Concerto

New Release: Lisa Batiashvili plays Tchaikovsky, Sibelius

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Georgian-born violinist Lisa Batiashvili’s newest album offers a surprisingly fresh take on two standard pillars of the violin repertoire- the Tchaikovsky and Sibelius Concertos. Batiashvili is joined by conductor Daniel Barenboim and the Staatskapelle Berlin on this Deutsche Grammophon recording. Batiashvili’s interpretation of the Tchaikovsky is full of fluid tempo changes. It’s generally more contemplative than the classic performances of Heifetz and Oistrakh. (For example, listen to the burning intensity just below the surface of the second movement’s hushed stillness or …

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New Release: Mitsuko Uchida Plays Mozart Piano Concertos 17, 25

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Pianist Mitsuko Uchida and the Cleveland Orchestra have released a new album featuring two Mozart Piano Concertos (No. 17 and 25). The performances were recorded live at Severance Hall last February. Over the past five years, Uchida and the Cleveland Orchestra have recorded select Mozart Piano Concertos on the Decca label. This is the fourth and final album in the series. (The first won a Grammy in 2011). Mitsuko Uchida recently offered this …

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Alisa Weilerstein’s Newest Album: Shostakovich Cello Concertos

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It’s always fascinating to consider musical lineage. Great musicians pass along ideas about a given piece to their students based on what they were taught. Eventually, the line runs back to the performer who premiered the music and worked directly with the composer. We get a sense of this lineage with Alisa Weilerstein’s new recording of Dmitri Shostakovich’s two Cello Concertos. Shostakovich wrote both concertos for Mstislav Rostropovich, with whom Weilerstein studied. She talks about …

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Brahms’ “Tiny” Second Piano Concerto

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I have written a tiny little piano concerto with a tiny little wisp of a scherzo. This is what Johannes Brahms wrote, jokingly, following the completion of his Second Piano Concerto in B-flat Major. In reality, he had composed one of the most monumental piano concertos ever imagined- a concerto set in four movements rather than the customary three, which unfolds as a virtual symphony for piano and orchestra instead of the …

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Five Great Perlman Recordings

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This weekend, Itzhak Perlman will join the Richmond Symphony for our season-opening Masterworks program. The Mendelssohn Violin Concerto is on the program for this already-sold-out concert. And unlike this recent BNY Mellon TV commercial, it’s safe to assume Rhea Perlman will not be attempting to fill in. (That’s the introduction of the Mendelssohn in the background of the commercial). Perlman is one of a handful of musicians who has achieved genuine celebrity status …

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Elgar’s Cello Concerto: Elegy for a Vanishing World

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The music of Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934) is often characterized as stately and regal- the musical embodiment of everything British. You can hear this in the majestically celebratory final moments of the Enigma Variations or the Imperial March, Op. 32, music written for the 1897 Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria. Both pieces propelled Elgar to fame. The stirring Pomp and Circumstance Military Marches provide a glimpse of the self assurance, order, and security of the British …

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Beethoven’s Wordless Recitatives

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Ludwig van Beethoven may not be the first composer who comes to mind when considering recitative- the sung dialogue that links arias and other musical numbers in an opera or oratorio. Beethoven wrote only one opera, Fidelio, which uses more spoken dialogue than recitative. He spent almost ten excruciating years revising the work, writing four different overtures, and enduring harsh criticism, until finding success with the final 1814 version. So it’s interesting that operatic …

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