Concert Review: Future to Past

The violinist Christian Tetzlaff at Mostly Mozart.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

The violinist Christian Tetzlaff. Photo © 2014 by Klaus Rudolph.

The month-long Mostly Mozart festival at Lincoln Center is usually where listeners go to escape accidental exposure to any works that might have been written in the past 200 years. The festival's focus is, after all Mozart with occasional leavenings of Beethoven and Bach. So it was a surprise that Wednesday's concert opened with a piece by...Alfred Schnittke?

Concert Review: His Favorite Instrument

The National Symphony Orchestra closes out Spring For Music.
by Paul J. Pelkonen

Dmitri Shostakovich (left) and his good friend and interpreter Mstislav Rostropovich.

The National Symphony Orchestra has called the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C. home since that venue opened in 1971. In 1974, the NSO gained its most famous music director, when the Russian conductor and cellist Mstislav Rostropovich took over the position shortly after his defection from the former Soviet Union. He held that post for 23 years, stepping down in 1997 to resume an international performing career.