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2024-04-25
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2024-03-18 03:30:00
Ravel Orchestral Works (CD Review)
by Karl Nehring Valses nobles et sentimentales; Ma mère l’Oye (Complete Ballet); Daphnis et Chloé, Suites Nos. 1 and 2; L’Éventail de Jeanne: Fanfare. St. Olaf Choir; Minnesota Orchestra; Stanisław Skrowaczewski, conductor. VOX-NX-3037CD Many classical music lovers of a certain age are no doubt familiar with Vox, a budget label that produced some real gems that provided the music lover on a budget an excellent way to expand their classical LP collections at a reasonable price. I can offer a quick example from my own experience: I’ll never forget a day back in the mid-1970s when I was strolling through a Sears department store one afternoon and came across an aisle display that featured the newly released 4-LP Vox Box of Ravel’s orchestral music featuring Stanislaw Skrowaczewski conducting the Minnesota Orchestra. I was back in college on the G.I. Bill after serving 4½ years in the Army, with a wife, two kids, a pair of […]
The Boston Musical Intelligencer
2024-03-14 15:45:32
A Long Road of Remembrance and Hope
The oratorio O Lungo Drom (The Long Road) is an authentic testimony of the Sinti and Roma people, whose journey since time immemorial has been shrouded by poetic and popular imagination. It finds its voice for the first time here directly through the words of Sinti/Roma poets and writers, set to music by Roma composer Ralf Yusuf Gawlick. This oratorio will receive its joint U.S. premières on April 5th at College of the Holy Cross and the 6th at Boston College, with soprano Clara Meloni, baritone Christoph Filler, cimbalomist László Rácz and the Alban Berg Ensemble Wien, the same cast performing on the world première recording recently released on Decca Eloquence Australia. Harpsichordist Peter Watchorn, a professor at Boston College and co-founder, executive producer and CEO of the record label Musica Omnia (which hosts seven Gawlick recordings), recently spoke with the composer. PW: In the past decade, you have shared […]
The Boston Musical Intelligencer
2024-03-12 18:22:30
Celebrating Lutheran Master’s 339th Birthday
Boston’s annual celebration of all things Bach returns to First Lutheran Church of Boston on Saturday, March 23rd. Founded 17 years ago and occurring every year since (excepting only the unfortunate cancellation of the event at the last minute during the initial COVID-19 quarantine), the annual Boston Bach Birthday draws hundreds each year in celebration of Johann Sebastian Bach and his contributions to music. Held on the Saturday nearest Bach’s March 21st birthday, it is an all-day festival of concerts featuring the music of Bach, those who influenced him, and those who were influenced by him. All musical events are free and open to the public. Begun in 2008 as a celebration of “Boston’s Bach Organ,” the Richards, Fowkes & Co. opus 10 pipe organ traditionally features prominently at the Bach Birthday, and 2024 is no exception. Three organists will play recitals, beginning with FLC Kantor Jonathan Wessler at 9:00am. Continuing his […]
The Boston Musical Intelligencer
2024-02-08 18:08:24
Dance Music of the Germania Musical Society
A free concert resulting from the research of this writer along with the efforts of the Harvard Musical Association Library Committee takes place on March 3rd at 3:00, at St. John’s Church, 27 Devens Street, in Charlestown. Just show up (entry is free). Leave a comment below if you have questions. Winsome duo-pianists Chi-Wei Lo and Xiaopei Xu, collectively known as Psychopomp Ensemble (guide of souls), who have been reinventing the recital, once brilliantly interpolated the Beatles’ “Imagine” into the Gottschalk’s “The Union” HERE at 52:40; they will preside in an acoustically warm sanctuary on a restored 1870 Chickering concert grand. A light reception will follow. The Germania Musical Society deserves to emerge from the cocoon of writings by musicological specialists and reclaim the interest of a larger public. Twenty-four virtuosi, most from Josef Gungl’s orchestra, left Germany after the revolutions of 1848-1849, with utopian and transcendental expectations for a musical […]