By Robert Croan South Florida Symphony closed its summer chamber music series with two Central European works from the turn of the 19th to the 20th centuries --- one forward-looking, the other solidly in the Beethoven-Brahms tradition. It was a pleasant and brief evening that sent home the capacity audience in Fort Lauderdale’s Center for Spiritual Development [on July 24] … [Read more...]
Beautifully executed Bach, Dvořák wrap SFSO’s chamber summer
By Robert Croan I love Bach! Full disclosure. We don’t get enough Bach on the local music scene. Johann Sebastian Bach, who lived and worked in five German cities from 1685-1750, was to become the father of modern classical music. Without polemics or academics, his music set the rules and esthetic principles of the three centuries of Western music that followed him. … [Read more...]
Deft Mendelssohn, Ravel performances bring SFSO chamber season to delightful close
By Robert Croan South Florida Symphony’s Summer with the Symphony series --- one monthly chamber music concert in Miami and in Fort Lauderdale --- is the oasis in South Florida’s off-season classical music desert. Responding to this cultural void, an enthusiastic capacity audience filled the attractive auditorium of Fort Lauderdale’s Center for Spiritual development for … [Read more...]
Brilliant Fauré, Brahms performances at SFSO chamber opener
By Robert Croan The first-desk players of South Florida Symphony Orchestra are not an official ensemble, like, say, the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center or the Beaux Arts Trio. They get together each summer for a series of three modest monthly concerts — each performed in two South Florida venues — which provide some of the best classical music to be heard in this … [Read more...]