Concert Review: The Answers Lie Within

The Chamber Music Society kicks off its Russian Panorama festival.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Like these Matroyshka dolls, Russian musical tradition has a complicated history.
Photo from Wikimedia Commons.

The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center is on a mission this month: to explore the vast and mostly ignored field of Russian music beyond the "big names." True, the chamber works of Tchaikovsky and the quartets of Shostakovich are repertory staples, but Sunday's concert at Alice Tully Hall was dedicated (with one notable exception) to composers whose catalogues are new to Western ears.

Concert Review: The White Tiger Returns

Dmitri Hvorostovsky in recital at Carnegie Hall. 
by Paul J. Pelkonen

He'll take Manhattan: Dmitri Hvorostovsky.
Photo by Pavel Antonov for Hvorostovsky.com

On Wednesday night, Dmitri Hvorostovsky returned to Carnegie Hall for a program of Russian songs and lieder by Richard Strauss. On paper, this would seem a normal yearly recital, part of the yearly routine of an international opera star. What is unusual though is that Mr. Hvorostovsky (who last appeared at the Met in Il Trovatore last fall. is in the middle of a long battle against brain cancer. His diagnosis was announced in June of 2015. Since then, he has cancelled performances,  undergone hospitalization and suffered through prolonged, presumably painful treatment.