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John Harbison

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Baroque and beyond

Betting on the best this fall
Ten-best lists usually come at the end of the season, but this year the Phoenix has asked its critics to provide a calendar of 10 events that, at least on paper, might wind up on an end-of-season Top 10. Boston, in case you didn't know it, is a great city for classical music, so it's not easy to keep the list short. But here goes.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  September 14, 2009
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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
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Center of gravity

Shi-Yeon Sung and Nelson Freire at the BSO; plus the Schubertiade Music Players and Emmanuel's St. Matthew Passion
If all those young people at last Thursday's BSO concert didn't leave Symphony Hall feeling excited about classical music and eager to come back, then classical music is in even more trouble than I thought.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  April 14, 2009
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Mad love

John Harbison's Winter's Tale, Dvorák's Rusalka, Hans Graf with the BSO, Mark Morris's music
The destructive power of jealousy makes a good subject for opera.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  March 24, 2009
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Contertizing

From Don Giovanni’s hell to Haydn’s Creation
Boston Lyric Opera follows up Dvorák’s moonstruck Rusalka, with Christopher Schaldebrand in the title role of Mozart’s Don Giovanni, the BSO and much more.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  March 20, 2009
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Anniversaries and other occasions

Masur's Mendelssohn, Orfeos from Norrington and Levine, the Discovery Ensemble, and the Inauguration 'performance'
Anniversaries, however fabricated, can still be useful. This year commemorates the 200th birthday of Felix Mendelssohn, the 150th birthday of Victor Herbert (both recently celebrated with intensive "orgies" on WHRB), the 200th anniversary of Haydn's death, and the 250th anniversary of Handel's death.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  January 27, 2009
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Lift every voice!

Classical goodies for 2009
Opera is the big word for 2009.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  December 30, 2008
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Year in Classical: Celebrate!

Comings and goings
In Handel's Hercules, the demented Dejanira's loss is still so painful, I was afraid to listen; now I don't want to hear anything else.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  December 22, 2008
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It’s about time . . .

The Ditson Festival of Contemporary Music starts in Boston
It’s been 17 years since Boston’s last local festival of contemporary music, the New Music Harvest organized by composer Charles Fussell: 19 programs (several free), a celebration of composer Ned Rorem, an opera production performed by BU students, and the participation of the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  September 25, 2008
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Epic undertaking

Berlioz’s Les Troyens at the BSO; Opera Boston attempts Verdi’s Ernani
The act four sequence of quintet, septet, and love duet is non-stop musical orgasm.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  May 12, 2008
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Orpheus in the afterworld

Harbison and Mahler at the BSO, and the return of Dubravka Tomsic
Tomsic’s last Boston recital was four years ago. We can’t afford to be without her this long.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  April 22, 2008
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All over again

Brahms from Levine and Kissin, Emmanuel’s Bach B-minor Mass, the Cantata Singers’ Kurt Weill cabaret
The Boston Symphony Orchestra program for last week’s four concerts was a familiar one.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  April 15, 2008
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Great gifts

Julian Kuerti leads the BSO and Leon Fleisher, Stockhausen’s Mantra at Harvard, Emmanuel’s St. John Passion
Knussen’s interludes, barely seven minutes, are a complex but attractive mix of the seductively creepy and the intricately lively.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  March 12, 2008
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Singers’ delight

Spring Arts Preview: Opera and vocal works lead the season
The season may be starting to wind down, but there remain some events music lovers have been waiting for all year.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  March 10, 2008
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‘A miracle!’

Emmanuel’s memorial for Craig Smith, plus Russell Sherman’s Bach, the Royal Concertgebouw, and Handel’s Semele
“Deep, tough, devout — and in church! It’s a miracle!”
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  February 05, 2008
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Country for old men

Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius, BMOP, Marc-André Hamelin, and Sasha Cooke
A youthful 80-year-old Sir Colin Davis was back in front of the Boston Symphony Orchestra last weekend with one of the pieces he loves most.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  January 29, 2008
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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
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Craig Smith (1947–2007)

Boston loses a beloved musician
For more than 30 years, Emmanuel Music has been central to the cultural life of Boston.
By EDITORIAL  |  November 19, 2007
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What’s in a phrase?

The Cantata Singers’ season finale; Leon Fleisher and the Emerson String Quartet
There are lots of references to heaven in Bach’s Passions and cantatas, but one of his most heavenly pieces has no words at all.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  May 22, 2007
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Erwartung . . .

Classical goodies for 2007
BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA music director James Levine will be back in February to continue his survey of Beethoven and Schoenberg with Metropolitan Opera diva Deborah Voigt in Beethoven’s “Ah! perfido” and Schoenberg’s Erwartung (“Awaiting”), along with Beethoven’s Coriolan Overture and Eighth Symphony (Symphony Hall, February 1-3).
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  December 28, 2006
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The best of times, the worst of times

A year in classical
This year Boston classical music lost some of its most beloved figures — some, like mezzo-soprano Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, at the very height of their extraordinary powers, others, like opera director Sarah Caldwell and her conductor/collaborator, Osbourne McConathy, after long and gratifying runs.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  December 20, 2006
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Winter harvest

Emmanuel’s memorial to Lorraine Hunt Lieberson; Angelika Kirchschlager at Jordan Hall; Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos and El Niño at the BSO
"I don’t want to be here,” soprano Susan Larson lamented in her moving eulogy to her old friend and colleague Lorraine Hunt Lieberson.  
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  December 12, 2006
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Marketplace and temple

The BSO’s opening night; Marcus Thompson and the Jupiter String Quartet
At times, this ‘American’ program, led by the BSO’s first American music director, bordered on being a Pops concert.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  October 03, 2006
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From Knoxville to Swan Lake and back

A chock-full season of classical music
As our most prestigious classical-music institution, the Boston Symphony Orchestra ought to be every year’s headliner, and once again, under the adventuresome direction of James Levine, it is.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  September 13, 2006
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Opera, opera, opera

At Santa Fe and Tanglewood and in New York
Every performance at Santa Fe was packed, and few subscribers left unhappy.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  August 15, 2006
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Lorraine Hunt Lieberson

1954–2006
We were very lucky, here in Boston, to have had so many chances to hear Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, who died in Santa Fe last Monday at the age of 52.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  July 11, 2006
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Some angels

Opera Unlimited does Tony Kushner, plus Elizabeth Keusch, Roger Tapping, Donal Fox, and John Harbison
Congratulations are again in order to Opera Unlimited, this time for bringing to Boston the American premiere of Peter Eötvös’s attempt to make an opera out of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America .
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  June 21, 2006
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Odds and endings

Russell Sherman, the Cantata Singers’ Belshazzar , and Dmitri Hvorostovsky  
The classical-music season is winding up without winding down.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  May 16, 2006
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Rewriting histories

Rennie Harris and Rebecca Rice
Family histories are inextricably political.
By DEBRA CASH  |  May 12, 2006
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Making it new

Ballet mécanique in Washington, the Callithumpians’ Xenakis, Mark Morris in New York and Boston, Yo-Yo Ma at the BSO, Harbison’s But Mary Stood
The avant-garde ain’t what it used to be.
By LLOYD SCHWARTZ  |  March 21, 2006

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