Concert Review: The Revelations Will Not Be Televised

The Crypt Sessions presents Quatour pour la fin du temps.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Stephen Jackiw, Orion Weiss, Jay Campbell and Yoonah Kim contemplate the End of Time.
Photo by Andrew Ousley © 2019 The Death of Classical

The Crypt Sessions has returned and its timing could not be better. Their season opener was Tuesday night, with a performance of Messiaen's Quatour pour la fin du temps, a work written and premiered in a German prisoner of war camp in the dark days of World War II. For the forty-nine lucky souls gathered in the depths of the Church of the Intercession, it was a transcendental experience.

Concert Review: Listening to Ecstasy

The Cleveland Orchestra plays Messiaen.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Ecstasy: Franz Welser-Möst (on podium, back to camera), Jean-Yves Thibaudet (left) and Cynthia Millar (right)
and the Cleveland Orchestra play the Turangalîla-symphonie.
Photo by Roger Mastroianni © 2018 The Cleveland Orchestra.

The music of Olivier Messiaen has never been an "easy sell" to the average concert-goer. Performances of his works remain infrequent, partially because of his own status as an outlier among the creative minds of the 20th century and partially because of the massive demands these pieces place on both performers and audience. It is a state of unfortunate neglect, one that the Cleveland Orchestra corrected on Wednesday night with a performance of Turangalîla-symphonie, the huge ten-movement piece commissioned by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1949.

Concert Review: Night of the Blob

Pierre-Laurent Aimard at Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Pierre-Laurent Aimard and friend. Photo from the artist's website.

There is no question that the French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard is among the most innovative and forward thinking masters of the keyboard working today. However, Thursday night’s recital on the big stage of Carnegie Hall's Stern Auditorium was a bit of a puzzle, challenging to both the artist himself and the music lovers, aficionadoes and reviewers in attendance.

Concert Review: Messiaen-ic Visions

The Philharmonic makes CONTACT! to open Messiaen Week.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Taxi! A still from Esa-Pekka Salonen's commercial for Apple's iPad Air.
Image © 2015 Apple Inc.

This week, the New York Philharmonic begins a week-long celebration of the life and work of Olivier Messiaen, the French composer who combined mysticism and modernism in equal measure to become one of the most important, if occasionally mystifying composers of the 20th century. Billed as Messiaen Week, the series opened Monday night with a CONTACT! concert of chamber music: solos and duets by Messiaen, his pupils and composers that he influenced over a long career.lassical,

Concert Review: The Birds are the Word

The Cleveland Orchestra plays Messiaen and Dvořák.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Franz Welser-Möst conducting the Cleveland Orchestra.
Photo by Stephanie Berger © 2015 Lincoln Center Festival.

At first glance, there is no existing connection between the music of French twentieth century mystic Olivier Messiaen and the nineteenth century Bohemian rhapsodies of Antonín Dvořák. But, as was so ably demonstrated Thursday night by the Cleveland Orchestra under the baton of music director Franz Welser-Möst, the music of these two very different men has a number of common points.

Concert Review: Every Breaking Wave

The New York Philharmonic makes CONTACT! with Japanese music.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The torii gate at Miyajima, inspiration for Olivier Messiaen's Sept haïkaï.
Photo © 2015 from Wikimedia Commons.

Since its inception in 2009, the CONTACT! series has been the New York Philharmonic laboratory for performing modern music. Staged in more intimate venues than Avery Fisher Hall around New York, the players are liberated from the typical subscription format and the compulsion of symphony orchestras to pair the avant-garde with Beethoven, Brahms and Bruckner. On Friday evening, members of the orchestra gathered at the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium in the Metropolitan Museum of Art for New Music in Japan, a program celebrating the classic and cutting edge of contemporary art music in the Land of the Rising Sun.

Concert Review: Don't Let Them Be Misunderstood

The Cleveland Orchestra returns to Lincoln Center.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Franz Welser-Möst leads the Cleveland Orchestra at Avery Fisher Hall.
Photo by Stephanie Berger for the Cleveland Orchestra © 2008.

Franz Welser-Möst and the Cleveland Orchestra have been absent from Lincoln Center since 2008 when they presented a five-day festival pairing the symphonies of Anton Bruckner with music by John Adams. On Monday night, conductor and orchestra returned to Lincoln Center for another combination of classical and modern composers: in this case Ludwig van Beethoven and Olivier Messiaen. This unusual, but effective pairing was a major concert of this year's White Light Festival, the performing arts center's annual Fall exploration of the numinous in the lively arts.

The Gallery of Bad Album Art

Another irreverent look at classical music and how it's packaged.
by Paul Pelkonen

We've gone from this....

...to this. Granted, this is cheaper.

The art of the classical music album cover has enjoyed a steep downward spiral in the past decade. Faced with the prospect of compressing their catalogues into boxed sets that have very low sales numbers to begin with, the major labels have resorted to cheap-o artwork that is designed to look good on the touch-screen of an iPhone. 

In the quest to create these "iconic" images for their back catalogues, the few record companies that survive have come up with some covers that look like they were done by a kindergarten student. Others are awesomely tasteless, and a few are just plain dull. We offer ten examples below, and we save the best for last.

The Egyptian slave would be rolling in her grave if he saw this kiddie-style design
for Aida. The whole Opera! series from Universal suffers from similar art.