A milestone in contemporary opera – John Adams conducts Girls of the Golden West with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, featuring a stupendous cast

John Adams on the podium. © Riccardo Musacchio To those who might have wondered what it would have been like to take notes from a musical conversation between Mozart, Berlioz, the Gershwins, Duke Ellington and Leonard Bernstein, John Adams’s gripping Gold Rush opera Girls of the Golden West (2015-17/2022) provides the most splendid answer. Given...

From symphonic Beethoven to John Williams world premiere with Emanuel Ax, Leonidas Kavakos and Yo-Yo Ma

Partnership in Beethoven: Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax and Leonidas Kavakos Joined onstage at Walt Disney Concert Hall for Saturday afternoon’s Colburn Celebrity Recital, pianist Emanuel Ax, violinist Leondas Kavakos and cellist Yo-Yo Ma took the almost sold-out house on a veritable joyride through the Ludwig van Beethoven realm with their invigorating performances of two of...

From Rachmaninoff to Tarkiainen with Kirill Gerstein, the FRSO and Nicholas Collon

Kirill Gerstein, the FRSO and Nicholas Collon onstage at Helsinki Music Centre after Rachmanioff Third Piano Concerto on Wednesday. © Jari Kallio In this week’s concerts, the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra and Chief Conductor Nicholas Collon introduced their in-hall and online audiences to two of the season’s key composers, that is to say Sergei Rachamaninoff,...

Salonen’s scintillating Organ Concerto comes to life in Berlin

Esa-Pekka Salonen and Olivier Latry onstage with Berliner Philharmoniker after the German premiere of Salonen's Sinfonia Concertante for Organ and Orchestra (2020-22) on Thursday. © Stephan Rabold Joined by Composer-in-Residence Esa-Pekka Salonen on the podium, the full line-up of the Berliner Philharmoniker was gathered onstage at the Philharmonie on Thursday, to deliver a ravishing outing...

Top albums of 2022: Bruckner 4 according to LSO and Rattle

As judged by his contemporaries, Anton Bruckner the symphonist hardly received unanimous praise. Some success notwithstanding, the composer spent most of his life treading an uphill road towards the symphonic pantheon. In hindsight, his oeuvre stands out as a striking cycle of works-in-progress, out of which dazzling symphonic metamorphoses may be dissected. Thanks to their...

From film cues to symphonic statements – Joe Hisaishi conducts the Helsinki Philharmonic

Joe Hisaishi portrait by © Omar Cruz Launching the musical year of 2023 in style, the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra teamed up with Joe Hisaishi for an uplifting Epiphany afternoon performance of the composer’s works for the screen and the concert hall alike. Like so many public events over the past couple of years, Hisaishi’s guest...

Top albums of 2022: Benet Casablancas’s L’Enigma di Lea given in its intriguing world premiere production

Released on video in its world premiere production by Naxos, Benet Casablancas’s first opera, L’Enigma di Lea (2016-18), is both a formidable piece of music theatre and a parable of the medium itself. Cast in three parts and fifteen scenes, the musical score is based on a libretto by Rafael Argullol, sung in Italian and...

The gospel according to Saariaho and Maalouf – Absorbing ritual of La Passion de Simone in Helsinki

Sayuri Araida, Isabelle Seleskovitch, Faustine de Monès, Marianne Seleskovitch, Johan Viau, Johannes Linneballe and Avanti! Chamber Orchestra performing La Passion de Simone under Clément Mao-Takacs in Helsinki. © Markku Pihlaja As the expression goes, good things come to those who wait. This was certainly true in Helsinki on Thursday and Friday evenings, as Kaija Saariaho’s...

Top albums of 2022: Tamara Stefanovich and Pierre-Laurent Aimard tackle Messiaen with immense depth and ecstasy

Composed in Paris in the midst of the German Occupation in the winter of 1943, Olivier Messiaen’s Visions de l’Amen for two pianos is to be counted among the most resplendent musical works that emerged out of the bleakness of the war years. Commissioned by Denise Tual for Concerts de la Pléiade and premiered by...

Top albums of 2022: Saluting the cinematic horn concerto – John Williams’s Always in pristine expanded edition from La-La Land

As appropriate for celebrating John Williams’s ninetieth birthday year, there has been numerous festivities around the globe, featuring the maestro himself guest-conducting orchestras from Cleveland to Milan, new film scores being recorded in the studio under his baton, as well as several album releases and re-releases, documenting the composer’s work for the screen and the...