2015 FREELANCE REVIEWS

Seattle Symphony with Thomas Dausgaard, “Mahler Ten,” Benaroya Hall, Seattle, November 19, 2015.

By Melinda Bargreen

The current Seattle Symphony program is slightly shorter than the average concert in Benaroya Hall – but you’re definitely unlikely to feel shortchanged. Not after hearing the cataclysmic, overwhelming, and powerfully mystifying Mahler Tenth Symphony with Thomas Dausgaard on the podium.

Thursday’s concert, dedicated to the victims of last week’s terrorist attacks in Paris and Beirut, rolled out the five movements of Mahler’s final and unfinished opus (completed some half-century after the composer’s 1911 death by British scholar Deryck Cooke, who later refined and revised the score further). Traversing those five movements is a remarkable journey for both the performers and the audience.

Is the Tenth the final gasp of the traditional symphonic form, or the dawn of something quite new? Do the shocking “death blows” from the bass drum herald Mahler’s own imminent death, or the unraveling of his marriage, or merely a particularly dramatic way of shifting gears to move into the symphony’s finale?

Like so much about the Tenth Symphony, the answers are unknowable. But what we do know is that this vast and sprawling symphony is a treasure trove of gorgeous, troubling, challenging music – and that it requires both musical intelligence and consummate skill to perform it. Steering a course through dulcet viola themes to bucolic waltzes, piercing brass interludes, nightmarish chords, and the sudden refinement of melody into a tiny thread of sound in the principal cello; all these require a steady hand and a sure grasp of the score. Dausgaard possesses both, along with the skill to communicate his vision to the players and to the audience.

Leaning beseechingly into the violin section, his hands extended as if to pull the sound he wants out of the instruments, Dausgaard is a compelling communicator. He seldom glanced at the score; his level of mastery of the Tenth is impressive indeed. The musicians rallied mightily for him, playing with a level of inspiration that made the most of Mahler’s beautiful but difficult solos and ensemble episodes. Certainly there were imperfect moments when execution fell short of intention, but on the whole, the principals deserved their hearty applause.

When the last chord was followed by the full ten seconds of silence indicated by Dausgaard, the applause began.

From the orchestra.

For the conductor.

And yes, the musicians’ applause was for each other, too – in clear recognition of how challenging this music is, and how the Seattle Symphony had risen to that challenge together. The audience ovation left no doubt that this recognition was shared.

It was impossible to be in the house and not realize that something rare and significant had taken place. Don’t miss your chance to join in; the opportunity to hear the Tenth live, and at this level of quality, is not a chance to be missed.

Seattle Symphony with Thomas Dausgaard, guest conductor, and Henning Kraggerud, violin soloist; Benaroya Hall, November 12, 2015

By Melinda Bargreen

Some of the most delightful concert moments occur in the encores – where spontaneity and surprises overrule the strictures of the printed program.

That was the case on Thursday evening, when the first of two concerts brought the Norwegian violinist Henning Kraggerud to the Seattle Symphony stage for the Bruch Violin Concerto No. 1. With the orchestra’s dynamic principal guest conductor Thomas Dausgaard on the podium, Kraggerud gave a noble and technically assured account of the Bruch, though for this listener his vibrato was sometimes a bit forceful and unvaried.

A multi-talented musician, Kraggerud is also a conductor, an artistic administrator (co-director of the highly regarded Risør Festival), a violin professor, a jazz artist, and a composer. Thus it was no surprise to learn that Kraggerud chose one of his own pieces as an encore, following an ovation from Thursday night’s Seattle audience for his concerto performance. The encore was a sparkling, folk-influenced violin-cello duo called “Variation Suite,” performed with the Symphony’s principal cellist, Efe Baltacigil. The two players clicked as if they had been rehearsing together for months, not hours, and were ready to take the duo on the road. Members of the audience roared their approval of the encore, and headed out for the intermission still wearing appreciative smiles.

It’s great to have Dausgaard back in town. Watching him work with the orchestra is a revelation: first of all, he didn’t use a score in either of the orchestra-only works on the program. (Few conductors will eschew a score in a concerto for safety’s sake, and Dausgaard had the Bruch Concerto on his music stand, though he seldom glanced at it.) The opener, Strauss’ boisterous and complicated “Till Eulenspiegel,” was a riot of colors and textures, all of them clearly elucidated by the conductor. The musicians don’t have to wonder what Dausgaard wants; he demonstrates every phrase, every direction in the music, with some of the most expressive body language of any conductor working today. The players outdid themselves for him, producing exceptionally fine solo work and taut, energetic ensembles full of spirit and wit.

The Nielsen symphony, a heroic four-movement work composed during the tumult of World War I, is performed as an uninterrupted whole – a kaleidoscope of musical expression, from foreboding and funereal to pastoral to triumphant. Dausgaard underscored the drama in the mighty outbursts from nearly every section; elegant descending passages in thirds, broad unison statements, mysteriously hushed string passages, and a blazing finale. Extra firepower for that finale was provided by a second timpanist, who rose from the audience during the fourth movement and mounted stairs to the stage, where an extra set of kettledrums added to the heavy-artillery ambience of the symphony’s end.

The Nielsen is unabashedly tonal, full of brilliant solo opportunities, and sounding a ringing affirmation of the need for melody and harmony in a world at war. Composed in the two years following the 1913 premiere of Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring,” which sparked riots in the Paris streets and shoved the music world into a brand-new era, “The Inextinguishable” may be a throwback to another age. But, as Dausgaard and the SSO made clear, it’s also a spectacular piece that deserves this affectionate and powerful reconsideration.

Seattle Symphony Chamber Music Series: Bernstein & Shostakovich, with guest pianist Alexander Melnikov. Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya Hall; October 27, 2015.

By Melinda Bargreen

You don’t often get to hear these players as soloists; usually they are inside the Seattle Symphony, contributing to the orchestra’s overall sound. But the Symphony’s Chamber Series is a welcome reminder that talent in the orchestra is not the sole province of the first-chair players.

The most recent program in that series was a substantial concert of wide-ranging works: a trio by a teenaged Leonard Bernstein, a surprisingly jolly woodwind quintet by the usually thorny Elliott Carter; a Romanian-accented violin sonata by Georges Enescu; and Prokofiev’s tricky but lovely Sonata for Two Violins. The evening’s dessert was one of the undisputed masterworks of the chamber repertoire, the Shostakovich Op. 67 Piano Trio (No. 2), with the piano soloist from the recent Masterworks Series concerts (Feb. 21 and 25), Alexander Melnikov.

This big, varied lineup drew a good-sized and enthusiastic audience to Benaroya Hall’s smaller venue, the 540-seat Nordstrom Recital Hall. It’s easy to see why these programs prove popular: there is an up-close-and-personal aspect to chamber music, where the artistic capacity of the player can communicate more directly to the audience. In the case of the opening work on this program, Bernstein’s Piano Trio, violinist Cordula Merks and cellist Meeka Quan DiLorenzo found an immediate accord with guest pianist Jessica Choe. This trio was an adroit, tightly knit ensemble, equally effective in the jaunty skipping figures of the first movement and the witty surprise ending of the second.

Elliott Carter’s 1948 Woodwind Quintet, a complex and challenging piece that is both tricky and rather charming, interweaves the five instruments in complicated ways while keeping their voices quite distinct. The score sends all five instruments to extremes of their compass, but the performance made it all sound easy. Featured here were Zartouhi Dombourian-Eby (flute), Dan Williams (oboe), Laura DeLuca (clarinet), Jonathan Karschney (French horn), and Paul Rafanelli (bassoon), all of them excellent right down to the wry, understated finale.

The evening’s biggest surprise was the performance of Mikhail Shmidt, a member of the Symphony’s first violin section, in Enescu’s Violin Sonata No. 3 in A Minor (with pianist Oana Rusu Tomei). Played with a lot of freedom and the maximum passion, this sonata is a “dance in the popular Romanian character,” and the expressive Shmidt was dancing and stomping as well as playing – at some points, almost levitating off the ground. The gypsy melodies emerged expertly with soulful verve, and fine partnership from the pianist.

A late addition to the program was Prokofiev’s Sonata for Two Violins, with the excellent Merks joined by her violinist colleague Jeannie Wells Yablonsky. Well matched in terms of tone and style, the duo played the circling, arching lines of the sonata with considerable verve and expertise.

The program’s finale was the Shostakovich trio, a great piece and a perennial showstopper on chamber-festival programs around the world. The pianist and linchpin of the piece was Alexander Melnikov, a protégé of the great Sviatoslav Richter who went on to establish himself first as a competition winner in the early 1990s, then as a soloist and as an award-winning duo partner (with violinist Isabelle Faust). In the Shostakovich, Melnikov was a mighty presence at the keyboard, with well characterized and strongly accented passages that were sometimes achieved at the expense of strict accuracy: neighboring keys were occasionally struck along with the intended ones. Melnikov’s sonority in the big, bell-like chords of the third movement was particularly impressive; in the fourth movement, he lunged like a panther into the music, attacking the keyboard with highly expressive results.

Performing with Melnikov in the Shostakovich were two SSO players, violinist Artur Girsky and cellist Walter Gray. Both are good musicians who had trouble with the tricky, eerie sustained harmonics in crucial passages, particularly the one that opens the first movement. Pitch and tonal intensity wavered where they needed to be steadily sustained. The finale found all three players in fine form for an enthusiastic ovation.

Seattle Opera presents Bizet’s “The Pearl Fishers,” “October 17/18, 2015. 

By Melinda Bargreen

Companies that present Bizet’s early opera “The Pearl Fishers” have many options, but these fall mainly into three categories.

They can go all “high concept,” and stage the opera on one of the moons of Saturn, or in a luau in Maui, or amongst the Egyptian pyramids. They can present the opera as written, in a series of straightforward tableaux, and despite the beauty of the music, many in the audience will be asleep by intermission.

Or, they can do as Seattle Opera thankfully has done in its current production of “The Pearl Fishers”: stick to the score and the period staging, but add visual elements with so much beauty and vitality that the music is consistently enhanced by exciting theater and choreography. And it doesn’t hurt to line up a cast of first-rate singing actors who look great, and whose singing is admirably supported by the lyrical conductor Emmanuel Joel-Hornak and the shimmering textures of the orchestra.

Forget the clichés about portly, aged singers trying to act like youngsters: this is a cast of handsome men and beautiful women who know how to act, as well as how to deliver an aria.

The opening-night cast performing Saturday was headed by baritone Brett Polegato (Zurga) and tenor John Tessier (Nadir), two buddies who get the opera’s best tune (the duet “Au fond du temple saint”) but are in love with the same woman (the celestial soprano Maureen McKay). Polegato’s Zurga quickly became the opera’s most interesting character: richly sung, deeply conflicted by his forbidden love for Leila, the beautiful priestess who loves his friend. Tessier’s lyrical, soaring tenor was an excellent match for the delicacy and purity of McKay’s Leila.

On Sunday, Keith Phares and Anthony Kalil took over as Zurga and Nadir, with Elizabeth Zharoff as Leila. This trio was completely different from the opening-night cast, yet they also found their own balance: Zharoff was a more powerful and focused Leila, Kalil a lighter and more lyrical Nadir, and Phares a strong, conflicted Zurga.

Jonathan Lemaiu sang the role of the high priest Nourabad on Saturday; the alternate-cast featured Joo Won Kang.

“The Pearl Fishers” is an opera that needs a little help; the music is beautiful, but seldom really memorable. This production received a tremendous boost from the imaginative and colorful staging of director Andrew Sinclair. There wasn’t a static moment to be found: this was an opera constantly on the move, with one vividly presented scene after another.

Much of the acting was illuminated by the choreography of John Malashock, whose dance sequences ran the gamut from ethereal beauty to threatening, murderous mob scenes. The dancers, pliant and primitive and highly athletic, used long sticks and bright airborne ribbons to marvelously expressive effect. The entire troupe was excellent, but the three principals – Kyle Bernbach, Roxanne Foster, and Kyle Johnson – deserve an extra round of applause.

The brightly colored “exotic isle” sets looked as if they had come straight out of a Maurice Sendak storybook. Kudos to their designer, the British fashion icon Zandra Rhodes, whose fantasy costumes made you want to conduct a backstage raid for those brilliant saris and colorful fabrics. (Dame Zandra, equally colorful with her bright pink hair, was in the house on opening night.) The production was highlighted (and discreetly shaded) by the excellent lighting designer Ron Vodicka, whose sure sense of drama was a major contribution to the look of the show.

Seattle Symphony with pianist Lang Lang, Jakub Hrusa conducting; Benaroya Hall, October 11, 2015.

By Melinda Bargreen

It’s not often that any artist performs a two-concerto program with the Seattle Symphony – and when that artist is superstar pianist Lang Lang, you can expect a program of unusual interest. A rapt, near-capacity audience showed up to hear him play Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 in C Minor, and Edvard Grieg’s lone but perennially beloved Piano Concerto, with the Symphony and guest maestro Jakub Hrusa.

What we heard on Sunday was in many ways the new, improved Lang Lang: same unbelievable technique, but new levels of restraint and depth, alongside the violent explosions of keyboard fireworks that made him famous in the first place. With Hrusa’s quick reactions to the soloist’s every move, the orchestra not only kept up with this mercurial pianist but also supported him admirably.

Maybe Lang is growing up (he’s 33 now); maybe we’ve just gotten used to the flamboyant gestures and the keyboard choreography he employs. This time around, the waving of the hands and the conducting from the piano bench seemed less grandstanding, and more a way for the pianist to get inside the piece and to express his feelings about the music. In any case, Lang gave the Mozart concerto a particularly limpid approach, with phrasing so smooth that it reflected Mozart’s famous dictum that music should “flow like oil.”

Keyboard chords seemed to float as if emanating from a powder puff, instead of from fingers and hammers. At the solo beginning of the dulcet second movement (Larghetto), Lang’s hands hovered over the keys for several seconds before finally making gentle contact.

The Grieg Concerto, understandably, got a very different treatment, appropriate to the work’s surging romanticism and its large-scale, dramatic phrasing. Here Hrusa had to work hard to accompany a soloist who took off like a startled rabbit in one phrase, and slowed down another passage into an unexpectedly dreamy reverie. Lang is possibly the world’s champion at “fast and loud”; he demonstrated those propensities often in a performance that brought out all the dramatic possibilities of the score. But there also were meltingly lovely passages in which the keys were not so much struck as fondled, and the melodies for which Grieg is famous were delineated with care.

Hrusa and his players followed the soloist’s every change in direction, a feat that speaks volumes about the conductor’s control and his great ear. His podium performance underscored last week’s strong impression of his guest-conducting abilities in Seattle. 

Of course, there were two orchestral pieces on the program as well. The curtain raiser, Beethoven’s stormy “Coriolan” Overture, demonstrated that Hrusa is a master of the dramatic pause, as well as of Beethoven’s songlike lines. Selections from the colorful “Gli Uccelli” (“The Birds”) by that most pictorial of composers, Ottorino Respighi, opened the second half of the concert. With Hrusa on the podium, the orchestra seemed to have great fun with Respighi’s birdlike squawks and flutterings, emanating in fine style from the winds, strings, and percussion.

Seattle Symphony with violinist Vilde Frang, Jakub Hrusa conducting; Benaroya Hall, October 10, 2015.

By Melinda Bargreen

The top billing went to Strauss’ epic “Also Sprach Zarathustra.”

The scene-stealer of this Seattle Symphony Orchestra program, however, was the young Norwegian violinist Vilde Frang and her dazzling, impassioned reading of the thorny Britten Violin Concerto No. 1.

Looking as if she had just stepped out of a pre-Raphaelite painting, the soloist gave an utterly committed, finely nuanced performance that made it clear she owns this difficult, often fierce concerto. It was composed while Britten was still in his twenties, and it is like no other: how often do you have a violin concerto in which the initial motif is introduced by timpani, the trombones announce a new subject, and the soloist is backed by a full brass section?

You’d think the pure, sweet voice of Frang’s violin would have no chance, but guest conductor Jakub Hrusa made certain that the soloist was beautifully supported and never overshadowed. Partnering the quicksilver violinist must have been a challenging task as she made every phrase distinctively her own, with long, expertly-shaped lines that sank down to a whisper and roared again to life in spiky utterances.

Frang’s fingerwork and bowing were impressive throughout, most of all in the tricky extended harmonics in which the soloist teeters on the edge of control. On a technical level alone, her performance was jaw-dropping; what made it exceptional was the thought and the artistry that obviously had gone into shaping the nuances of every note.

Hrusa was a brilliant concerto partner, and the other two works on the program made it clear that this Czech-born maestro knows how to get fine performances from the orchestra. The opener, Dvorak’s “A Hero’s Song,” was replete with the lovely melodies and folkloric elements beloved of Hrusa’s countryman. The performance was precisely cued and vividly realized.

Hrusa drew particularly expressive solo work from the clarinets and the brass. At the end of the performance, the conductor responded to a warm ovation by raising Dvorak’s score aloft, as if to indicate that this is where the real credit lies.

The evening’s grand finale was Strauss’ “Zarathustra,” with the dramatic opening “Sunrise” motif that is among the world’s most recognizable themes. The three-note rising theme appears throughout the score, different each time, as if seen through a twisting kaleidoscope. Hrusa went for subtlety as well as majesty, letting the score wax and wane throughout its nine connected and colorful episodes, and expertly balancing the various instrumental choirs, underlain by the rumbly majesty of the hall’s Watjen Concert Organ (played by Joseph Adam).

Hrusa’s clear beat and impassioned energy seemed to inspire the players, from contrabassoonist Mike Gamburg to acting concertmaster Emma McGrath. This is a piece in which virtually every section in the orchestra has its spotlight, and most of them rallied for fine performances as Hrusa drew them out in turn before the anticlimactic, question-mark finale.

Seattle Symphony, Brahms and Strauss; with Ludovic Morlot conducting; Benaroya Hall, October 1, 2015.

By Melinda Bargreen

It’s the kind of symphony concert that leaps out of a brochure: a colorful virtuoso piece based on a famous novel, followed by one of the great symphonies of the standard repertoire.

Instead, this promising Seattle Symphony program drew the kind of audience you might expect at a festival of atonal music. Orchestra fans are missing a good bet here: Strauss’ dramatic tone poem “Don Quixote” and the third of Brahms’ four symphonies made for a tasty evening in Benaroya Hall. (In answer to a query about the relatively small house, the Symphony’s communications vice-president Rosalie Contreras observed last night that this month is traditionally challenging for orchestra ticket sales, and an occasional off night is part of the business.)

There are still two chances to catch this Strauss-Brahms program, which offers eloquent and expert solo work from the orchestra’s principal cello, Efe Baltacigil -- representing Don Quixote in his windmill-tilting and his mistaken attacks on a flock of sheep and a band of pilgrims. Baltacigil’s playing was remarkable for its warmth of tone, individuality of phrasing, and technical virtuosity.

With principal violist Susan Gulkis Assadi ably representing the Don’s admonitory sidekick Sancho Panza, and lots of spectacular woodwind solos, this orchestral showpiece got a vivid reading from Morlot and his players. Among the orchestral standouts: concertmaster Cordula Merks and principal oboe Mary Lynch, who went on to further successes in the Brahms.

The Brahms Third is a great piece that poses some interpretive challenges. Throughout the symphony, but most particularly in the first movement, long arpeggios flow successively up and down from one section to another. On Thursday evening these arpeggios were not as seamless as they should have been; they sounded like separate parts rather than a continuous flow.  By the time the third movement arrived, however, the playing was much more cohesive, and the “handing off” of musical lines from one section to another was graceful and effective.

The subtle clarinet solos, taken by guest principal Andre Dyachenko, were exceptionally good, as were Jeff Fair’s clarion horn solos.

Morlot struck a nice balance between the bombastic and the more gently lyrical in this romantic work, which ends on a more reflective note than the applause-generating grand finales of Brahms’ two earlier symphonies. The Third is described by one biographer as Brahms’ “most personal” symphony, and this thoughtful performance made the music sound personal indeed.

Seattle Symphony Opening Night Gala, with Ludovic Morlot, conductor; Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Kevin Ahfat, piano soloists. Benaroya Hall, September 19.

By Melinda Bargreen

Another opening, another show – but this year’s Seattle Symphony Opening Night concert on Saturday night was anything but business as usual.

Yes, there was the National Anthem, and some adroit pre-concert remarks by Symphony board chair Leslie Jackson Chihuly and music director Ludovic Morlot. And there was a typical gala program of assorted musical bonbons, including such familiar pieces as Copland’s beloved “Appalachian Spring.”

What made this year’s opening night special was the ivory factor: sizzling keyboard virtuosity from two exciting sources. First of these was Kevin Ahfat, the winner of the Seattle Symphony’s first international piano competition, which took place last week in a flurry of talent so remarkable that the judges awarded a first prize and two seconds (too close to call, the second prize was shared).

At the gala, first-prize winner Ahfat attacked the last movement of the challenging Barber Piano Concerto in a manner that left no question about his riveting presentation and technical finesse. In a city with a strong contingent of keyboard fans, it’s a coup to have a new competition that helps unveil piano talent of this inspiring level.

Even better news is the fact that pianist Jean-Yves Thibaudet, an unquestioned master at age 54 and the gala’s featured soloist, will also be the Seattle Symphony’s first artist in residence this season – with a performance lineup that includes a November 8 recital, several concerto appearances, and a chamber concert. (He also chaired the jury for last week’s piano competition.)

On Saturday evening, Thibaudet’s performance of the Saint-Saëns Piano Concerto No. 5 was a revelation for any music lover inclined to dismiss that composer as a second-rate master. The concerto, redolent of exotic themes and motifs, is dubbed “The Egyptian,” recalling the composer’s sojourn in Luxor. Thibaudet gave it a reading that was rich in detail: shimmering shades and textures, but plenty of fireworks in the dramatic octaves and virtuoso passagework. He’s a master colorist and a great communicator, able to reduce a large concert hall to an intimate chamber of intent listeners.

Morlot and his orchestra gave the soloist both support and flexibility, underscoring Thibaudet’s interpretation without overwhelming the solo line. At the concert’s end, Morlot brought back both Thibaudet and Ahfat for a crowd-pleasing encore, excerpts from Saint-Saëns’ “Carnival of the Animals” (including a jokey “Pianistes” that won both laughs and applause).

What a keyboard lineup awaits Seattle music lovers in the next few months at Benaroya Hall: in addition to Thibaudet, the list includes Lang Lang, Andras Schiff, Jon Nakamatsu, and Alexander Melnikov. You can bet there will be piano fans on hand to compare, contrast, argue -- and enjoy.

Seattle Opera presents “An American Dream,” world premiere, with music by Jack Perla and libretto by Jessica Murphy Moo; last Friday and Sunday, Marion Oliver McCaw Hall.

By Melinda Bargreen

An opera house became a war zone this past weekend, in Seattle Opera’s premiere performance of its commissioned one-act opera, “An American Dream.” Set in the Northwest in the aftermath of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the new opera was introduced through a myriad of pre- and post-performance historical information and experiences.

The McCaw Hall lobby was packed with displays, video, newspaper headlines, and wartime propaganda. Much of it was hard to watch, as audience members faced the extent of the anti-Japanese tide that led to the forced evacuation and internment of families like the one featured in the new opera.

Entering the theater, audience members lined up to be “processed” and issued identity cards by unsmiling security guards; other guards manned the exhibits inside. Operagoers could try out the uncomfortable cots in a mockup detention cell.

The experience continued on the stage, where three community members – Kay Sakai Nakao, Felix Narte Jr., and Lilly Kitamoto Kodama – introduced the opera’s themes by speaking eloquently about their wartime pasts.

Then the opera took over, with Judith Yan capably conducting a 15-piece chamber orchestra in Jack Perla’s score. Full of impressionist and minimalist impulses, with washes of color and repeated motoric elements, it sounded like a meeting of Debussy and Philip Glass. Jessica Murphy Moo’s heart-wrenching, poetic libretto got right to the point in an opening scene with a Japanese-American family hastily burning belongings in the hope of avoiding arrest.

Forced to leave their farm, the Kobayashis accept a fraction of its value from the new owner, an American veteran married to a German Jewish refugee who fears for her parents back home. We follow the course of the war through bits of historic radio broadcasts, setting the stage for the return to the farm of the Kobayashis’ daughter Setsuko.

The spare Robert Schaub set was illuminated early in the opera by swooping, swirling video by Robert Bonniol and Travis Mouffe, lighted by Connie Yun. (It would have been great to have considerably more video in subsequent scenes.)

The unquestioned star of the evening was Hae Ji Chang as the young Setsuko – impassioned, lyrical, and lovely of voice – though the other principals were also strong. Morgan Smith was a powerful Jim, opposite D’Ana Lombard’s impassioned Eva; Nina Yoshida Nelsen and Adam Lau were remarkably good as Setsuko’s parents. Peter Kazaras’ staging was direct and unfussy, clarifying the story line.

“An American Dream” is a gripping piece of musical theater, and in the program Seattle Opera announces the availability of this uniquely Northwest piece to tour in small venues throughout the community. It’s hard to think of a better way to teach local history.

Seattle Opera presents Verdi’s “Nabucco,” with Carlos Montanaro conducting; August 8- 22, Marion Oliver McCaw Hall, Seattle.

By Melinda Bargreen

It has taken Seattle Opera 50 years to produce Verdi’s “Nabucco,” and during those years, the audience demand has not been exactly deafening. On the plus side, this often-neglected early opera has some great tunes that hint at Verdi’s even greater works to come (like “Rigoletto,” “La Traviata,” and “Aida”). On the minus side is the plot, full of bizarrely abrupt reversals of fortune, over-the-top characters, and instantaneous religious conversions.

But few people attend opera for the plot; it’s the music and the musicians that make the difference. Here is where Seattle Opera’s “Nabucco” shines, with Carlos Montanaro presiding over an orchestra and cast that are almost uniformly excellent. They’re presented in a highly unusual setting, another company first: the stage has been extended forward over the orchestra pit, and the orchestra is onstage with the cast and chorus.

Sometimes this concept works – you can really hear the orchestra, and the playing is excellent (kudos to Montanaro, and to principal cellist Eric Han and his section). Visually, however, it’s strange, particularly when the chorus is situated backstage of the orchestra and the principal singers are upstage, so the orchestra is in the middle of the action. Often stage director François Racine has the principals addressing the chorus, but looking the wrong way -- facing the audience while the chorus is way behind them. (Conductor Montanaro also faces the opposite direction from the principal singers, which looks odd.)

The new stage setup works well acoustically for the singers, though, who are now closer to the audience. And these are singers well worth hearing. The undoubted heroine of the production is the bad girl Abigaille, with Mary Elizabeth Williams singing this ultra-challenging role with fearless panache. She commands the stage with her well-nuanced characterization and with the firepower of her mighty soprano, though sometimes there’s a bit too much firepower. That big, luscious voice is pushed hard throughout the evening, acquiring an edge and a few pitch uncertainties (two high Cs were slightly under target). When Williams relaxed the volume a bit, the tone blossomed into real beauty.

Gordon Hawkins is a masterly Nabucco, with convincing acting in a role that requires him to be overbearing, then feeble, then contrite (it’s not often that an operatic title character is struck by lightning). Even allowing for the effects of the lightning strike, Hawkins’ voice sometimes sounded a bit underpowered, but rose to greatness in his final scene.

Jamie Barton, an international prizewinner of considerable renown, is dazzling as Fenena, with a show-stopper Act IV aria that displayed the lyricism and agility of this remarkable voice. Her Ismaele, tenor Russell Thomas, sang with a clarion tone quality, polish, and power. Christian Van Horn was a first-rate Zaccaria; Jonathan Silvia, Karen Early Evans, and Eric Neuville did well in supporting roles.

Vivid projections from scenery designer Robert Schaub and video designer Robert Bonniol worked well, particularly the imaginative depiction of the Hanging Gardens of Babylon and the disintegration of the statue of Baal.

The chorus, prepared by John Keene, did a masterly job with the famous “Va, pensiero,” in one of the production’s most stirring scenes.

Since “Nabucco” apparently comes around only slightly oftener than Halley’s Comet, Seattle-area opera lovers should seize this chance to check out some early Verdi – and some remarkable voices.

Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Summer Festival, July 15, 2015

by Melinda Bargreen

Variety was the keyword for Wednesday night’s presentations at the Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Summer Festival. The evening began with the most dulcet of Mozart sonatas, and concluded with the desperate renunciation of Janáček’s searing “The Diary of One Who Disappeared.”

Not surprisingly, some of the evening’s finest playing came in the pre-concert recital, when the stellar pianist Jeremy Denk teamed up with the young violin virtuoso Benjamin Beilman for a pair of sonatas. For weary concertgoers who had braved some particularly appalling I-5 traffic to get to Benaroya Hall, the opening strains of Mozart’s K.301 Violin Sonata in G Major were a balm to the soul.

Beilman’s sweet, infinitely pliant tone was matched by Denk’s detailed lyricism at the keyboard, as each phrase was successively embellished a little more each time it appeared. The level of communication and the degree of accord were both unusually fine. And the duo’s approach to the Janáček sonata that followed couldn’t have been more different: incisive, restless, and propulsive, with a second (“Ballada”) movement that demonstrated Beilman’s infinite variety of bowing and tone coloration.

Still more variety was to come in the main concert, which opened with Schubert’s brief String Quartet in C Minor (“Quartettsatz”), and went on to Respighi’s “Il Tramonto” (for mezzo-soprano and string quartet), a Mozart piano trio (K.502), and Janáček’s stirring, dramatic “Diary of One Who Disappeared.” The Schubert, in an energetic performance with Jun Iwasaki, Yura Lee, Richard O’Neill and Andrés Díaz, took awhile to come together, and suffered from a few minor pitch inaccuracies.

The same string quartet accompanied Sasha Cooke in the Respighi, where the rich warmth of her voice illuminated the joy and the grief of the Shelley poem (“The Sunset”) on which the score is based.

Mozart’s K.502 Piano Trio in B-Flat Major brought together violinist Beilman with cellist Bion Tsang and pianist Joyce Yang, all strong players; Beilman had some particularly expressive moments in the second (Larghetto) movement.

The performance of the evening, however, was tenor Nicholas Phan’s tour-de-force in the “Diary of One Who Disappeared.” The task of presenting (from memory) this long and complicated score in Czech paled in comparison to the depth of expression with which Phan invested this quasi-operatic role. Denk provided a full spectrum of almost orchestral colorations at the keyboard, ranging from the spare and subtle to huge washes of sound.

With Sasha Cooke as the protagonist’s gypsy inamorata, and an offstage trio (Rena Harms, Nerys Jones and Rachelle Moss), the performance was a chamber opera in miniature. But the show belonged to Phan, whose impressive emotional and vocal range culminated in a whole-hearted, all-out finale of exultation and despair.

Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Summer Festival, July 13, 2015

By Melinda Bargreen

This month, it’s the place to be for chamber-music fans. The Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya is now in its second week of wildly popular Seattle Chamber Music Society concerts, with audiences so enthusiastic that they applaud between sonata movements out of sheer exuberance, in defiance of the usual custom.

This year’s Summer Festival has a slightly different focus every week. Last week, it was (almost) all about Beethoven; this week, there’s an emphasis on vocal music, and the week after that, there’s a world premiere. The artists rotate in and out, too: if you want to hear the stellar pianist Jeremy Denk, this week’s your opportunity. Later there are performances by the cellist Johannes Moser, and the McGill brothers (flutist Demarre and clarinetist Anthony), and festival director James Ehnes, all eagerly awaited.

On Monday, mezzo soprano Sasha Cooke started out this week’s opening concert with a remarkable performance of Mahler’s “Songs of a Wayfarer” (“Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen”). With the supportive, intuitive pianist Orion Weiss, Cooke sang these challenging pieces with a big, sumptuous tone quality, delivering the emotional content of the songs without “acting out” the music.

The undisputed star of the evening was the cellist Efe Baltacigil, principal cello of the Seattle Symphony and a solo artist of international stature. He undertook the mighty Franck Violin Sonata (in a cello transcription by Jules Delsart, approved by the composer), exhibiting tremendous bow control and a thorough command of the work’s impetuous romanticism.

Baltacigil’s pianist was Joyce Yang, a highly capable artist whose approach occasionally diverged from that of the cellist, in terms of both speed and volume. But they were together in all the right places, and ending of the second movement was so triumphant that applause rang out throughout the hall.

The evening’s finale was Tchaikovsky’s ever-popular string sextet, “Souvenir de Florence” (which actually sounds a lot more like “Souvenir de Moscow,” with all those Russian folkloric melodies). Amy Schwartz Moretti had some fine moments in the crucial first-violin chair, and the performance had a furious energy with all six players sawing vigorously away. Tchaikovsky obviously had a lot of vigor in mind, with indications like “con spirito” and “con brio e vivace.” But at some points it would have been nice to lower that frenetic intensity level a bit, and let the music (and the players) breathe a little more.

Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Summer Festival, July 10, 2015

By Melinda Bargreen

When you have a sold-out audience, and you’ve run out of concert programs, and they’re shouting “Bravo!” before the musicians have played a single note, you know you’re doing something right.

That was the scenario on Friday evening at the Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Summer Festival, ending a triumphant week of performances with a scintillating mostly-Beethoven program. The music spanned the effervescence of a very early Shostakovich Piano Trio (Op. 8), and the graceful farewell of Beethoven’s final String Quartet (Op. 135). In between came an eternal audience favorite, Beethoven’s tuneful “Archduke” Trio. No wonder the hall was crowded.

Festival artistic director James Ehnes started off the proceedings with a salute to cellist Ronald Thomas, the only musician to have appeared in 30 consecutive festival seasons. Thomas went on to play very commendably in the “Archduke” Trio, where he was joined by the lyrical violinist Augustin Hadelich. At the keyboard was the pianist Orion Weiss, who gave a magisterial, eloquent account of the score – but one a bit too heavy-handed for an ideal balance with the two string players.

The Shostakovich opener brought together violinist Benjamin Beilman and cellist Efe Baltacigil, with pianist Anna Polonsky in an exciting, mercurial reading of this Jekyll-and-Hyde piece. Sublimely subtle and wildly raucous, this one-movement trio by the teenaged Shostakovich is seldom programmed, but these three artists made a strong case for its arch-romantic delicacy – and its edgy anti-romanticism as well.

As long as there are string players, Beethoven’s late quartets will prove an irresistible magnet and a continuing challenge. How to interpret their changes and twists, their deep profundity, their technical challenges? The Ehnes Quartet (the festival’s artistic director with second violinist Amy Schwarz Moretti, violist Richard O’Neill, and cellist Robert deMaine) revisited the Op. 135 Quartet in a performance that brought out the work’s light-hearted whimsy, as well as its deeply serious and warmly hymnlike qualities. Mercurial and full of sudden changes in direction, the Op. 135 also poses formidable technical challenges (not always met, notably in those tricky viola/cello octaves at the beginning of the final movement). The four players play with exceptional grace, subtlety, and unanimity. Their performances have been among the peak moments of the festival’s first week.

And now, “Beethoven week” gives way in the festival programming to all kinds of new directions: some remarkable vocal music, some tasty chamber-music standards, and the return of a longtime festival favorite, Jeremy Denk. The Fourth of July may be over, but the fireworks go on.

Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Summer Festival, July 8, 2015

By Melinda Bargreen

What an exciting week: the first of four for the Seattle Chamber Music Society’s 2015 Summer Festival, with programs featuring a tasty assortment of Beethoven’s music.

No wonder it’s been hard to squeeze into the Nordstrom Recital Hall at Benaroya Hall, as the throngs assemble to hear a lineup of ovation-worthy performances. In Monday’s opening program, the thriller was Ravel, not Beethoven – a white-hot performance of the Ravel Piano Trio with artistic director/violinist James Ehnes, cellist Efe Baltacigil, and pianist Orion Weiss.

Last night (July 8), it was a Beethoven string quartet (one of the Op. 59 “Razumovsky” Quartets, No. 2) that lifted the audience out of their seats and into full ovation mode. Ehnes was again in the first violin chair, with second violinist Amy Schwartz Moretti, violist Richard O’Neill, and cellist Robert deMaine. All of them are festival regulars, and their level of ensemble accuracy is on a par with any of today’s full-time string quartets. The performance was polished, detailed, vigorous, and full of expressive details – and good humor. The four musicians played together with a degree of finesse and unanimity seldom seen in a chamber-festival performance. The rambunctious, rollicking finale brought the crowed to its feet.

The opening work on the July 8 program was Beethoven’s Quintet for Piano and Winds (Op. 16), with four musicians who regularly play together in the Seattle Symphony joining pianist Anna Polonsky in this buoyant, bucolic score. Oboist Ben Hausmann, clarinetist Sean Osborn (a frequent sub with the SSO), bassoonist Seth Krimsky, and Jeffrey Fair, French horn, presented an accurate and nimble mini-orchestra with Polonsky’s partnership. A bit more in the way of dynamic contrasts might have been beneficial.

A non-Beethoven anomaly in that program was Leon Kirchner’s 1954 Piano Trio, a work that cellist Ronald Thomas characterized (in pre-concert remarks) as “Strauss with the notes slightly misplaced.” This is an unpromising, if fairly accurate, description of Kirchner’s style, in creating a work of substantial difficulty upon which the musicians (also including violinist Augustin Hadelich and pianist Orion Weiss) were clearly expending great efforts. So many notes; so little music.

The July 8 concert was preceded by a recital featuring Hadelich, one of the festival’s most-appreciated artists, with pianist Anna Polonsky in Beethoven’s A Major Violin Sonata of Op. 23. It was a fiery, headlong performance, with Polonsky a driving force at the keyboard, and Hadelich taking great care in the shaping of each phrase.

One more program remains in the “Beethoven week”: Friday’s presentation of Orion Weiss in the pre-concert recital, playing Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Op. 101, and a main concert featuring a Shostakovich Trio alongside Beethoven’s “Archduke” Trio and his final String Quartet, Op. 135. Expect big crowds at the box office – but if you can’t get tickets, remember there are three more weeks of the festival still to come. This may be the best news of the summer.

Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Summer Festival, July 6, 2015

By Melinda Bargreen

The temperature outside Benaroya Hall was hot – but the music inside was positively sizzling. Monday evening marked the start of festival time for the region’s music lovers, with the Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Summer Festival in residence at Benaroya’s Nordstrom Recital Hall throughout this month. And if the opening-night concert is any indication, tickets are going to be in unusually short supply for this year’s festival.

“Ticket sales are up 8 percent,” said a beaming Connie Cooper, the festival’s executive director, at intermission.

“They like Beethoven. They like us.”

Indeed they do. The hall was packed for the opener, which launched a Beethoven-heavy first week spanning the earliest and latest chamber pieces by that master.  Artistic director James Ehnes has paired the Beethoven works on each program with 20th-century chamber music, creating striking contrasts – like Monday’s lineup of an early Beethoven trio and quartet alongside the later sonic world of the Ravel Piano Trio. An adroit programmer, Ehnes also is a gracious and engaging speaker, and – most importantly – a violinist of the highest standard.

Monday’s audience had the opportunity to appreciate all three of those attributes in the program. Ehnes welcomed the audience, and played in two of the three works on the program: Beethoven’s early String Quartet Op. 18, No. 6, and the 1914 Ravel Trio in A Minor for Violin, Cello, and Piano.

The opener was Beethoven’s first published work, his Op. 1, No. 1 Piano Trio (1791-92). Most of the sparkle in this performance came from pianist Anna Polonsky, who tossed off those endless scalar passages with great alacrity. Violinist Alexander Velinzon was a competent, polished partner; cellist Ronald Thomas was not at his best.

The string quartet that followed was a model of taste, style, and energy, with Ehnes taking the lead in a performance full of beautiful phrasing and tonal variety.

But the evening’s shining moments came in the Ravel Trio, with Ehnes joining cellist Efe Baltacigil (of the Seattle Symphony) and pianist Orion Weiss in a performance of near-perfect accord. Hearing the two string players spiraling exquisitely upward against the shimmering colors from the keyboard, it was impossible not to feel how fortunate you were to be in this time and this space. The ovation that followed left no doubt that that feeling was widely shared.

Randolph Hokanson 100th Birthday recital, June 24, 2015

By Melinda Bargreen

How often do you have the chance to hear a 100-year-old concert pianist in recital? A recital, moreover, that encompasses important works of Bach, Mozart, and Chopin?

Well, there was Mieczysław Horszowski (1892-1993), who died before his 101st birthday (but apparently played his last performance at age 99). And then there was  . . . well, nobody.

Randolph Hokanson’s June 24 recital at his retirement residence, Bayview Manor on Queen Anne Hill, was presented two days after the pianist’s 100th birthday, to a capacity crowd of residents, fans, and music lovers. The astonishing fact about this performance was not just that it took place at all – but how good it actually was.

Hokanson retired in 1984 from the music faculty at the University of Washington, but he hasn’t lost the professorial desire to enlighten his audience with information about the composers and the works he performed. The familiar twinkle in his eyes, the quick quips and obvious deep love for music, are all as evident as always with this beloved artist. He is a little slower to make his way to the keyboard these days, using a walker for balance. But there’s nothing slow about his agile fingers, galloping through Bach Preludes and Fugues, a Mozart sonata (with the excellent violinist and longtime duo partner Marjorie Kransberg-Talvi), and a Chopin set that included two Etudes and a Nocturne.

With his student and friend Judith Cohen at hand to turn the pages, Hokanson explained to the June 24 audience that he had made some substitutions to the planned program because an old hand injury had affected his ability to “stretch” the right hand to a wider compass. He replaced the mighty, thundering Chopin Ballade in F Minor with a different set of shorter pieces. Hand injury or not, those two Chopin Etudes Hokanson chose are definitely not for sissies. The technical requirements of the whole program were uncompromising, and most of the time they were very successfully met.

What a life lesson for all of us! A gifted man, one who inspires tremendous affection, and who has taken continued lifelong joy in sharing his gifts with students and audiences, has learned how to make beautiful music even with a few concessions to extreme age. He still has much to teach us, as listeners discovered from Hokanson’s explanatory prefaces to the works on the Bayview program, many of them bearing his own nicknames. The songlike phrasing in the right hand, the telling details, and the obvious love for the music – all longtime Hokanson attributes – are still there.

If you don’t know his wonderful autobiography, “With Head to the Music Bent: A Musician’s Story” (Third Place Press, 2011), you have a treat in store. In this memoir, Hokanson calls up rich details of his eventful life, including his studies “between the wars” in London, his narrow escape from a torpedoed ship during World War II, his concert tours, and his musical experiences with such important mentors as Dame Myra Hess.

Also highly recommended: his nine-CD anthology, “The Pianism of Randolph Hokanson: The University Years (1949-1984),” compiled with the help of UW archivist John Gibbs, and the late audio engineer Al Swanson (with Gary Louie). This substantial souvenir of Hokanson in his heyday should be a part of every music lover’s collection.

Seattle Symphony with conductor Ludovic Morlot and Carolin Widmann, violin soloist, June 11

By Melinda Bargreen

Special to The Seattle Times

World premieres are not always a huge draw at symphony concerts. When the premiere is the “filling” of a musical sandwich of Beethoven and Brahms, however, listeners are more likely to show up. For Thursday’s opener of the Seattle Symphony’s current three-concert series, a large and responsive audience was on hand to hear not only the 19th-century masterpieces, but also the U.S. premiere of Julian Anderson’s “In lieblichen Bläue.”

The title and concept of this new piece, jointly commissioned from Morlot’s former teacher in London by the Seattle Symphony, the London Philharmonic Orchestra and the Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester, are derived from a poem by Friedrich Hölderlin. It’s not a traditional violin concerto; it has elements of a symphonic theater piece, in which the soloist starts playing offstage, uttering exploratory twitters and chirps, and gradually moves toward the center stage. In some respects, “In lieblichen Bläue” (“In lovely blue”) then pits the soloist against the entire orchestra in an uneven struggle that gradually subsides, as the violinist ventures a more lyrical response to the overwhelming and colorful panoply of sounds, and ultimately turns her back on the audience.

Soloist Carolin Widmann played this demanding score with tremendous energy and involvement, bending and weaving as her violin countered the communal shrieks from the orchestra. Her command of the instrument is remarkable, right down to the extended techniques the score requires. (You don’t often see the instrument played with a pencil instead of a bow. Perhaps the composer’s intention was more symbolic than musical, because the sounds produced with the pencil were unimpressive.)

Ultimately, however, the new Anderson score is a piece that made many listeners appreciate the presence of Beethoven’s “Egmont” Overture (in a feisty, high-energy reading) and the mighty Brahms First Symphony (in a powerful performance that’s one of the best things Morlot has done in Seattle).

The Brahms finale combined two important elements: an undisputed masterpiece, and an interpretation that offered both drama and finesse. Some of the subtler principal solos were a bit overwhelmed by the heft of the orchestra, but everything else went remarkably well: huge brass statements, delicately detailed woodwinds (Zartouhi Dombourian-Eby’s flute solos were especially fine), and strong violin solos from Alexander Velinzon.

Seattle Symphony with conductor Mikhail Agrest and Simone Porter, May 28 2015

By Melinda Bargreen

There is a special pleasure in hearing hometown talent on the rise to stardom. That pleasure is in store for Seattle Symphony audiences this weekend, when the 18-year-old violinist Simone Porter repeats Thursday’s knockout performance of Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5. She made her professional debut with this orchestra at the age of 10, when it was already apparent that Porter had phenomenal promise; now that early promise has been realized.

With the close and attentive partnership of conductor Mikhail Agrest, Porter displayed a smooth, well-focused and unforced tone of considerable sweetness and warmth in Thursday’s concert, the first of three. Her phrasing is clear and beautifully finished; the intonation is reliable with only a few minor lapses, and her interpretation is mature and confident. Clearly this is an artist ready for the big leagues, and the Benaroya Hall crowd gave her a correspondingly enthusiastic ovation.

Porter’s success was no surprise, with recent credits like her Avery Fisher Career Grant and her signing with the prestigious Opus 3 Artists management group. This program’s real surprise, however, was Agrest’s conducting – a performance of such inspired passion that the Symphony players were practically jolted out of their chairs. He conducted like a man possessed, as if lives depended on the outcome, and the energy and commitment of his music-making were positively operatic. (No wonder: this Russian-American maestro has conducted a lot of opera, and was a protégé of Valery Gergiev at the Mariinsky Theatre.)

Every phrase of the music was sharply delineated from the podium, as Agrest crouched and leaped and cued. His expressive gestures left no doubt about what he wanted: a tenderly shaped phrase here, a furious stab there, a sense of serenity, or an all-out riot.

The attractive program gave Agrest and the orchestra plenty of scope: first, Tchaikovsky’s take on Mozart, then “real” Mozart, and finally Prokofiev’s take on Tchaikovsky. The opener, Tchaikovsky’s charming “Mozartiana” Suite, was both lyrical and energetic. The conclusion, excerpts from Prokofiev’s glittering “Cinderella,” was so vividly rendered that the final raucous “Midnight” movement was genuinely terrifying. Superb solo work from the orchestra’s principals contributed to a memorable evening.

Seattle Symphony presents Pinchas Zukerman in recital with pianist Angela Cheng; Benaroya Hall, May 26.

By Melinda Bargreen

Over the course of nearly 50 years of high-level music-making, Israeli-American violinist Pinchas Zukerman has diversified to an astonishing degree. He is also a violist, and a conductor, and a teacher, and a chamber musician. But Zukerman has always returned to his roots as a concert violinist, and here is the good news: he’s still one of the greats.

The Seattle Symphony presented Zukerman with the Canadian pianist Angela Cheng in a May 26 recital that nearly filled Benaroya Hall with attentive, involved listeners. Zukerman has always been adept at choosing his musical partners; last year’s programming included duo programs with the wonderful Yefim Bronfman. Cheng, a past gold medalist at the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Masters Competition, proved an adept and graceful partner in the Benaroya Hall recital.

What distinguishes Zukerman’s playing is the combination of technical finesse and tonal beauty in everything he does. Off-center notes and near-misses in pitch are almost totally absent; it’s rare that Zukerman does not hit the note dead center. The tone, round and full of rich warmth, is unfailingly lovely.

With the exception of one work (Beethoven’s D Major Sonata No. 1, Op. 12, No. 1), the program was devoted to music from a fairly narrow time span: mid- and late-19th century works. The earliest of these was Schumann’s “Drei Romanzen” (Op. 94) of 1849; the latest was Elgar’s “Six Pieces” (Op. 22, 1892), and in between were Dvorak’s “Four Romantic Pieces” (Op. 75, of 1887) the Franck Sonata of 1886. All these Romantic-era works were played with an opulently pliant, lovely tone and plenty of violin vibrato, with Cheng providing expertly smooth and slightly deferential partnership at the piano. Inevitably the program began to sound a bit monochromatic; it would have been great to get a bit more feistiness from the keyboard, and some repertoire that veered off the topic of arch-Romantic lyricism.

The Beethoven, composed in 1797-98, provided a much-needed contrast, and was given a more muscular performance with a more assertive piano line.

Curiously, the Franck Sonata – one of the great and beloved works for violin and piano – fell slightly apart late in the fourth and final movement, with a couple of surprising technical gaffes from both players. This came at the very end of the program, but didn’t sound like the result of exhaustion (the recital was slightly shorter than usual).

A very warm audience reception brought a single, familiar encore: Kreisler’s “Liebesleid” (“Love’s Sorrow”), with a final lovely throwaway note from Zukerman that had the audience exclaiming in appreciation.

Seattle Symphony Baroque Series, conductor Stephen Layton; Benaroya Hall, May 15, 2015.

By Melinda Bargreen

The “sleeper” series at the Seattle Symphony just might be the “Baroque and Wine” presentations. Loaded with international talent, but not usually well attended, the baroque programming seems slightly underappreciated at Benaroya Hall – and that’s unfortunate, when there’s something this good on the stage.

Maybe one problem is the concert-and-wine format (with audience members lining up in the lobby for pre-concert wine pours). Perhaps a liberal infusion of wine might have a somnolent effect on audiences, making the program a literal “sleeper.”

On Friday evening, the distinguished English conductor Stephen Layton led a smaller, period-sized orchestra of Symphony musicians in a program of some top hits of the era –with two highly regarded vocal soloists and the Seattle Symphony Chorale. (One of those soloists, the seraphic soprano Amanda Forsythe, is featured this month on a brand-new Decca recording of Rossini’s opera “William Tell” alongside star tenor Juan Diego Florez.)

The Vivaldi “Gloria” ranks among the greatest hits of the era; Bach’s cantata, “Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen,” is a famous showpiece for soprano and trumpet.

The two orchestra-only works on the program, Britten’s transcription of the Purcell “Chaconne” and Handel’s Concerto Grosso in F Major, flowered under the leadership of Layton, who drew warmly nuanced and almost vibrato-free performances from the strings. Beautifully shaped phrases and dynamics made the Handel a particular pleasure.

The expressive, easy quality of Forsythe’s incredibly nimble voice was most apparent in the virtuoso Bach cantata, where she was matched line for florid line by the orchestra’s solo trumpeter, David Gordon (in particularly good form). The program’s keyboardist, guest musician Joseph Adam, showed remarkable versatility as he moved back and forth between the harpsichord and the organ.

In the Vivaldi “Gloria,” the ensemble was joined by alto soloist Deanne Meek, whose rich tonal depth brought unusual beauty to the low-lying lines of her solos. She and Forsythe were excellent foils for each other, both displaying nimble virtuosity and very different (though complementary) tone quality.

The chorus, prepared by director Joseph Crnko, sang with spirit and obvious engagement. Layton conducted with particular attention to dramatic dynamics, and a stylistic assurance that left no doubt why his choruses -- the renowned Polyphony and the Holst Singers – are considered among the world’s best.

Seattle Symphony with Yo-Yo Ma, cellist, conductor Ludovic Morlot. Seattle Opera House, May 3, 2015.

By Melinda Bargreen

Benaroya Hall was packed to the rafters for Sunday’s long sold-out Seattle Symphony concert featuring superstar cellist Yo-Yo Ma, when conductor Ludovic Morlot came onstage at the opening of the program.

“As you know, Yo-Yo Ma is scheduled to play in the second half of the concert,” Morlot announced from the stage.

There was a pause. 2,500 people collectively held their breath. Had Ma … canceled?

“And he is still scheduled to play in the second half,” Morlot teasingly added, going on to announce a minor change in the order of the first half (Stravinsky’s “Pulcinella” Suite would now precede Ravel’s “Mother Goose” Suite, instead of the other way around).

Breathing resumed. So did the music, and very competently too, with some beautiful solo work from the principal winds, but many in the audience probably would not have cared about the order or even the content of the first half when they had an impending date with Yo-Yo Ma.

Ma arrived after intermission to play the Schumann Cello Concerto, leaning back with his cello and closing his eyes, as if communing with the spirit of Schumann himself. It’s always hard to describe Ma’s playing, which blends the utmost technical virtuosity with something even more amazing: the sense that he has entered a realm inaccessible to most of us, and is bringing the most incredible music back with him.

Ma seems to tap into some transcendent force, producing tones of every conceivable color with spectacular control. Every note counts, whether it is sharply accented or eased into the world with a mere breath from the bow. Nothing sounds routine; notes and phrases of unexpected sudden beauty take your breath away. Seldom has the Schumann Concerto sounded so arresting and so vital.

In a way that many soloists do not, Ma also communes with his fellow orchestral musicians with encouraging and appreciative glances, reminding the listeners that a great concerto performance is a joint effort rather than just a star turn. He particularly acknowledged the contributions of the afternoon’s principal cellist Meeka Quan DiLorenzo, whose duet passages with the soloist were beautifully played. With Morlot, too, Ma found a supportive rapport in an unhurried interpretation that let the solo cello sing.

After a performance like that, an encore is an absolute must, and Ma returned to the stage for two of them: the exquisitely simple “Appalachia Waltz” from his earlier collaborations with composer Mark O’Connor, and a nod to one of the most famous works in Ma’s repertoire: Bach’s Unaccompanied Cello Suites (the Bourrées from the Suite No. 3 in C Major).

What a gift Ma has – and what a gift he gave his Seattle audience.

Seattle Opera presents “Ariadne auf Naxos,” Richard Strauss opera in Seattle Opera production, with Lawrence Renes, conductor, and staging by Chris Alexander. May 2 through May 16, 2015, McCaw Hall, Seattle.

By Melinda Bargreen

You might call it glorious chaos.

“Ariadne auf Naxos” rides again at Seattle Opera, in a remount of the company’s triumphant 2004 production of the Strauss classic. With a mostly-new cast capering about on Robert Dahlstrom’s versatile set, this fast-moving show hit the accelerator right from the downbeat in Saturday’s opening-night performance. We see the impassioned Composer, soprano Kate Lindsey, “conducting” the overture from the stage in an all-out maestro mode – the first indication of the brilliant energy she brings to the role.

The opera is about many things – love, hope, disappointment, human foibles, the transformative power of music – but it’s also about the challenge of throwing together an opera in the face of obstacles. There’s a lengthy Prologue, in which the horrified Composer discovers that his idealistic new opera on mythological themes must be combined with a rumbustious performance by a comedy troupe. And the second act delivers this combined performance, as party entertainment for the richest man in town. All this is overlain by Strauss at his most Wagnerian.

Director Chris Alexander has a sure hand with this chaotic premise, presenting the opera’s wide emotional spectrum with clarity and honesty. Luckily, he has a gifted cast at his disposal. First off, there’s Lindsey’s Composer, utterly believable as an actor, and both subtle and thrilling as a singer (the high notes, tough for a mezzo-soprano, are stellar.) Then there’s the Ariadne of Christiane Libor, who made her Seattle debut as a memorable Leonore (in the 2012 “Fidelio”) and has developed even more vocal heft in the meantime.

The character of Bacchus makes his appearance late in the opera, but Issachah Savage was worth waiting for. Arriving onstage in a “chariot” that doubled as a massive champagne cooler (looks like the partygoers were enjoying some Veuve Clicquot), the young tenor sang with bewitching tonal beauty and majestic amplitude that underscored his top prize in last year’s Seattle International Wagner Competition.

In the second act, there’s always this moment when you start to wonder whether Strauss intended the opera to become “Zerbinetta auf Naxos”: the lengthy and spectacular aria, “Grossmächtige Prinzessin,” a coloratura tour-de-force that stops the show and turns it on its axis. You need a terrific and fearless Zerbinetta; the company has one in the fetching Sarah Coburn, who frolicked atop a grand piano while her voice zoomed far above the staff.

The supporting cast included such gems as Andrew Garland (Harlekin), Patrick Carfizzi (double duty as the hapless Music Teacher and later as one of Zerbinetta’s suitors); Doug Jones (the Dancing Master); Joshua Kohl (Brighella), and Eric Neuville (Scaramuccio). Ariadne’s three attendants (Naiad, Dryad, and Echo) were artfully sung by Amanda Opuszynski, Maya Lahyani and Andrea Carroll. Actor Georg Martin Bode intoned the lines of the Butler with suavely comic timing. And there on the stage amongst the second-act partygoers was Seattle Opera’s retired general director, Speight Jenkins, who got an appreciative surge from the audience when he was recognized.

The orchestra was a rich, warm presence under the baton of Lawrence Renes, who also proved an adroit accompanist to the singers – supporting but not overpowering the voices. Four more voices will be heard in the leading roles in an alternate cast May 3 and 15 (Sarah Larsen as the Composer, Jeffrey Hartman as Bacchus, Rachele Gilmore as Zerbinetta, and Marcy Stonikas as Ariadne).

Seattle Symphony Orchestra,, with conductor Ludovic Morlot and piano soloist Marc-André Hamelin; Benaroya Hall, April 23 and 25, 2015.

By Melinda Bargreen

They just wouldn’t let him leave.

Thursday evening’s Seattle Symphony audience stood, stomped, applauded, whistled, shouted “bravo,” and generally carried on when piano soloist Marc-André Hamelin played the last triumphant chord of the Grieg Piano Concerto. The ovation continued until Hamelin finally returned to the Benaroya Hall piano for a sassy virtuoso encore. (It was one of Earl Wild’s finger-busting Gershwin transcriptions, “Liza,” played with exquisite fluency.)

Hamelin has a lot in common with the late Wild; both are known for a technical finesse that borders on the supernatural. But Hamelin made it clear in his Grieg Concerto performance that he brings more than a set of speedy digits to the concert stage. He is an intelligent and thoughtful artist, one who illuminates the tender eloquence of the Grieg as well as the thundering octaves and bravura flourishes. Hamelin’s clarity of touch was especially evident in the first-movement cadenza, which he played with great freedom.

Conductor Ludovic Morlot and the orchestra took off after the speedy soloist in hot pursuit, most of the time catching up with him at all the crucial junctures in a performance that will be long remembered.

The evening began with Morlot’s brief address to the audience about the first work on the program, the world premiere of Sebastian Currier’s “Divisions.” The new piece was jointly commissioned by the symphony orchestras of Seattle and Boston, and the National Orchestra of Belgium, whose music director is Andrey Boreyko (coincidentally the Seattle Symphony’s guest maestro last week in a splendid all-Russian program).

Written to commemorate the 100th anniversary of World War I, the new composition features tone clusters, fluttering motifs, and effective passages for the harp and the brass, many of them disjointed and fragmentary. It’s not hard to discern elements of both warfare and mourning in the score, which ends on a more hopeful note.

The final work on the program was the Schumann Symphony No. 2, a familiar mainstay of the symphonic repertoire. Morlot and the orchestra gave the Schumann a competent account that seldom really caught fire. The best moments came in the expressive third movement, when the motifs and orchestral solos flowed into each other with remarkable eloquence.

The repeat performance of this program on Saturday evening should be a good opportunity to see whether lightning strikes twice in the same place. Here’s betting Hamelin’s Grieg Concerto does just that.

The Emerson String Quartet, The Emerson String Quartet; Meany Theater, April 21, 2015.

By Melinda Bargreen

For nearly 40 years, the Emerson String Quartet has commanded a certain reverence from music lovers. Their polished and authoritative performances, their comprehensive and mighty discography, their fearless embrace of the new and unusual as well as the classics – all have placed this string quartet high in the pantheon of chamber music.

For all those reasons, the appearance of the Emersons on the International Chamber Music Series at Meany was an eagerly awaited event on Tuesday evening, and the quartet did not disappoint. Even the arrival of a new cellist (Paul Watkins) in 2013 has not disrupted the ensemble’s famous unity; if anything, Watkins’ energetic approach has revitalized the Emerson’s lineup, which includes founding violinists Philip Setzer and Eugene Drucker (alternating as first violin) and violist Lawrence Dutton. Since 2002, those three players have stood, rather than sat, for performances; the cellist necessarily performs seated (on a small podium that places him near the same height as the other three).

Their Meany program demonstrated the Emersons’ remarkable versatility – stretching from a 17th-century Purcell “Chacony in G Minor” to a Lowell Liebermann quartet (No. 5) composed just last year. In between those extremes were two works by acknowledge quartet-writing masters, Shostakovich (his No. 7) and Beethoven (No. 15, better known as the Opus 132).

This juicy program was all carefully characterized, from the pointed accents and wide emotional range of the Purcell to the more acerbic Shostakovich and the occasionally rambunctious Liebermann score. The Liebermann was particularly interesting: an unsettling, darker opening, then a wild scherzo, and finally a lovely, richly harmonized section that sounds a bit like Samuel Barber, as the ensemble restlessly changes keys.

Even the Emerson isn’t infallible, and throughout the program there were occasional slips in intonation and ensemble. Those were minor, however, in comparison with the quartet’s overall interpretive finesse.

The capstone of the evening, the majestic Op. 132, showed the quartet’s affinity with late Beethoven (his last quartets are among his final compositions in any genre).  Their patient but incisive exploration of this sprawling, multi-directional score – there are five movements, some of them with titled sub-movements, all of them innovative in a way that startled Beethoven’s contemporaries – was remarkable to hear.

The four players traversed this vast quartet with an imposing variety of timbres, particularly effective in the graceful second movement and the organ-like sonorities of the third. This is music the Emersons know intimately, and their long history with Beethoven was evident in every polished phrase.

Seattle Symphony Orchestra, with Andrey Boreyko, guest conductor, Benaroya Hall, April 16, 17, and 8 p.m. April 18.

By Melinda Bargreen

Two twentieth-century symphonic works, and a local soloist: It doesn’t sound like box-office catnip.

But the Seattle Symphony no longer needs a big-name international star or a program of favorite bonbons in order to lure audiences to Benaroya Hall. The current program, unveiled Thursday evening and repeated twice more, is a serious all-Russian affair that pairs the exotic 1984 Violin Concerto No. 4 of Alfred Schnittke with Shostakovich’s ominous but thrilling Symphony No. 7 (“Leningrad”). Both are great, challenging works. Under the baton of guest maestro Andrey Boreyko, the orchestra rose to those substantial challenges, and so did a good-sized audience of rapt, engaged listeners.

For most concertgoers, the Schnittke concerto is like nothing you’ve ever heard before: a wonderful collision of styles and elements and voices in unusual combinations. It’s sometimes serenely tonal, but sometimes decidedly dissonant. Strange and exotic timbres appear side by side: a harpsichord and a saxophone, an eerily effective prepared piano, a wide array of percussion and electronic colors, and stunning brass climaxes.

Over all this rose the strong, confident solo line of violinist Alexander Velinzon, the orchestra’s concertmaster, who used a score for this performance but played with an obvious and deep understanding of the music. Both contemplative and assertive, Velinzon demonstrated a secure technique with a fluid bow and clean fingerwork. He had the full support of the orchestra, right down to the secondary solos played by his second-violin section colleague Steve Bryant. (Those solos, according to the score, are specified for the “12th chair 2nd violinist.” Schnittke didn’t leave a lot to chance.)

Guest conductor Andrey Boreyko was a supportive partner on the podium. For these performances he has divided the first and second violins, who appear on opposite sides of the podium (the preferred seating arrangement of former music director Gerard Schwarz). Boreyko is an attentive, magnetic conductor whose expressive left hand indicates the precise shaping of each phrase, showing the players exactly what he wants. Their responses made it clear that Boreyko is an effective and highly musical communicator.

Boreyko squeezed every ounce of drama from the evocative and often mesmerizing Schnittke concerto, but even more from the dramatic Shostakovich “Leningrad” Symphony. He knows how to bring the orchestra from the delicate menace of far-off military drums to a full-scale cataclysm of war, reenacted at a volume and intensity that pinned listeners right back into their seats. And he had the most supportive help from his players, including some remarkable solo work from the principals.

The ovation that met the final, triumphant passages of the Shostakovich made it clear that the maestro and the music resoundingly connected with the listeners.

Seattle Symphony Orchestra, with Thomas Søndergård, guest conductor, and Ingrid Fliter, pianist; Benaroya Hall, April 2, 2015. 

By Melinda Bargreen

The Seattle Symphony has experienced a Danish invasion on its podium in the past several weeks – first with conductor Thomas Dausgaard, in a cycle of all Sibelius’ seven symphonies that positively riveted the Benaroya Hall audiences. Those March concerts were succeeded only a week or so later by two performances of a very fine program featuring another Dane named Thomas – Søndergård, this time – on April 2 and 4. If these concerts didn’t have the “wow” factor of Dausgaard’s electrifying Sibelius, the program of Szymanowski, Chopin, and Prokofiev still offered many musical rewards.

Chief among those was pianist Ingrid Fliter’s performance of the second of Chopin’s piano concertos, the No. 2 in F Minor. This virtuoso piece – the score is a positive forest of black notes – emerged under Fliter’s fleet fingers with a beautiful transparency, clarity, and evenness. The opening of the second movement, a Larghetto, was almost magically delicate. Elsewhere in the score, Fliter demonstrated a tremendous variety of phrasing and articulation, all in service of the music, which was by turns powerfully assertive or as soft-focused as a floating cloud. Only a very minor, almost unnoticeable lapse in the final movement suggested that Fliter is actually mortal.

She’s certainly not a household name, though Fliter’s Gilmore Artist Award credentials (she won in 2006) tell music lovers that this Argentinean pianist is admired for her artistry as well as her competition-winning fingers. Here’s hoping she will be back in Seattle soon.

On the podium, Søndergård was a supportive concerto accompanist, and an assertive leader in the Szymanowski “Concert Overture” and Prokofiev Symphony No. 5. One rather odd quirk of this former timpanist was his habit of aiming the majority of his conducting activity directly at the violins, no matter what was going on elsewhere in the orchestra. He turned to his left to conduct them even when the celli had the same melody two octaves lower, or sometimes when there were significant solo passages elsewhere in the orchestra.

The 45-year-old maestro, who has held conducting posts in Norway, Wales, and Scotland, gave the seldom-heard Szymanowski piece a terrific energy in all its upward-swooping lines (some of them reminiscent of Richard Strauss’ tone poems).

In the Prokofiev Fifth, Søndergård was clear about what he wanted from the orchestra – music on a grand scale, with huge contrasts and sharply characterized lines, and a propulsive energy in the fast movements that got positively raucous in the final Allegro giocoso.

After Dausgaard and Søndergård, local music lovers may well conclude (with apologies to “South Pacific”) that for symphony programs, there is nothing like a Dane!

London Symphony Orchestra, with Michael Tilson Thomas, conductor, and piano soloist Yuja Wang; Benaroya Hall, April 2, 2015.

By Melinda Bargreen

The British have apparently conquered the West Coast. At least, the London Symphony Orchestra has done so, judging from Wednesday evening’s Seattle concert – the conclusion of a very well-received tour that stretched from L.A.’s Disney Hall to Benaroya Hall. In Seattle, the playing was stellar; the response in the near-capacity house was rapturous. It was a great night for local music lovers.

Michael Tilson Thomas, the orchestra’s 70-year-old principal guest conductor, has a 40-year history with the LSO. That long partnership was evident in every aspect of the concert, as the players responded to his every gesture.

Tilson Thomas is a direct, unfussy conductor with a great sense of drama and musical architecture. In the opening work on the program, Britten’s “Four Sea Interludes” (from the opera “Peter Grimes”), the pacing was leisurely and magisterial, beautifully shaped as the sea rolled and ebbed.

The orchestra, with players of nearly every age and a strong representation of women, includes some musicians who are so gifted that orchestra fans would love to keep them in Seattle (the principal flutist Gareth Davies, to name but one). The other principal woodwinds are almost equally stellar, with a beautifully refined clarinetist, an expressive bassoonist, and an oboist who did all the right things in the Shostakovich “Largo” movement. The LSO’s brass players can snap and swagger with the best of them, as they made clear in the Shostakovich Fifth Symphony that ended the program. The strings have warmth and flexibility, demonstrated in the shimmering passages of the Britten and the more acerbic ones of the Shostakovich.

The program’s soloist was the young pianist Yuja Wang, in Gershwin’s Concerto in F; she is known for her zesty, technically assured playing, and both those qualities were in evidence in Seattle. But the essentially jazzy nature of the piece did not come across in the performance as much as it should, and Wang’s interpretation (faster, but quieter) seemed at odds with Tilson Thomas’ (slower, but louder). For this listener, the most memorable playing in the Gershwin was the sinuously jazzy trumpet in the second movement, though Wang got a tremendous ovation. She played an encore – a witty, jazzy piece by the conductor called “You Come Here Often?” – from an iPad score, increasingly the choice of younger concert artists over old-fashioned sheet music.

Sustained applause and cheering from the packed house brought Tilson Thomas back to the stage to lead two encores, both Brahms Hungarian Dances. The warmth of the ovation was both remarkable and well deserved.

Seattle Symphony presents “Luminous Landscapes,” Sibelius symphonic cycle, with principal guest conductor Thomas Dausgaard, March 12, 19, 26; Benaroya Hall, Seattle.

By Melinda Bargreen

CONCERT ONE:

The hot ticket for classical music lovers this month is a cool Finn: Jean Sibelius, whose 150th birthday is the catalyst for a mini-festival featuring all seven of the Finnish composer’s symphonies (plus the Violin Concerto) over the course of just 17 days.

The audience for the March 12 pulse-pounding opening concert found out just how exciting the combination of Sibelius and the Seattle Symphony can be, with principal guest conductor Thomas Dausgaard on the podium. That this Sibelius-symphony cycle is a momentous undertaking was made clear in brief, to-the-point pre-concert remarks from Finland’s U.S. ambassador Ritva Koukku-Ronde, Finlandia Foundation President Ossi Rahkonen, Symphony president and executive director Simon Woods, and Dausgaard himself.

But the music had a lot more to say than the words. Dausgaard, who conducted the rousing tone poem “Finlandia” and the first two of Sibelius’ symphonies without a score, drew unusually powerful, impassioned performances from players who bowed and blew and beat with tremendous vigor. It was clear that this conductor knows how to light a fire in the orchestra, with vigorous, detailed, and occasionally acrobatic gestures showing precisely what he wants to hear from them: huge, sonorous brass and woodwind choirs, subtly crafted solo work, and strings who play with both color and clarity.

These were performances that commanded you to listen, and to watch. Dausgaard is a conductor capable of taking off like a jet, so the players had to be ready to follow him. But he also likes to underline significant points in the score with long pauses that don’t release the players (or the listeners) too soon. Dausgaard uses strong contrasts to create drama – with brass outbursts, for example, that sound like sudden artillery fire in the Symphony No. 2.

The results are thrilling, with completely involved musicians playing for an unusually attentive audience, and a conductor who is a passionate advocate for music that is unapologetically beautiful. Unfashionable in many circles during his later life, when twelve-tone composers like Schoenberg were in the ascendant, Sibelius has earned an undisputed place in the symphonic repertoire – a place that Seattle audiences will get to explore further in the coming weeks. Don’t miss this chance.

CONCERT TWO:

The Seattle Symphony has gone from triumph to triumph in the first two installments of its current Sibelius festival, as audiences rock Benaroya Hall with sustained cheering.

The second of the three all-Sibelius programs got its first airing on March 19, when principal guest conductor Thomas Dausgaard returned to the podium to lead Sibelius’ Third and Fourth Symphonies and the popular Violin Concerto. That concerto is often played – but never quite like this, and the performance by violinist Pekka Kuusisto was the evening’s great surprise.

Looking as if he had strolled in off the street, the casually-attired soloist launched into the music with a straightforward intensity that had the listeners leaning forward in their seats. There were no showy virtuoso flourishes and no grand gestures; instead, Kuusisto wielded an awe-inspiring technique and displayed a brilliantly thorough command of this challenging score.

Dausgaard was his ideal partner, so closely attuned to the soloist that it seemed as if they were playing duets. The conductor gave every phrase plenty of room to breathe; nothing was hurried, and the music unfolded so naturally that it was easy to forget how hard this concerto is.

After the final bravura notes, the audience just exploded, into an ovation that sounded less like sedate symphony-goers and more like the “Twelfth Man.” Kuusisto was called again and again to the stage, until he provided a wonderfully Finnish encore by the 19th-century folk musician Samuel Rinda-Nikkola, complete with foot-stomping emphasis.

Throughout the evening, Dausgaard’s expressive rapport with the musicians reaped exciting rewards. His gestures are so clear that the players know exactly what Dausgaard wants, and he inspires them to surpass themselves.  He’s not afraid to use long pauses to set the atmosphere for a contemplative movement, then later leaping and cajoling and demanding the orchestra to provide the effects he wants. The musicians not only sound different, they look different: they are fully engaged and involved, qualities reflected in the excitement of the music.

No wonder Benaroya Hall has been such a lively and rewarding place in the past week. Don’t miss the opportunity to hear this program and the next one, too, when Dausgaard and the orchestra finish up with Sibelius’ final three symphonies (on March 26 and 28). They just might be saving the best for last.

CONCERT THREE

When a Symphony audience is already on its feet after the first number on the program, cheering and shouting, you know something rather special is happening.

That was the case Thursday evening, when conductor Thomas Dausgaard and the Seattle Symphony played the last of three all-Sibelius programs that have traversed the seven symphonies and the lone violin concerto of the Finnish master. (The current program is repeated only once, on Saturday.) The triumphant Fifth Symphony, the shimmering Sixth with its quicksilver directional changes, and the glorious one-movement Seventh: how often do you get to hear these masterpieces? Almost never, especially not in the same concert.

After some brief and well-chosen remarks about the “new kind of synergy” these three final Sibelius symphonies create, Dausgaard and his players launched into a concert to remember. An extraordinarily expressive conductor, the Danish-born maestro commanded and cajoled the orchestra to explore every facet of these complex scores. No dramatic possibilities were ignored: the performances featured huge dynamic contrasts, delicately soft-focus woodwind flutterings, and bold brass statements. Most of all, however, the conductor and the orchestra clarified the musical architecture of each symphonic movement, and each finale gave the clear sense of that traversal and the arrival at a destination.

Dausgaard said earlier that he would decide on the spur of the moment whether to use a score in the performances; this time, he did so only for the Sixth Symphony, conducting the Fifth and the Seventh from what is evidently a prodigious memory. Dausgaard also has a great sense of timing: how to hold on to the memory of a phrase with a commanding gesture, and how to take a little extra pause to extend the mood of a final chord before starting the next movement of a symphony.

The performances had their share of tiny mishaps; none of that mattered. What did matter was the marvelous artistic energy, and the sense of the musical journey the musicians and the audience were making together.

This was a real festival. Many audience members attended all three programs, and there were impassioned discussions of the merits of the individual symphonies. On one subject there was unanimous accord: we’re lucky to have the chance to hear these “magnificent seven,” and even luckier to have Dausgaard conducting them.

Seattle Opera presents Handel’s “Semele,” with Gary Thor Wedow, conductor, and two casts; Feb. 21 and 22, repeated through March 7, McCaw Hall, Seattle.

By Melinda Bargreen

First, you start with a world-class conductor.

Gary Thor Wedow, a Seattle Opera favorite, fills that bill nicely.

Then, you line up a first-rate cast, including a headliner diva so beloved that audiences would flock to hear her even if they’ve never heard of Handel’s “Semele.”

That would be Stephanie Blythe.

You also assemble a creative team to make “Semele” a marvel to look at: a stage director with a knack for action; set and lighting designers who make vividly imaginative use of projections, video, and all sorts of special effects.

Tomer Zvulun, Erhard Rom, and Robert Wierzel, respectively.

It doesn’t hurt to have a cast that’s easy on the eyes as well as on the ear: the lovely and stratospheric soprano Brenda Rae as the opening-night Semele, the ill-fated mortal who falls in love with a god. Or, more precisely, with a particularly well-nuanced Jupiter, sung by the handsome and artful Alek Shrader. Their counterparts in Sunday’s alternate cast, Mary Feminear and Theo Lebow, proved every bit their equal, displaying tonal beauty and vocal alacrity (Lebow’s virtuoso passagework was particularly commendable). Amanda Forsythe, the vocally and physically nimble soprano who sings the role of Iris in all performances, was great to watch as well as to hear.

Blythe’s dual turn as Ino and Juno was so powerful and so artful that she made the term “commanding the stage” seem completely inadequate. Her voice is considerably larger and more opulent than you usually hear in Handelian opera, but Blythe sang with such fluent finesse that the score was well served. Her second-act duet with Rae before a starry firmament was a production highlight.

In Sunday’s cast, Deborah Nansteel was a worthy and impressive Ino/Juno. Like Theo Lebow, she is a former Seattle Opera Young Artist, a resounding recommendation for the revival of that program (now on temporary hiatus).

The supporting cast included the versatile baritone John Del Carlo, a 31-year Seattle Opera veteran, and the countertenor Randall Scotting as the hapless Athamus. (If the opera world has an award for “best snore,” it surely goes to Del Carlo as the somnolent Somnus.)

Right from the start, this “Semele” gives notice that it’s not business as usual in the opera house: as the projected opening credits roll, you might be in a movie theater. The scenic elements offer gorgeous views of snowy mountains and revolving planets. The theatrical effects also owe much to Vita Tzykun’s imaginative costumes (Iris’ light-emitting outfit is among the most memorable), which make the show fun to watch, even if the chorus appears to have gone shopping in the Star Trek costume warehouse.

A dazzling sextet of dancers is an integral part of the show’s action, with five of them leaping and twirling in Donald Byrd’s imaginative choreography.  At times, they express the emotion of a given scene in joy or anguish; occasionally they function as décor (one dancer briefly serves as a table).

Against the beautiful backgrounds, and with Wedow’s impassioned and adroitly paced conducting, the principal and supporting singers had every opportunity to shine. So did the chorus, well prepared by chorusmaster John Keene.

Finally, kudos to the continuo, the small orchestral subgroup that accompanied some of the opera’s most intimately reflective moments: cellist Meeka Quan Di Lorenzo, John Lenti (theorbo and guitar), Philip Kelsey (harpsichord and organ), and Wedow himself (playing the virginal, an early keyboard instrument).

Seattle Symphony presents Berlioz’s “Roméo et Juliette,” with Ludovic Morlot, conductor, in Berlioz’s “Romeo et Juliette”; February 12, 2015.

By Melinda Bargreen

It’s not a symphony, not an opera, not really an oratorio.

Berlioz’s “Roméo et Juliette,” this weekend’s Seattle Symphony nod to passionate (if doomed) love on Valentine’s Day, is hard to categorize but easy to enjoy. With Ludovic Morlot conducting the full orchestra, three vocal soloists, and the Seattle Symphony Chorale (in two configurations), Berlioz’s arch-romantic score was well served.

A maverick composer in many respects, Berlioz was no respecter of genre, and his works are famously hard to categorize. Not only his “Roméo et Juliette,” but also “La Damnation de Faust“ and even “Symphonie Fantastique,” are all genre-busters in their own way.

Inspired by Shakespeare, Berlioz nonetheless made some curious decisions in his orchestral representation of the play. There are three vocal soloists – but none of them is Romeo, or Juliet. The longest vocal solos by far are given to Friar Laurence, the production’s voice of reason (beautifully sung by the resonant baritone David Wilson-Johnson); the other two soloists, both excellent (opulent mezzo-soprano Sylvie Brunet-Grupposo and agile tenor Kenneth Tarver), advance the narrative synopsizing the story.

All the great moments of the Shakespearean play are given to the orchestra: the balcony scene, the lovers’ final scene together, and their death. Fortunately, Morlot and the orchestra provided plenty of drama in performances that were beautifully detailed -- never more so than in clarinetist Ben Lulich’s exquisitely subtle sighs in the Capulets’ tomb scene. Morlot’s wholehearted commitment to the music was evident in every line of the score.

The chorus, both in its initial 20-member subgroup and in the full-size chorale representing the Montagues and Capulets, sang with strength and precision, a credit to director Joseph Crnko. And in the grand finale, with Friar Laurence demanding reconciliation and the chorus swearing to forgive and forget, and the orchestra in full-on dramatic mode, you might well imagine you were at the opera. No sets or costumes, but plenty of the three most important elements: love, death, and passionate music.

Seattle Symphony with Christian Tetzlaff, violinist; and conductor Ludovic Morlot; Feb. 5, 2015.

By Melinda Bargreen

Thirteen years ago, violinist Christian Tetzlaff made his Seattle debut in a spectacular but sparsely attended recital in Meany Theater (with the great pianist Leif-Ove Andsnes). The snow forecast caused the potential audience to stay home in droves.

This time, even if a monsoon should be forecast, don’t miss your chance to hear this extraordinary violinist playing the Beethoven Concerto with the Seattle Symphony. This is the Beethoven as you’ve never heard it before: brilliant, heart-stopping Beethoven, complete with unique cadenzas and an interpretation that ranges from exquisitely reverent to rampagingly boisterous. Tetzlaff has the technique to make everything sound effortless and natural – perhaps understandably, as he has said he’s played this concerto 300 times. Never has the adage “practice makes perfect” seemed more apt.

The most spellbinding moments came in the cadenzas, Tetzlaff’s own reworkings of cadenzas Beethoven wrote for a piano version of his only violin concerto. The first-movement cadenza includes an eyebrow-raising, prominent accompaniment from the timpani (played subtly by Michael Crusoe); it’s an unusual but appropriate pairing, because the concerto opens with a four-note motif from the timpani.

Tetzlaff expertly shaped his big, pliant sound to create phrases of remarkable beauty and unexpected impact, easily heard over the orchestra but never pushing or forcing. He had careful support from conductor Ludovic Morlot and the orchestra, and delighted approval from the listeners, who surged to their feet after the final chords for a well-earned ovation.

The rest of the program was firmly French (Berlioz, Debussy, and Ravel), with a Gallic nod to Spain in Debussy’s colorful “Ibéria.” Berlioz’s dramatic “Le Corsaire” Overture was the opener; the three-movement “Ibéria” showed off the virtuosity of the various orchestral sections, particularly the woodwinds (it was a great night for oboist Ben Hausmann, guest flutist Marisela Sager, clarinetist Ben Lulich, and their respective sections, among several others).

This is music that shows Morlot at his best, as was evident in the closing piece, Ravel’s “La Valse” – a work that can veer out of control in less experienced hands. Here was the ideal balance between the music’s rising hysteria and the conductor’s steady baton, allowing the swirling colors of the score to be clearly heard even in the final cataclysm.

Seattle Symphony with Itzhak Perlman, Jan. 15, 2015. Benaroya Hall, Seattle.

By Melinda Bargreen

When a famous instrumental soloist schedules a play-and-conduct evening with an orchestra, you expect the playing to be great . . . and the conducting perhaps less so.

The current Seattle Symphony program with Itzhak Perlman in those dual roles confounds those expectations. The 69-year-old Perlman, who has spent many decades at the top of the violin pantheon, conducted Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony with revelatory skill and sensitivity.

Of course, his solo work in the familiar and beloved E Major Bach Violin Concerto (No. 2) was pretty impressive, too. Perlman was enveloped in applause from the moment he appeared on the stage, making his way to the podium on crutches (he was stricken by polio as a child). The audience’s standing ovation and shouts of “Bravo!” greeted his arrival before he had played a note.

His Bach concerto, which Perlman conducted from the soloist’s chair, was very well played, but frustrating in two ways. First, the placement of his chair parallel to the stage sent the violin sound toward the wings, rather than out into the house. And second, a soloist/conductor is often too busy with the solo instrument to do much with the orchestra, which in this case played very responsively but sometimes a bit too forcefully.

After the Bach, Perlman put down his fiddle and picked up the baton for two standard-favorite orchestral works: Brahms’ colorful “Academic Festival” Overture and Beethoven’s mighty Symphony No. 3 (“Eroica”).  His conducting style makes every gesture count; no flailing or windmilling are needed when you have that expressive left hand and a clear, incisive beat from the right hand.

The evening’s most gratifying surprise was the “Eroica,” whose second-movement funeral march (sometimes done as a dreary trudge) was so patiently and sensitively shaped that it sounded unusually profound. The long, gradual crescendo of the fourth movement was similarly inspired. Perlman’s sure sense of the symphony’s architecture and its dramatic possibilities were even more interesting to hear than the solo violin that has made him a superstar. The attentive orchestra played brilliantly for him, with several distinguished woodwind solos.

A medical emergency delayed the start of the second half, with emergency personnel removing one concertgoer on a stretcher. Here’s hoping for the best possible outcome.

Seattle Opera presents “Tosca,” with Julian Kovatchev, conductor, and Jose Maria Condemi, director. Starring Ausrine Stundyte, Stefano Secco and Greer Grimsley; alternate cast featuring Mary Elizabeth Williams, Adam Diegel, and Philip Horst. Through Jan. 24, at McCaw Hall, Seattle.

By Melinda Bargreen

You know you’re hearing an unusual “Tosca” when the villain almost walks away with the show.

So powerfully evil is the Scarpia of bass-baritone Greer Grimsley that there was a wave of audience applause on opening night when he met his death – a first in this longtime operagoer’s experience. (And, reportedly, in Grimsley’s experience, too.) Grimsley, who has made his biggest mark at Seattle Opera as the considerably more heroic Wotan in the “Ring,” has lifted the level of villainous finesse of his Scarpia to a new art form. The visceral impact of the first-act “Te Deum” finale was succeeded by the appalling tension of Scarpia’s stalking Tosca in the pivotal second act, creating a drama of unusual potency.

Fortunately, the two opening-cast leads – soprano Ausrine Stundyte in the title role, and tenor Stefano Secco as the heroic Cavaradossi – were strong enough singing actors to provide the required balance. Their scenes together had a believable warmth and authenticity; these were fully thought-out portrayals. They put a remarkably individual stamp on their most famous arias: Stundyte began “Vissi d’arte” as the merest breath, gradually adding intensity, and Secco held onto the high A in “E lucevan le stelle” as if going for the longest-note record. Both of them have distinctive timbres and big voices that are also capable of considerable subtlety.

All this action played out against the beautiful painterly sets from Italy’s Ercole Sormani, with detailed and realistic stage direction by Jose Maria Condemi. With the exception of a few opening-night minor bloopers, the orchestra played remarkably well for conductor Julian Kovatchev, whose support of the singers and pacing of the entire show were both admirable. (Three cheers for the cello section, in particular.)

The supporting roles were well taken, from Aubrey Allicock’s desperate Angelotti to the broadly comic Sacristan of Peter Strummer, the cynical Spoletta of Alasdair Elliott, and Barry Johnson’s Sciarrone. The Shepherd Boy was Matthew Bratton (alternating on Sunday and Feb. 23 with Max Laycock).

Condemi’s staging and John Keene’s chorus combined for maximum impact in the “Te Deum” scene at the end of Act I, and the audience buzz at the first intermission was positively electric.

So exciting was the Saturday-night “Tosca” that even some ardent football fans forgot (at least temporarily) the tension of the ongoing Seahawks playoff game – favorably resolved before the opera’s last act. You’d have to call this opera production a definite touchdown.

On Sunday, three new principals took over the leading roles: soprano Mary Elizabeth Williams as Tosca, and Adam Diegel and Philip Horst as the tenor and baritone who desire her. The voice of Williams, a former Seattle Opera Young Artist and an unforgettable Serena in “Porgy and Bess,” has grown in size and amplitude, and her acting skills have grown to match it. Her second-act confrontation with Scarpia (the suavely menacing Horst) was riveting in all its nuances. Diegel, as Cavaradossi, moved from a somewhat tentative beginning to a memorable performance in the subsequent acts.

This show is an excellent point of entry into the world of opera for those who aren’t sure whether this art form is for them. “Tosca” has just about everything: great tunes, desperate lovers, loads of action, and a bad guy you’re going to love to hate..]

The Seattle Symphony presents Mozart Clarinet, Piano and Violin Concertos, with Stilian Kirov conducting; Benaroya Hall, Seattle, January 8, 2015.

By Melinda Bargreen

January can be a month of concert doldrums after the barrage of holiday music, but not at the Seattle Symphony – where creative programming has been drawing in New Year’s crowds for the past few years. This time the focus is on Mozart, in his birth month (Wolfgang Amadeus was born Jan 27, 1756), and music lovers are taking note: Benaroya Hall was nearly full for Thursday night’s concert of three indisputably great Mozart concertos.

It was an evening of youthful energy, with associate conductor Stilian Kirov on the podium and three soloists. The Ukrainian-born violinist Valeriy Sokolov is 28; clarinetist Boris Allakhverdyan, born in Azerbaijan, is 30; and Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki is 19.

Lisiecki is probably the best known of the three to Seattle music lovers, because he gave a powerhouse President’s Piano Series recital at Meany Theater three years ago as a mere 16-year-old, establishing beyond any question that this was a major talent indeed.

This time, Lisiecki was the soloist in one of Mozart’s greatest piano concertos (he wrote 27 of them): the deep and serious No. 20 in D Minor (K.466). Lisiecki’s approach was suitably stormy, with lots of contrasts and some remarkable variety of touch. A rather exotic first-movement cadenza underscored the drama of that opening Allegro, and the delicacy of the Romanza movement gave way to a final Rondo that sounded technically brilliant but a bit aggressive and clattery. Lisiecki got a suitably tremendous ovation from the Mozart-happy crowd.

Preceding Lisiecki at the opening of the program was violinist Sokolov in the beautiful Violin Concerto No. 4 (K.218); he gave a fine performance that featured an incisive, robust tone and a strong, steady bow, as well as a few intonation problems. Kirov did an excellent job with the tempo changes and with carefully underscoring the soloist. Accompanying three different instrumentalists in three different pieces is no easy task, but the attentive Kirov made everyone look good.

Every music lover has a short list of all-time favorites, and the Mozart Clarinet Concerto is on a lot of those lists. Composed late in Mozart’s life as his lone concerto for that instrument, this is music in which every bar seems perfect and inevitable. Clarinetist Allakhverdyan turned in the evening’s most elegant and lyrical performance, with attentive and unfussy support from the podium. Allakhverdyan’s tone is pliant and silky, as smooth as running water, with a remarkable variety of colors. The radiant simplicity of the Adagio movement poured out from the stage like a New Year’s benediction.

The success of this program augurs well for Saturday’s all-Mozart sequel (with different concertos and soloists). One note: Lisiecki was originally announced as one of the Jan. 10 soloists, but due to a scheduling issue, he will be replaced by pianist Adam Golka, playing the same piano concerto (No. 21).

Seattle Symphony and Chorale present Handel’s “Messiah,” with guest conductor/tenor soloist Paul Agnew; Benaroya Hall, Dec. 18.

By Melinda Bargreen

Every year, the miracle happens again: a production of Handel’s “Messiah” that is completely different from any of the previous ones. How is this possible?

It’s partly because there are so many variables in the complex score and in its interpretation. An operatic approach; an 18th-century period reading; a 21st-century modern-orchestra version: which will it be? And then there are the questions of scale: a tiny orchestra with only one or two players on a part, or a hefty one with lots of strings and winds? The size of the chorus, and the instructions given that chorus about articulation and singing style, brings in another round of complexities. Finally, there are the soloists to consider. Has the conductor signed well-schooled oratorio singers, or opera specialists, or a little of each? And the conductor himself (or herself, though it’s almost always the former), of course, makes a huge difference in whether the oratorio seethes with drama or snores with propriety.

The current version of the Handelian classic, unveiled Friday evening in the first of four Seattle Symphony performances, is unique in this writer’s long memory of Seattle “Messiahs.” An English early-music specialist, Paul Agnew, is not only the conductor, but also the tenor soloist. Agnew has evidently instructed the strings to play without vibrato, and most of them did so, though as Friday evening wore on, there was a fair amount of reversion to the norm. That was not necessarily a bad thing. Vibratoless, straight-tone playing on modern instruments by players schooled in modern playing styles does not always present a happy outcome; the sound can seem scrawny and characterless.

Having your conductor also sing may sound like a great idea. In practical reality, however, this didn’t work well. When Agnew turned his back on the orchestra (always a dangerous thing to do!) and sang his pleasantly expressive and stylish solos facing the audience, he seemed distracted – relying heavily on the score for lines that the average soloist would have managed with only a glance or two at the pages. There also were a couple of unfortunate slips that probably wouldn’t have happened if Agnew had been able to concentrate solely on his tenorial responsibilities.

When he was singing, the orchestra (under the discreet guidance of concertmaster Emma McGrath) went forward on its own. The orchestra musicians probably could have played this score in their sleep, but the conductor is there for a reason: to shape the performance, to give it meaning and unity and subtlety.

The other soloists were also accomplished and expressive: the agile countertenor Benno Schachtner, the resonant baritone Matthew Burns, and Anna Devin, a crystalline soprano who favored us with not one, but two optional and lovely high B-flats. The chorus, buoyant and supercharged, gave the performance depth and character, thanks to excellent preparation by Joseph Crnko.

The roster of principal players also included Elisa Barston, Susan Gulkis Assadi, Efe Baltacigil, Joseph Kaufman, Seth Krimsky, Ben Hausmann, Joseph Adam, timpanist Matt Drumm, and trumpeter Alexander White, who gave a stylish account of the solos in “The trumpet will sound.”

[Melinda Bargreen is the author of two books, “Classical Seattle” and “50 Years of Seattle Opera”; she also reviews concerts for 98.1 Classical KING FM and The American Record Guide. She can be reached at mbargreen@gmail.com.]

Yo-Yo Ma, cellist, in UW World Series recital; Meany Theater, December 8, 2015.

By Melinda Bargreen

An empty stage, a lone chair, and Yo-Yo Ma emerging from the wings with his cello.

This is a recipe for concert bliss, as a lucky audience discovered Tuesday evening in Meany Theater, when the world’s pre-eminent cellist arrived for a solo recital. Ma’s program, ingeniously pairing Bach Cello Suites with folk-based works, lifted the listeners into a world of infinitely malleable and beautiful sound. It was the simplest and most direct kind of communication: one man playing his heart out on the stage, drawing the most bewitching music out of that sublime wooden box.

The program emphasized the interconnected nature of the works by juxtaposing them without the interruption of applause. Ma adroitly followed the subtle, wistful opening Partita No. 1 of Turkish composer Ahmet Adnan Saygun with Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major. Then came another, similar pairing: Mark O’Connor’s folk-themed “Appalachia Waltz” and the second of the Bach Suites (D Minor). After intermission came the final pair: Zhao Jiping’s “Summer in the High Grassland,” and the last of the Bach Suites (No. 6 in D Major).

Woven into this program were decades of Ma’s musical reach into several worlds. He has spent most of his 60 years with the Bach Suites, reinterpreting them with artists in other genres (such as choreographer Mark Morris) in a landmark “Inspired by Bach” film series. He has devoted decades to his Silk Road Project, touring and recording with international virtuosi (including composer Zhao Jiping) and ethnic music for instruments of many cultures. Both of those Bach and Silk Road threads were combined in what felt like a very personal program in Meany Theater.

Powerfully authoritative and infinitely subtle, Ma’s performance brought the music to life in all its variety: exultant, mournful, dying, reborn. He can draw a dynamic range and an array of sound qualities from the cello that boggle description. Nothing ever sounds forced; everything sounds as natural as breathing. On a technical level, Ma’s bow control is remarkable; the final note of the Prelude in the Suite No. 2 was a perfectly controlled decrescendo that continued to the very tip of the bow. His tonal variety extends from the merest thread of sound to a limpid smoothness and powerful declamatory passages; the harmonics in the Jiping finale were exquisite.

Ma makes you think. After an explosion of virtuosity in the Prelude of the Suite No. 6, he played an Allemande movement that was the most subtle, ruminative interior monologue. Listening to this felt like eavesdropping on private thoughts.

The ovation that came at the end of the final Bach Suite was met by a single encore: a Catalan folksong made famous by the great Pablo Casals (1876-1973), who regularly played “Song of the Birds” as a symbol of Catalonian freedom. It was Casals, Ma reminded us, who brought the Bach Suites into our own time by championing these works: “We owe a great debt to Casals,” Ma concluded.

Most recitalists like to end a concert with an encore that essentially says, “See how well I play.” Ma concluded his recital with a respectful nod to a great predecessor. For him, ego is not the issue: it’s all about the music.

What makes a performance unforgettable?

Why do some concert artists transport the listener into a realm beyond the four walls of a concert hall, and others leave you admiring but still earthbound?

Music lovers have been pondering these issues for generations. Of course, one’s response to music is always highly personal, based on tastes and knowledge and past experiences. But sometimes there is an artist by whom only the most unwilling or unreceptive can remain unmoved; an artist whose playing is so sublime that you feel he has come to earth from a much better planet.

I’m referring, of course, to Yo-Yo Ma, the cellist who has redefined what it means to be a musician in our time.

For Ma, it is not enough to play the standard repertoire, even the brand-new repertoire, at a level unattainable to almost everyone else. His far-ranging curiosity has drawn him into the wider world of the “Silk Road” Project, probing ancient and modern works for ethnic instruments of the countries spanning historic trade routes between Europe and Asia. The mixing of all those cultures has proved an extremely fertile ground for the discovery (and commissioning) of fresh repertoire and a whole new world of instrumental and vocal sound. Ma and his Silk Road Ensemble have brought to life more than 80 commissioned works from around the world.

His talent and fame have led Ma in brand-new directions – such as his post with the Chicago Symphony as “creative consultant,” expanding educational development and the orchestra’s artistic initiatives.

What can we learn from Yo-Yo Ma?

The great factor in his life and career is, of course, his artistic genius. That cannot be learned, or taught, or absorbed in any way; it is a gift. So is the generous spirit that has made Ma so beloved amongst music lovers.

But it is what Ma does with that gift that makes it count. Here are a few of the things that have made him unforgettable – and maybe a few things we lesser-talented individuals (musicians or not) can carry with us.

1. Don’t be content with the obvious. Yo-Yo Ma could have made a great career touring the world with the standard repertoire of concertos and solo works for the cello – occasionally commissioning a new piece or two. He would still top the pantheon of the greats if he had done so. But that wasn’t enough; his musical curiosity was too great to settle for a standard-rep career. He has transformed the repertoire for his instrument, and transformed his listeners in the process.

2. Move past the routine. In a Ma performance, you’ll see his face, rapt in intense concentration, focusing on every phrase as if it had earth-shaking importance. Music should never be “business as usual,” not when you are bringing great works alive for your audience – or for yourself in the practice room.

3. Be good to other people. This sounds so trite, but this principle is central to Ma’s life in music. Many concert artists have great talent, but not great souls. Ma’s genuine interest in the people around him, his desire to interact with them and to give them a superb musical experience, is clear in all that he does. This factor has generated an enormous wave of international good will in his direction.

4. Make time for bliss. Whether you are a musician, or an audience member, when was the last time music made you feel blissful? Whether you are performing or listening, push everything else out of your way to focus on the reason you love music in the first place. How lucky we are today to have such unprecedented access to great music – with Classical KING FM pouring out of your laptop, your phone, your car, your home sound system – even your wristwatch. May you take full advantage of all this sonic abundance over the holidays and in the year to come!

-- Melinda Bargreen