Classical

The rarely performed Sinfonia that Verdi wrote for the La Scala premiere of Aida is a full-fledged overture that reflects themes from the opera, while Respighi’s Fountains of Rome and Pines of Rome are spectacularly orchestrated tone poems that evoke the ...

Orchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Celina continue their Carnegie Hall engagement. Tragedy and rapture are the essence of Mahler’s Sixth Symphony. The storm-tossed finale’s three titanic hammer blows presaged personal tragedies in Mahler’s life, including his own ...

Whether it’s performing a string quartet by Haydn or a daring new work commissioned by Carnegie Hall, there doesn’t seem to be anything the dynamic young musicians of Ensemble Connect can’t do. The New York Times called them “the new face of classical music for New ...

“Vocally, Fleming’s renowned sumptuous sound has only slightly retrenched with age – ever so. She is smart, and she navigates her vocal journey with the shrewdness of that of her character work.” That is

“He is a powerhouse,” wrote The New York Times of pianist George Li, while The Washington Post said, “there was mind-boggling fluency in Li’s fingerings, an effortlessness to his playing, a beguiling fluidity to his phrasing, a precision to his crisp attacks.” The 2015 ...

The silken legato line, glittering ornamentation, melancholy sighs, and sheer brio of dazzling pianism define Chopin’s music. The sensational young pianist Daniil Trifonov takes a deep dive into the Polish genius’s world and the music he inspired. Trifonov performs Chopin ...

One of China’s great orchestras makes its Carnegie Hall debut in a program that features a new work by Qigang Chen (music director of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing) commissioned for the occasion and a classic from its homeland, along with Sibelius’s heroic Symphony No. 2. ...

The Washington Post wrote that pianist Marc-André Hamelin’s “technical facility is breathtaking: The piano quivers and trembles under his thunderous assault, but his sensitivity is also superb.” These qualities are at the fore in a program that explores the hazy harmonies ...

Steve Reich’s genius is showcased by Ensemble Signal, “one of the most vital groups of its time” (The New York Times). Clapping Music is early Reich, a revolutionary work that requires no instruments beyond the human body. Of recent vintage is Quartet, a piece co-commissioned by ...

Amjad Ali Khan is an undisputed master and one of India’s most celebrated classical musicians. Heir to a long and distinguished musical lineage—he is the son of sarod master Haafiz Ali Khan—he gave his first performance at age six. Khan has since performed his own compositions ...

“A prodigious performer in action, increasingly willing to plumb music’s soul,” is how the Los Angeles Times described pianist Yefim Bronfman. His virtuosity, intellectual acumen, and emotional commitment are perfectly suited to Beethoven’s ground-breaking Piano Concerto No. ...

Mahler famously told Sibelius that “the symphony must be like the world—it must embrace everything.” If any comes close, it is Mahler’s Symphony No. 3, with music that moves from an ominous invocation of Nature awakening, through a raucous march of Pan, a song of angels, and ...

Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto is one of his most beloved works, a masterpiece enriched by beautiful melodies and devilishly virtuosic passages. Gil Shaham, called “the outstanding American violinist of his generation” (TIME) is the soloist in this work that is a cornerstone of ...

Quartets by two composers not primarily known for chamber music bookend a restless work by Brahms. Puccini composed his emotionally intense Crisantemi as an elegy for a nobleman and used it later in his opera Manon Lescaut. The challenging first violin part of ...

Sumptuous orchestration, pianistic pyrotechnics, and acerbic wit highlight an evening of Russian music that spans the Imperial and Soviet eras. Scriabin’s obsession with mysticism and sensory stimulation form the core of his lushly scored Symphony No. 3, “The Divine Poem.” ...

Daniil Trifonov made his Carnegie Hall debut in a performance of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 with Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra. He reunites with them for another composer’s first concerto—his own. Trifonov’s Piano Concerto has pianistic flash, but also ...

“Faced with such excellence, a mere critic can only abandon paper and pencil and listen to this heroic but deeply moving artist with awe and amazement,” wrote Gramophone of Paul Lewis. He explores the late piano music of three Austro-German masters in a recital that traces a path ...

Three Viennese composers put their personal stamp on the string quartet. Mozart’s is one of six he dedicated to Haydn, paying homage to the master while also looking ahead to the dramatic and harmonically daring quartets of Schubert. Schubert’s grandly scaled string quartet is a ...