By Robert Croan South Florida Symphony Orchestra’s Summer with the Symphony, a once-a-month series of three chamber music concerts — each in Miami and then Fort Lauderdale — is an oasis in the off-season desert for classical music lovers. It was therefore heartening to see that the concert I attended May 23 in Fort Lauderdale’s Center for Spiritual Living attracted a … [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...]
SFSO quintet offers knockout readings of Dvořák, Schumann
By Robert Croan FORT LAUDERDALE — The South Florida Symphony is providing a real service to the local community with its summer chamber music series, showcasing this orchestra’s excellent first-desk players in three monthly concerts in Miami and Fort Lauderdale. The second of this year’s programs [seen June 16 in Fort Lauderdale’s Center for Spiritual Living] offered two … [Read more...]
St. Petersburg Piano Quartet ends Flagler season with assured Mozart, Brahms
By Dennis D. Rooney Mozart may not have written the very first piano quartet, being preceded in a way by J. C. Bach, Schobert and others, but he definitely was the first to write piano quartets in which all the voices are equal, and the indicated keyboard instrument is a pianoforte in the modern sense. In 1785, Mozart received a commission from the Viennese publisher … [Read more...]
Classical notes: The comeback orchestra; Casals Istomin in Palm Beach
In all the election turmoil over the past year, it might have escaped general notice that an orchestra that had almost been given up for lost only three years ago has recovered in award-winning form. It’s been three years to the month since the 16-month musicians’ lockout of the Minnesota Orchestra ended, an experience that left that arts-loving community reeling but that … [Read more...]