Latest

2020

HHA
Howard Hanson (1896-1981)

A Crop of Recordings XXXI: Piston, Gould, Hanson, Roussel, Dukas, Strauss, Liszt. Beethoven…and Knecht!

July 12, 2020Steven Kruger

From my own perspective as a lover of Howard Hanson’s music, the best here comes last. His Fourth Symphony is subtitled “The Requiem” and was composed as a memorial to Hanson’s father. Its four movements correspond to sections of the traditional Latin mass. It was Hanson’s favorite among his symphonies, and while the melodies may not be as immediately committed to memory as those of the “Nordic” and “Romantic," the glowing consecrational quality of the work, its beautiful flow and reverential beauty, full of life and never morose, is hard to surpass in American music. The piece fades away in lovely nostalgia. Clearly Hanson knew the Vaughan Williams Fifth Symphony. Like Vaughan Williams, Hanson’s music has the ability to make sadness cozy and comforting. To his credit, Kalmar turns out here a performance finer than Gerard Schwarz’s heavy-handed take with the Seattle Symphony. It’s as good as the composer’s own, and in far better sound. I vote this release a prize of my own!
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New York Arts

CANCELLED! “Transfiguration” goes to London. United Solo London postponed until the autumn of 2021.

June 16, 2020The Editor

Meet Ralph Belard. You'll find Ralph lunching on sushi and sake—all deluxe—at his favorite harborside restaurant. His neighbors were shooting each other dead in the street this morning. He kept his cool and his life, but a guy has to move on, doesn't he? He might even deserve a little treat, just to help him get over it. Ralph never learned what made them do it. He didn't care anyway. He watched a woman and her children die. He killed a couple of men in self-defense, and he enjoyed it. Also a cat—by accident.
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New York Arts

Our Time, a Collage of Records from Williams, a 90th Birthday Tribute to Stephen Sondheim (’50) at Williams College – a Review

March 27, 2020Michael Miller

In considering how to approach this review of Our Time, a Collage of Records from Williams, directed by Omar Sangare, Professor of Theatre, I came to the conclusion that it was imperative to concentrate not only on the title of the production, which seems neutral enough at first glance, but how it was described in the official announcement. As a co-production of the Williams Theatre Department and “Sondheim@90@Williams,” to honor the 90th birthday of Stephen Sondheim as an illustrious member of Williams Class of 1950[1. for which the Williams Music Department also organized a day-and-a-half symposium about the composer and his work], Our Time was presented “in celebration” of this birthday. That final phrase might lead us to expect a revue of Mr. Sondheim’s most-loved tunes with a new, student-generated book encasing them, but Our Time was nothing of the sort.
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Theater
Our Time, a Collage of Records from Williams, a 90th Birthday Tribute to Stephen Sondheim ('50) at Williams College

Our Time, a Collage of Records from Williams, a 90th Birthday Tribute to Stephen Sondheim (’50) at Williams College – a Review

March 27, 2020Michael Miller

In considering how to approach this review of Our Time, a Collage of Records from Williams, directed by Omar Sangare, Professor of Theatre, I came to the conclusion that it was imperative to concentrate not only on the title of the production, which seems neutral enough at first glance, but how it was described in the official announcement. As a co-production of the Williams Theatre Department and “Sondheim@90@Williams,” to honor the 90th birthday of Stephen Sondheim as an illustrious member of Williams Class of 1950[1. for which the Williams Music Department also organized a day-and-a-half symposium about the composer and his work], Our Time was presented “in celebration” of this birthday. That final phrase might lead us to expect a revue of Mr. Sondheim’s most-loved tunes with a new, student-generated book encasing them, but Our Time was nothing of the sort.
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New York Arts

Happy Birthday, Stephen Sondheim! …from his alma mater, Williams College

March 22, 2020Michael Miller

Stephen Sondheim turns 90 today. His alma mater, Williams College, chose to honor her renowned alumnus with a musical production entitled Our Time, a Collage of Records from Williams, which brings life at the college between 1946-1950 (when Sondheim was a student there) back to life. This compilation of stories, devised Ilya Khodosh, '08, and Omar Sangare, has been chosen by current students; who, by research, selected stories to share from the stage. At the end of the show, there is also a story delivered by a video message by Stephen Sondheim, himself. Only two of the five scheduled performances took place before the spread of the Corona virus necessitated the cancellation of further performances. Happily, they were recorded on video, and Williams can now honor its son and audiences can enjoy this musical reminiscence.
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HHA
Florent Schmitt

Florent Schmitt’s “Légende” and “Oriane et le Prince d’Amour” with Debussy and Rachmaninoff—the Buffalo Philharmonic under JoAnn Falletta

March 18, 2020Steven Kruger

There's something about Buffalo that is forever and wonderfully 1940. The city admittedly went through a difficult patch in the last decades of the century, before emerging today prosperous and half the size it was. From an artistic perspective, though, this may not be all bad. Buffalo escaped most of the Pizza Hut architecture and cereal box skyscrapers which typically afflict American cities. Today, great colonnaded turn-of-the-century hotels, banks and office buildings still reflect iconic dignity and Dreiserian business energy upon a downtown more formal and stylistically unified than most. When it comes to its resident orchestra, the Buffalo Philharmonic similarly avoided an onslaught of concrete, continuing to perform in Kleinhans Music Hall, designed by the Saarinens (father Eliel and son Eero) in 1940 and declared a national landmark in 1989.
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