Studio Recital: February, 2013

Michael Praetorius: Four Renaissance Dances, Magnificat February 15, 2019
It is believed that the German Renaissance composer, Michael Praetorius, was born on this day in 1571. In a strange coincidence, he died on the same date fifty years later in 1621. Active as an organist and music theorist, Praetorius was amazingly versatile. He published the four-volume Syntagma musicum, an influential treatise on music his […]
Dvořák’s Cello Concerto: Three Great Performance Clips February 13, 2019
Following a youthful attempt at a Cello Concerto in 1865, Antonín Dvořák believed that the instrument was ill-suited to the concerto form. “High up it sounds nasal, and low down it growls,” the composer commented. Dvořák’s attitude changed in a flash on the evening of March 9, 1894 when the New York Philharmonic premiered Victor Herbert’s S […]
The 2019 Classical Grammys February 11, 2019
The 61st Annual Grammy Awards ceremony took place in Los Angeles yesterday. Here are excerpts from the winning albums in the classical categories: Best Orchestral Performance This recording is the latest installment in a Shostakovich cycle featuring Nelsons and the Boston Symphony. Earlier recordings in the set won in the same category in t […]
Mendelssohn’s Stormy Sixth Quartet: The Schumann Quartet at Banff February 8, 2019
We often associate the music of Felix Mendelssohn with light, sparkling effervescence (as in the scherzos from A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Octet) and a unique fusion of Romanticism with backward glances at the crystalline, contrapuntal classicism of J.S. Bach. The String Quartet in F minor, Op. 80, Mendelssohn’s final composition, inh […]
Remembering Sanford Sylvan February 6, 2019
The renowned American baritone Sanford Sylvan passed away suddenly last week. He was 65. Sylvan’s career on the opera stage included premieres of works by John Adams, Philip Glass, Peter Maxwell Davies and Christopher Rouse. He was the first to perform the role of Chou En-lai in Nixon in China (1987) and Leon Klinghoffer in The Death of Kli […]
Rachmaninov’s Third Symphony: Freedom in Exile February 4, 2019
Sergei Rachmaninov spent much of his life in exile, both literally and as a composer. In December of 1917 at the outbreak of the Russian Revolution, Rachmaninov and his wife, Natalia, fled Russia, eventually building their Villa Senar on the idyllic shores of Switzerland’s Lake Lucerne. It was here that Rachmaninov composed the Symphony No. […]
“Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child”: Archie Shepp and Horace Parlan February 1, 2019
Recently, we explored briefly music inspired by the blues and African-American spirituals. Following that Martin Luther King Jr. Day post, a Listeners’ Club reader pointed me to this powerful track from the 1977 studio album, Goin’ Home, by American saxophonist Archie Shepp and pianist Horace Parlan. A human voice filled with longing and la […]