban Berg. Although born with the Christian name Karl, Kleiber moved to Argentina at the age of 5 when his father scorned the incipient Nazi regime. He forged a distinguished but sporadic... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/as-stravinsky-saw-it/75670/ Thu, 1 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Here's a radical idea: Why not present a musical work in the manner that the composer intended? This is precisely what producer Alan Alda accomplished on Tuesday evening at the 92nd Street Y with an entertaining production of Igor Stravinsky's "L'Histoire du soldat." Stravinsky penned this tale about the lust for money and the dehumanization of conflagration during World War I. Living in Switzerland, he was forced to make do with whatever musicians he could muster, so the instrumentation of... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/czech-mates-the-pavel-haas-and-takacs-quartets-new/75399/ Mon, 28 Apr 2008 01:02:28 EST With the recent retirement of the Alban Berg Quartet in Vienna and the Lindsays in Britain, arguably four of the 10 best string quartets performing today hail from the relatively small Czech Republic. The Prazak, Talich, and Skampa Quartets each have a unique sound, and a case can be made for the Panocha as the most eloquent of all (what pianissimos!). Now another foursome from Prague is challenging their elders. The Pavel Haas Quartet made what Carnegie Hall dubs its "distinctive debut" at the... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/mets-new-la-fille-du-rgiment/75123/ Wed, 23 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST Gaetano Donizetti's "La Fille du Régiment" received a glowing premiere on Monday evening in a new production at the Metropolitan Opera House. Played by Peruvian tenor Juan Diego Flórez, Tonio, the mountaineer who would rather switch than fight, matures from sweet-voiced naďf to genuine hero in less than two hours. Mr. Florez has a spectacular voice, big and powerful when necessary, gentle and soft as appropriate. Further, he accomplished something quite heroic himself. Luciano Pavarotti... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/pope-passover-pious-music/75089/ Tue, 22 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST In marvelous confluence with the papal visit and the first day of Passover, the series of organ recitals commemorating the 100th anniversary of the death of Olivier Messiaen continued Sunday afternoon at the Church of St. Vincent Ferrer. On tap was perhaps the most cerebral of this master's pieces, "Meditations on the Mystery of the Holy Trinity." The recitals are the brainchild of a professor at Columbia and the Manhattan School of Music, Gail Archer, who is presenting the major essays of... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/lovely-but-venue-challenged/74986/ Mon, 21 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST For years, one of the fringe benefits of regularly attending the concerts of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center was that its artistic director, clarinetist David Shifrin, often participated in the programs himself. Mr. Shifrin has moved on — though he still plays as a member of the society — and has been replaced by the husband-and-wife team of Wu Han and David Finckel. Mr. Finckel is the cellist of the Emerson String Quartet while Ms. Wu is one of the most eloquent pianists of our... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/by-the-book-2008-04-18/74958/ Fri, 18 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST Hungarian pianist András Schiff was back at Carnegie Hall on Wednesday evening, continuing his three-year series presenting the 32 sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven. Mr. Schiff is just in the middle of his journey at present, and a respectable, if not an overflowing, crowd came along for the ride. Judging by the number of unoccupied seats, there are probably still good tickets available for tonight's next installment. For years now, Mr. Schiff has been exploring large bodies of work in this... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/miracle-from-the-midwest/74679/ Tue, 15 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST Last year, I suggested re-evaluating the list of the "big five" American orchestras. With the Minnesota Orchestra's terrific performance at Avery Fisher Hall over the weekend, it may be time to revisit the list. The Minnesota Orchestra has a long and special relationship with the Symphony No. 1 of Gustav Mahler. Although the composer was associated with both the Vienna and New York Philharmonics, it was the Minnesotans — in the 1940s, still called the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra — who... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/new-world-sound-old-world-roots/74602/ Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST For a city "From New World," New York has a large variety of places associated with the lions of the artistic world. Of European composers, Rachmaninoff and Schoenberg lived here. Mahler resided at the corner of Fifth Avenue and East 59th Street, and Stravinsky on West 73rd. At Bargemusic on Saturday, we heard from the two composers who wrote the most significant music here in town: Béla Bartók, who lived in various places but is commemorated on West 57th Street, and Antonin Dvorák, who... FRED KIRSHNIT http://www.nysun.com/arts/symmetrical-beauties/74279/ Mon, 7 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST Hearing Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky at Carnegie Hall brought back a special memory. At the gala for outgoing general manager Joseph Volpe thrown by the Metropolitan Opera two seasons ago, there were many fine singers and some truly spectacular performances. But it was Mr. Hvorostovsky who stood tall above all others. Having apparently already taken a breath in the limousine on the way to the concert, he sailed through Rodrigo's death scene from Verdi's "Don Carlo" with remarkable...