Dmitri Shostakovich

Latest Articles

All you need is love

Marylou Speaker Churchill memorial, Emmanuel Music’s Haydn/Schoenberg, and more
Outpourings of love have been flooding the Boston musical scene.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | April 21, 2010

The BSO without Levine, Yo-Yo Ma, the Cantata Singers, American Classics, the Zerounian Ensemble
This week’s health headlines also included the announcement from the Boston Symphony Orchestra that music director James Levine has been sidelined again, from the “excruciating pain” he’s been suffering since his surgery for a herniated disc.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | April 29, 2010

2009: The year in Classical

Beating the quease
This was a queasy year for classical music.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | January 04, 2010

Wanting more

The Borromeo and Emerson String Quartets, Dohnányi with the BSO, and Yiddish operetta at Harvard
After its triumphant traversal of the complete Béla Bartók string quartets at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, the Borromeo Quartet was back for a free 20th- and 21st-century program at Jordan Hall, leading off with an accomplished recent piece by the 24-year-old Egyptian composer Mohammed Fairuz, Lamentation and Satire.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | December 16, 2009

Mixed media

Ran Blake's Pawnbroker, Sofia Koutsovitis's pan-American roots
Film noir has been a running theme in composer/pianist Ran Blake's work since the beginning of his career — his very first album, The Newest Sound Around (RCA, 1962), with singer Jeanne Lee, began with David Raskin's theme to Otto Preminger's Laura .
By JON GARELICK | November 18, 2009

In the swim

Guerilla Opera, von Stade’s farewell, the BSO, Handel and Haydn, the BPO, and that Tosca
My head’s swimming.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | October 14, 2009

Providence Fall Preview Listings 2009

Music, theater, art, festivals and more in the coming months
A page of listings for local music, theater, art, festivals and more this fall.
By PHOENIX STAFF | September 17, 2009

Midsummer madness

Mark Morris, Yo-Yo Ma, and the Festival of Contemporary Music at Tanglewood, Mozart in Boston, Meyerbeer at Bard
After a relatively quiet summer, I saw Boston Midsummer Opera's Cosí fan tutte at BU's Tsai Center. Then I raced out to Tanglewood for a Mark Morris program accompanied by Yo-Yo Ma and Emanuel Ax, a BSO matinee with Ma, and all six concerts in the annual Festival of Contemporary Music.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | September 29, 2009

Dancing in a new direction

Notes from 'Ballets Russes 2009'
The 100th birthday of Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes prompted the expected centennial tributes in Boston: a "Diaghilev's Ballets Russes 1909–1929: Twenty Years That Changed the World of Art" symposium and exhibition at Harvard University in April, and a "Ballets Russes 2009" festival this month.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | January 14, 2010

Here comes the bride

Opera Boston's Smetana, the BSO's Berlioz, and Dawn Upshaw
It's been a long time since Bostonians had the chance to see the most popular Czech opera, Bedrich Smetana's The Bartered Bride , but Opera Boston followed its electrifying run of Shostakovich's The Nose with this tuneful folk opera and gave it a sweet and very likable production.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | May 12, 2009

A little history

Yehudi Wyner and John Harbison, Susanna Mälkki with the BSO, Natalia Gutman with the BPO, and BLO's Don Giovanni
Two of Boston's most admired and honored composers (both Pulitzer winners) have just celebrated landmark birthdays: Yehudi Wyner his 80th and John Harbison his 70th.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | April 28, 2009

Home cooking

The National Philharmonic of Russia at Symphony Hall
If the name "National Philharmonic of Russia" puts you in mind of some provincial Slavic ensemble making the American rounds, you're not alone.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | April 23, 2009

Schnozzola!

Opera Boston doesn't blow The Nose — plus Yannick Nézet-Séguin's BSO debut and the return of Lang Lang
By the time you read this, you've either seen or missed one of Boston's most exciting opera productions, Opera Boston's brilliant version of Shostakovich's The Nose .
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | March 05, 2009

Beloved of God

Levine's Mozart with the BSO, plus Gabriela Montero and Benjamin Zander with the Boston Philharmonic
One of my most profound musical experiences took place when I was still a graduate student.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | February 26, 2009

Yes you can!

Stay tuned
Upcoming opera, chamber, and new-music performances in the Boston area
By SARA FAITH ALTERMAN | January 23, 2009

Lift every voice!

Classical goodies for 2009
Opera is the big word for 2009.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | December 30, 2008

Elegy of Life. Rostropovich. Visnevskaya

A great and lasting love story
Sokurov makes his position clear: these are true Russian patriots.
By GERALD PEARY | August 13, 2008

Prodigies old and new

Tharp’s Rabbit and Rogue at ABT, Ratmansky and Robbins at NYCB
Tharp’s dances almost invariably have a euphoric effect on their first audiences, even when they miss their mark and don’t hold up over the long run.
By MARCIA B. SIEGEL | June 10, 2008

Is there a pianist in the house?

A last-minute Emperor at the BSO, Gatti and Ohlsson, BLO’s Elisir, and Brahms meets Weill with the Cantata Singers
Moved and excited by pianist Leon Fleisher in Beethoven’s Emperor Concerto with the Boston Symphony, I wanted to hear it again.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | March 18, 2008

Russians on the run

Benjamin Zander and the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra at Sanders Theatre, February 24, 2008
Zander balanced the pathos and the passion here the way you have to balance the rose and the distaff/thorn in The Sleeping Beauty , and that was no small thing.
By JEFFREY GANTZ | February 26, 2008

Unembarrassed riches

Dutoit and Elder at the BSO, Collage’s Berio, Boston Conservatory’s Turn of the Screw, and Kurt Weill at the Gardner and the MFA
Some weeks Boston has such musical riches, one wouldn’t want to be anywhere else.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | February 21, 2008

Too much too soon?

Classical goodies for 2008
Two of the most exciting concerts announced for this winter are on the same date, February 24.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | January 31, 2008

Love and loss

Classical: 2007 in review
Boston’s biggest classical-music story this year was also its saddest.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | December 18, 2007

Hail and farewell

The Berlin Philharmonic’s Mahler, the St. Lawrence String Quartet, and the BSO’s Smetana
The season’s most eagerly awaited (and, with its $187 top ticket price, most expensive) classical concert was not a disappointment.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | November 27, 2007

Super abundance

Gustavo Dudamel and the Simón Bolívar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela; James Levine’s Berg and Mahler; Measha Brueggergosman at Jordan Hall
“Something absolutely extraordinary is happening in Venezuela,” announced Tony Woodcock.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ | November 13, 2007