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...]
SFSO piano trio gives rousing reading of late Schubert trio
By Robert Croan Franz Schubert’s two late-in-life piano trios, both composed in 1827, are among the most challenging works in the chamber music repertory. Profound and sprawling, each taking upwards of 45 minutes to perform, they embody the composer’s deepest, most heartfelt thoughts, in his most advanced compositional style. The second of three summer chamber music … [Read more...]
Kavakos stellar with PB Symphony; the mics, not so much
By Márcio Bezerra The Palm Beach Symphony continued its parade of world-class performers on Dec. 10 with Leonidas Kavakos performing the Violin Concerto by Johannes Brahms at the Kravis Center. It is truly remarkable that, since the arrival of conductor Gerard Schwarz, this “3.0” version of our local orchestra has been able to engage internationally acclaimed soloists … [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...]
Convivial, enthusiastic Mozart, Schumann enliven SFSO chamber evening
By Robert Croan With live classical music scarce at this time of year, South Florida Symphony Orchestra’s chamber music series in Miami and Fort Lauderdale has been a welcome addition to the cultural scene, as well as continuing evidence of the organization’s self-described commitment to community engagement. The third and final program (heard July 22 at Fort … [Read more...]
A fine night of clarinet quintets at CityPlace
The two canonical clarinet quintets, and there are really only two, attain that status at least in part because listening to them, one wonders why such a beautiful combination isn’t regularly attempted by composers everywhere. For now, no one’s done it better than Mozart in 1789 and Brahms in 1891, and it was their respective clarinet quintets that occupied a program of the … [Read more...]
PB Symphony inaugurates chamber music series with program of overlooked American master
Even if you’re a devotee of classical music, you might never have heard of William Grant Still. It was different in Still’s own day. Music historians have long called Still (1895-1978) the dean of African-American classical composers, and that came out of his prominence, which began in the 1920s when he made his initial name as an arranger for leading bands in the new … [Read more...]