Emerson String Quartet reviewed by Boston Globe

Read Jeremy Eichler's review of Sunday afternoon's Celebrity Series concert by the Emerson String Quartet (login req'd), the ensemble's last in Boston with David Finckel in the cello chair.

David Finckel's Long Goodbye

Cellist David Finckel makes his last appearance in Boston with the Emerson String Quartet this Sunday. He has been doing some thinking as he makes other "final" appreances on his tour. Here is a sample:

"What am I really leaving? Is it three incredible colleagues, who have inspired, educated and supported me for three decades? Certainly yes, but what about that little roadside stand off the Taconic Parkway where every fall, on my way to South Mountain Concerts in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, I have bought tomatoes?"

Read all of The Long Goodbye

Pre & Reviews of Pacifica Quartet with Anthony McGill, clarinet

Previews:

Boston Globe (login req)

Reviews:

Boston Globe (login req)

Boston Musical Intelligencer

 

Clarinetist Anthony McGill demonstrates creating an embouchure & first note

Metropolitan Opera principal clarinetist Anthony McGill demonstrates creating an embouchure & first note. McGill performs a sold out Celebrity Series concert with the Pacifica Quartet at Pickman Hall at the Longy School of Music of Bard College on October 24. This video is part of series of shorts from MusicInReach.com.

 

Globe review of Finckel, Han, Setzer concert

Jeffrey Gantz reviewed Sunday's recital by cellist David Finckel, pianist Wu Han and violinist Phillip Setzer for today's Boston Globe. Read review here (login required).

Pieter Wispelwey recital reviewed in The Arts Fuse

Melanie O'Neill reviewed The February 3 recital by cellist Pieter Wispelwey and pianist Paolo Giacometti for The Arts Fuse. Read the review here.

Gustav Leonhardt (1928-2011)

Gustav Leonhardt

The renowned Dutch harpsichordist, organist and conductor Gustav Leonhardt has died at 83. A pioneer of period instrument performance, Leonhardt performed four harpsichord recitals on the Celebrity Series from 1978 to 1990. Reviewing for The Boston Globe in 1980, Richard Dyer said of one Celebrity Series Leonhardt recital, "... one listened not through the music to what it used to be, but to it for what it is."

New York Times obituary

The Telegraph (UK)

NPR (blog)

Radio Netherlands

Baltimore Sun

Limelight

 

Recent Celebrity Series reviews ...

November has been a busy month here at Celebrity Series world headquarters. Below are just a few of the reviews for just a few of the performances this month ...

Angelika Kirchschlager and Jean-Yves Thibaudet at NEC's Jordan Hall:

Boston Globe

Boston Classical Review

Orion String Quartet with David Shifrin
(performance included Boston premiere of Marc Neikrug's Clarinet Quintet)

The Classical Review

Bela Fleck and the Flecktones at Sanders Theatre:

Harvard Crimson

Itzhak Perlman at Symphony Hall:

Boston Globe

Boston Classical Review

Countertenor Andreas Scholl on his craft

An illuminating chat with countertenor Andreas Scholl about his art from the Barbicon. Scholl sings Purcell selections with the English Concert this Sunday, October 23 at NEC's Jordan Hall.

Boston Early Music Festival head gets Lifetime Achievement award

Congratulations to our friend Kathleen Fay. Early Music America has awarded Fay, the Executive Director of the Boston Early Music Festival, the Howard Mayer Brown award for lifetime achievement. The Boston Early Music Festival (BEMF) is considered one of the world's leading early music organizations and is a regular Celebrity Series presenting partner (including this season's presentation of The English Concert on October 23). Fay has been with BEMF since 1987.

Cellist Bernard Greenhouse (1916-2011)

The founding members of the Beaux Arts Trio:
(L to R) Isidore Cohen, violin, Menahem Pressler,
piano, Bernard Greenhouse, cello

Distinguished cellist and longtime Wellfleet, Mass. resident Bernard Greenhouse died May 13. Among many accomplishments and accolades, Mr. Greenhouse was a founding member of The Beaux Arts Trio, with whom he performed regularly from 1955 until his retirement in 1987.

Mr. Greenhouse made two appearances on the Celebrity Series. In 1968 he appeared with the Bach Aria Group (with soloists Samuel Baron, flute; Robert Bloom, oboe; Norman Farrow, bass-baritone; Maureen Forrester, alto; Richard Lewis, tenor; Lois Marshall, soprano; Oscar Shumsky, violin; and Paul Ulanowsky, piano). In 1971 he performed with the then Beaux Arts Trio of New York (Menahem Pressler, piano, Isidore Cohen, violin).

New York Times

Boston Globe

Telegraph (UK)

2009 interview with Bernard Greenhouse

Beaux Arts Trio performance (from Schubert Trio in B-flat)

Beaux Arts Trio performance (from Ravel Trio in A minor)

Bernard Greenhouse performing Song of the Birds at age 95 (Catalan folk song arranged by Pablo Casals)

 

Globe reviews Emerson Quartet with Sir James Galway

Matthew Guerrieri's review of Friday evening's concert by the Emerson String Quartet and Sir James Galway (brought to you by your friendly neighborhood Celebrity Series) appeared in today's Boston Globe. Here is a bit of Mr. Geurrieri's take:

"Most concerts are curated with the aim of an e-pluribus-unum revelation of unexpected affinities. The Emerson String Quartet and Sir James Galway flipped the pattern for their star-summit Celebrity Series program on Friday; one could surmise logical connections, but the experience was more high-minded variety show — swinging from light to dark, from cheer to tragedy and back again."

Read all of Galway's flute and Emerson's strings combine for quite a show.

Lloyd Schwartz reviews Takacs Quartet and Dmitri Hvorostovsky

Dmitri Hvorostovsky

Boston Phoenix classical music critic Lloyd Schwartz puts two recent Celebrity Series performances, the Takacs Quartet's February 18 concert and baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky's February 27 recital, under his usual thoughtful microscope in today's column:

Lloyd Schwartz's March 3 column

Boston Globe review of violinist Bell

Matthew Guerrieri reviewed Friday evening's Celebrity Series concert by Joshua Bell at Symphony Hall. Here's a snippet:

"Bell has always exemplified old-school Romantic virtues, technically accomplished and emotionally flamboyant. If anything, his technique has only gotten better; his bowing, in particular, was a paragon, exceptionally controlled across a range of styles."

Read all of With violinist Bell's aplomb, the bolder the music the better.

Matthew Guerrieri's review of Zukerman/Bronfman

Read Matthew Guerierri's Boston Globe review of Pinchas Zukerman and Yefim Bronfman's Symphony Hall recital: At Symphony Hall, a comfortable display of old-fashioned virtuosity.

Rudolf Barshai, conductor (1924-2010)

Rudolf Barshai

Russian conductor Rudolf Barshai died November 2 at 86. Noted as conductor and founder of the Moscow Chamber Orchestra and the founding violist of the renowned Borodin Quartet, Barshai was a student of Shostakovich and quite close to Prokofiev. As a member of the Borodin Quartet, he performed at the funerals of both Prokofiev and Josef Stalin, which took place on the same day.

Barshai conducted performances by the Moscow Chamber Orchestra on three occasions for the Celebrity Series, in 1963, '66, and '75. The performances included, in the 1966 concert, the Boston premiere of a joint "rearrangement" of Shostakovich's Tenth Quartet, renamed Chamber Symphony, undertaken by composer and conductor.

The Globe and Mail

BBC News

Telegraph (UK)

The Vancouver Sun

The Guardian (UK)

German interview with Rudolf Barshai (captioned) part 1

German interview with Rudolf Barshai (captioned) part 2

German interview with Rudolf Barshai (captioned) part 3

Joshua Bell announces recital program

Violinist Joshua Bell has announced the program for his February 4 recital program at Symphony Hall. Joing Bell on piano will be Sam Haywood. You can check out the program here.

The Claremont Trio playing DBR's "Volvic Maritum"

Here they are performing a work by another Celebrity Series artist, Daniel Bernard Roumain (always nice to see that sort of thing), but the Claremont Trio will join Rob Kapilow for a What Makes It Great? outing examining Beethoven's "Archduke Trio" on November 7

.

Australian conductor Sir Charles Mackerras (1925-2010)

Sir Charles Mackerras

Conductor Sir Charles Mackerras has died in London of cancer at age 84. Mackerras, known for, among many achievements, as a champion of Leos Janacek and other Czech composers and an authority on the music of Mozart. Sir Charles, a native of Schenectady, New York who was raised in Australia, had many associations with English orchestras and opera companies, including conducting stints with Sadler’s Wells, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the
Sydney Symphony, the Welsh National Opera, the Scottish Chamber
Orchestra and the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.

Mackerras' lone appearance on the Celebrity Series came as conductor of the English Chamber Orchestra at Symphony Hall in November 1983. The program featured violin soloist Gidon Kremer and flute soloist William Bennett in a program of Rossini, Beethoven (Violin Concerto, Op. 61, D Major), Mozart (Flute Concerto No. 2, D Major) and Haydn. Richard Buell, reviewing for The Boston Globe, wrote of the concert, "Sir Charles Mackerras elicited spruce, alive, revealingly detailed performances of Rossini's L'Italiana in Algieri and Haydn's [Symphony No. 103, (Drum Roll)]."

New York Times (ArtsBeat)

The Sydney Morning Herald

The Australian

The Age

The Guardian (UK)

The Telegraph (UK)

BBC News

Reuters

Tribute to Sir Charles Mackerras (video)

UPDATES:

New York Times (Allan Kozinn)

Washington Post (Ann Midgette)

San Francisco Chronicle (Joshua Kosman)

Recent previews & reviews

We've fallen a little behind in our tracking of reviews and previews of our performances in the local press, so Aisle Be Seeing You will now fall back on lists of links to cover more ground. Don't worry, once we get our 2010-2011 subscription season launched, and once we're showered with enough compliments (and once we stop using the royal "we"), we'll pick up the delightfully informative and unrelenting narrative you all know and love. In the meantime, let's hear from the critical establishment:

Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater (April 15-18, Citi Wang Theatre)

Boston Globe/Boston.com

Boston Herald

Boston Phoenix

The Tufts Daily

Imani Winds with Stefon Harris (April 16, NEC's Jordan Hall)

Boston Globe/Boston.com (preview)

Maya Beiser, World to Come (April 23, Paramount Theatre)

Boston Globe/Boston.com (review)

Maurizio Pollini (April 25, Symphony Hall)
 
Boston Globe/Boston.com

The Boston Musical Intelligencer

The Boston Musical Intelligencer
(Thoughts on Hearing Maurizio Pollini's Hamburg Steinway Fabbrini in Concert)

Danish Dance Theater (April 27 & 28, Paramount Theatre)

Boston Globe/Boston.com