Lisa Hirsch

Lisa Hirsch is a Bay Area music writer. She studied music at Brandeis and Stony Brook and blogs about classical music and opera at Iron Tongue of Midnight.

Articles By This Author

adrianamater_wide.jpg
Review

Beating Hearts

Lisa Hirsch - July 29, 2008
War, violence, revenge, and parent-child relationships are evergreen subjects found at the heart of important operas from the earliest days of the form.

Those Shining Finns

Lisa Hirsch - June 24, 2008
The last quarter-century has seen musical talent bursting out of Finland, a country of only 5.3 million that, owing to ample public funding of music education, has produced a steady stream of great conductors, performers, and composers. Among the prominent composers are Aulis Sallinen, Kaija Saariaho, Esa-Pekka Salonen (who also conducts), and Magnus Lindberg.
poemeharmonique2_wide.jpg
Review

Seeing Music as Drama

Lisa Hirsch - June 10, 2008
The Berkeley Festival and Exhibition, held in alternate years, typically features at least one program that's as much theater as music. In past years, the early music extravaganza had the horse ballet "Le carousel du roi" and the "Carnaval Baroque".

Springing to Mind

Lisa Hirsch - May 20, 2008
Old First Concerts played host on Sunday to a varied and exhilarating program of chamber music by Stefano Scodanibbio, performed by sfSoundGroup and the composer himself.
Review

White-Hot, and New

Lisa Hirsch - February 12, 2008

Reputations are funny things. In the classical music world, technical virtuosity can lead to charges of superficiality or emotional coldness. Some listeners, especially opera fans of a particular ilk, prefer guts and heart to good intonation and steady tone. The great Jascha Heifetz had a reputation for playing with more technical perfection than musical soul; today, both Maurizio Pollini and the Emerson String Quartet have sometimes been labeled cold.

Warhorses at a Trot

Lisa Hirsch - February 5, 2008
Once upon a time, a symphony-goer would regularly find concerts on an orchestra's schedule consisting of an overture, a concerto, and a popular warhorse or two, light programs notable more for their entertainment value than substance.
pacificaquartet_wide.jpg
Review

A Musical Conversation

Lisa Hirsch - January 15, 2008

The Pacifica Quartet performed at Stanford Lively Arts on Wednesday, bringing with it a program of Beethoven, Carter, and Smetana. The program notes made much of the fact that the Beethoven (Op. 18, No. 2) and the Smetana (Quartet No. 1 in E Minor, "From My Life") were written when their composers were going deaf. Still, the works themselves, which respectively opened and closed the concert, don't have much in common.

Feature

The Best Performances of 2007

Lisa Hirsch - January 8, 2008
As we begin the new year, San Francisco Classical Voice takes a look back at the performances of 2007 that some of our reviewers most enjoyed. As with any such list, the choices are entirely subjective.

Letter From Los Angeles

Lisa Hirsch - November 6, 2007
When Jean Sibelius died in 1957, he had not completed a major work since the late 1920s. Nonetheless, his music dominated the Finnish musical scene until the coming of serialism and modernism around the time of his passing.
grantlee_wide.jpg
Review

Battle Hymn of a Divided Republic

Lisa Hirsch - October 9, 2007
Appomattox, Philip Glass' much-anticipated new opera, rolled into San Francisco on October 5 as part of a wave of premieres by the composer, who celebrated his 70th birthday earlier this year.