| Date and venue | Title |
|---|---|
| 19-May-2013 Carnegie Hall: Stern Auditorium/Perelman Stage | The return of the maestro: James Levine and the MET Orchestra |
 With a gleaming, glistening chord of purest A major, the man New Yorkers love to call “the Maestro” returned to the concert stage. His last public performance was a Die Walküre in May 2011, one that took its searing emotional power by maintaining the constant impression that it was about to disintegrate musically, just as Wotan’s worlds fell apart on stage and the conductor’s body buckled. It was apt that it was Wagner with which the Maestro returned, in a shining evocation of the sacred land of the Holy Grail. With the prelude to Lohengrin, James Levine was back.
Read full review... | |
| 2-May-2013 Auckland Town Hall | Auckland Philharmonia's Last Songs a mixed bag |
 The Auckland Philharmonia and conductor Jun Märkl presented “Last Songs”, a programme of late works by Schubert, Richard Strauss and Zemlinsky. We opened with Zemlinsky’s Sinfonietta, a work much admired by Schoenberg and Berg. There is a spiky quality to the music that is reminiscent of Hindemith and Stravinsky, though notably less acerbic than either. One can perceive the influences of both Neoclassicism and jazz and the romantic lushness that is a characteristic of Zemlinsky’s earlier work emerges only briefly here.Read full review... | |
| 15-Feb-2013 Bridgewater Hall | Beethoven, Mozart and Schubert from the BBC Philharmonic |
 Chief conductor Juanjo Mena conducted a programme of energetic Beethoven and Schubert alongside an original reading of the Mozart Clarinet Concerto at Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall.
Read full review... | |
| 20-Apr-2012 Walt Disney Concert Hall | Goerne and Eschenbach Close Out Schubert Series with “Great” Finale |
 Disney Hall’s week-long tribute to the music of Franz Schubert came to a grand close last Friday. Or should that be “Great?” As in Schubert’s hour-long Symphony no. 9, also known as the “Great.” And great it certainly is: not merely in the symphony’s musical material, which is some of the finest ever crafted by this composer. But also great in its proportions. This is, after all, the symphony fêted—and gently tweaked—by Schumann for its “heavenly length.” Schubert out-Beethovening Beethoven; prefiguring the massive symphonic frescos of Anton Bruckner.Read full review... | |
