To see Montserrat Figueras and Jordi Savall at the San Francisco airport - as I once did after they appeared at the Berkeley Early Music Festival - was to mistake them for a typical middle-aged hippie couple. Their hair was long and dark, clothes were casual and baggage was guitar cases. Typical, they were not. Together, they gave voice to distant centuries of music, from … [Read more...] about The other Montserrat, the alternative Kirkby and her dark musical reality
The Sibelius 8th: Can it be completed?
Legend has it that one of Jean Sibelius' favorite drinking games in his later years was to spend the evening with his buddies, prodigiously imbibing as only the Finns can, though ending the evening with one of them abruptly shut into a closet for 15 minutes or so. And then, from the other side of the door, the closeted partier was ordered to give the full names of the people … [Read more...] about The Sibelius 8th: Can it be completed?
The rhetoric of violinists past….
Unlike the protagonist of Woody Allen's "Midnight in Paris" film, classical music listeners don't need to wait for a mysterious car to pull up to take them to an earlier time. No, I'm not talking about how the great masterpieces take us back in time. They don't. They redefine our own time. But the actual sounds of decades past can be time travel indeed, but not just any of … [Read more...] about The rhetoric of violinists past….
Debbie Joy Voigt: La Fanciula del roulotte
In a year riddled with financial ills, the Philadelphia Orchestra's opening night had a near-death experience last week when a threatened Kimmel Center strike could've shut down the gala fundraiser and guest soloist Dawn Upshaw canceled due to a death in the family. However, the gala decamped to the University of Pennsylvania campus and Upshaw was replaced by Deborah Voigt, who … [Read more...] about Debbie Joy Voigt: La Fanciula del roulotte
From Domingo to Schwarzkopf: The fraught inner life of a singer
Stepping into the mind of a famous opera singer is almost certainly dangerous territory. What would you find there? Visions of an ideal performance? Shadows of less-perfect ones? Voodoo dolls representing artistic rivals? Crucified critics? Let's not even guess how Placido Domingo envisioned Washington Post critic Anne Midgette following her accusation that his conducting … [Read more...] about From Domingo to Schwarzkopf: The fraught inner life of a singer