Reviews

Terrific Timbres

William Quillen - February 10, 2009

Così fan tutte is often described as an effervescent comedy, but beneath the froth is a deliciously dark and poignant vision of the human heart. There’s a happy ending in the 1790 Mozart–da Ponte dramma giocoso about a pair of besotted naval officers who enter into a wager to test the fidelity of their girlfriends.

Review

When the Audience is the Congregation

Anna Carol Dudley - February 10, 2009

Heinrich Schütz suggested that his Musikalische Exequien could be a substitute for a German mass. Warren Stewart has taken him at his word, incorporating the work into a full-length church service. Stewart’s Magnificat, complete with two organs, a continuo group, and eight singers (including a preacher and a deacon), performed the mass Saturday night at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Berkeley. The so-called audience served as congregation, joining in on some verses of the chorales.

Review

A Charming Tribute to Felix

Heuwell Tircuit - February 10, 2009

It was almost as if Herbst Theatre itself were smiling in delight Thursday as Nicholas McGegan and his Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra played a memorial tribute to Felix Mendelssohn’s bicentennial. The audience seemed even more delighted. Glancing up and down my aisle, I noted that every face had a broad expression of pure pleasure.

Review

Names to Remember

Michelle Dulak Thomson - February 10, 2009

The Bay Area is blessed with enough music-lovers and enough enterprising concert presenters that few musicians spend long at the top rank without swinging through here on some tour or other. Still, I suppose I’m not alone among SFCV readers in anticipating the appearance of musicians I’ve read about (or heard on record), but who’ve not yet performed here.

Review

Here Comes the Dawn

Thomas Busse - February 10, 2009

For the second time in a year, I have been fortunate enough to attend a chamber opera production superior to any work I have seen from the Bay Area’s smaller companies. The culprit was Composers Inc., a contemporary chamber music collective that expanded its forces last Wednesday to mount a staged chamber opera in San Francisco’s Herbst Theatre. On a diminutive budget, Composers Inc.

Review

A Glass-Full Tenor

Janos Gereben - February 3, 2009

On Sunday, at Alek Shrader's Schwabacher Debut Recital in Temple Emanu-El, presented by the San Francisco Opera, I was wondering about the tenor's response if Barbara Walters should ask him what kind of tree he would be. Not knowing the answer, I came up with a question to which the answer is obvious. What kind of drinking glass would Shrader be? Tall, clear, gracefully simple, and full.

Review

For Whom the Bell Tolls

David Bratman - February 3, 2009

The San Francisco Chamber Orchestra likes varied and unusual programs. Saturday's free concert at St. Mark's Church in Palo Alto was perhaps a little more unusual than most. The program, led by SFCO Music Director Benjamin Simon, featured two clarinet concertos and a handbell concerto, and the shortest piece was by Gustav Mahler, a composer not noted for brevity.

Review

Terrific Timbres

William Quillen - February 3, 2009

Conductor David Robertson returned to San Francisco last week to lead the San Francisco Symphony in performances of Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, and Scriabin. Robertson once again showed his uncanny ability to summon forth rapturous sounds from this ensemble. I first heard him conduct the SFS in a 2002 performance of Messiaen's Turangalîla Symphony, which counts as some of the most glorious — and certainly the loudest — orchestral playing I've ever heard.