Concert Review: Start the Massacre Without Me

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Riccardo Muti (standing) at the helm of his troops in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. 
Photo by Todd Rosenberg © 2018 the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

The life of a classical music critic (especially one who runs his own business and also freelances!) is sometimes prone to the peccadilloes of routine. As a result, I'm starting this review of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Saturday night performance ant Carnegie Hall with a confession, that, thinking that the start time of the performance was the usual 8pm (as it almost always is for shows at Stern Auditorium I arrived at 7:40--ten minutes late.

Yes. I missed the overture.

Concert Review: Providence, Prokofiev and Pirates

The San Francisco Symphony at Carnegie Hall.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Michael Tilson Thomas.
Photo © 2013 San Francisco Symphony.

Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra closed their two-night 2014 stand at Carnegie Hall on Thursday night. The evening offered pretty much everything this ensemble does well. There was new music. There was a surprisingly gentle 20th century concerto. And there was an almost obligatory Big Work: the unexpurgated score of Maurice Ravel's ballet Daphnis et Chloë.