Schnittke’s String Quartet No. 2, on the other hand, hails from an entirely different world, historically, stylistically, and expressively. Written in 1980 as a memorial to the composer’s friend, ...

Talk about a strong finish: while the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s spring season runs through May, the ensemble’s two-month streak of concerts showcasing major new and unfamiliar repertoire that began ...

Talk about a strong finish: while the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s spring season runs through May, the ensemble’s two-month streak of concerts showcasing major new and unfamiliar repertoire that began ...

While such a complex score requires more than one hearing to grasp its full measure, Salonen seems to have crafted a work that, despite its challenges and headiness, is vivid and—in the best ...

“[Bleeping] family,” Jeff Goldblum’s Zeus mutters in an early episode of Netflix’s Kaos. He could easily have been referring to the dysfunctional brood at the heart of Wolfgang Amadé Mozart’s ...

The end of a matter, the writer of Ecclesiastes tells us, is better than its beginning. Though that reality isn’t borne out in every situation, the sentiment largely applies to Beethoven’s nine ...

The Handel and Haydn Society might be the country’s oldest performing arts institution, but it certainly is projecting—and performing with–the vigor of youth this week. On Monday, the ensemble ...

Over the years, Dante Alighieri’s Commedia has been the impetus for any number of musical works. Yet, aside from Tchaikovsky’s Francesca da Rimini, few are firmly established in the canon. On the ...

No one ever accused Gustav Mahler of taking the easy route. Even so, the Austrian composer’s Symphony No. 3 develops a programmatic concept that stretches the genre almost to its breaking point.

“I hate quotation,” Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote. “Tell me what you know.” Well, there’s no question that Carlos Simon knows the charismatic black church. The son of a preacher, the Boston Symphony ...

Andris Nelsons’ annual opera-in-concert weekends with the Boston Symphony Orchestra usually showcase the conductor at his best. This year’s surely did, with the culminating installment of the ...

Tucked away at the Second Church in Newton, the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra delivered a charming meditation on music and nature on Sunday afternoon. Led by composer and guest conductor Jeff Beal, Pro ...