Classical Music Agenda
This is the last week of Washington National Opera's fine production of Peter Grimes, the modern operatic masterpiece by Benjamin Britten, which we reviewed last week. Tickets remain for performances this afternoon, as well as Wednesday and Saturday nights. For the rest of what there is to hear this week, read on.
Ian Bostridge, tenor. He's British.
>> Opera Lafayette will close out its season with a performance of Handel's L'Allegro, il Penseroso, ed il Moderato in honor of the 250th anniversary of that composer's death, on Friday evening (April 3, 7:30 p.m.) in the Kennedy Center Terrace Theater. The libretto is based on the twin poems by John Milton, L'Allegro and Il Penseroso. At the time of writing, the tickets ($60) are sold out, but you can check with the box office.
>> When some men discover that their wives have been spectacularly unfaithful, they get violent. Gustav Mahler, on the other hand, wrote his last completed symphony. The Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will perform Mahler's ninth symphony this weekend, with one performance on Saturday night (April 4, 8 p.m.) in the Music Center at Strathmore. Mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke will also join the BSO for a performance of Leonard Bernstein's Opening Prayer. There will also be performances in Baltimore on Friday and Sunday.
>> Anyone who admires the voice of English tenor Ian Bostridge will want to start making plans for a trip to Baltimore's Shriver Hall for his recital with pianist Julius Drake next Sunday (April 5, 5:30 p.m.). The program is all Schubert songs and should be exquisite. Tickets: $33 (tickets, $17).
>> See a movie the way they were meant to be performed, with no dialogue and a live musical accompaniment. The National Symphony Orchestra and organist Dennis James will perform the score for Buster Keaton's The General during a complete screening in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall on Saturday (April 4, 8 p.m.). Tickets: $20 to $65.
FREE, FREE, FREE:
>> New pieces by University of Maryland composition students Matthew Jaskot, Owen Adams, Josh Perry-Parrish, John K. Leupold II, and Elisabeth Mehl Greene will be performed on Monday night (March 30, 8 p.m.) at the free New Music Concert at Clarice Smith Center.
>> Violists Kim Kashkashian and Dimitri Murrath will give a free recital on Wednesday (April 1, 7:30 p.m.) at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. A recital with nothing but two violas? It must be an April Fools joke.
>> At the Library of Congress on Friday night (April 3, 8 p.m.) hear a free concert by the Dominant Quartet. Making their debut in North American, this group of Russian women from Moscow will play quartets by Haydn, Beethoven, and Vainberg.
>> On Sunday afternoon (April 5, 3 p.m.) the Borealis String Quartet will give a free concert at the National Academy of Sciences (2101 Constitution Ave. NW), with music by Beethoven, Puccini, and Kelly-Marie Murphy.
>> Free with entrance to the Phillips Collection on Sunday (April 5, 4 p.m.) is a recital by pianist Thomas Pandolfi.
>> In a free concert at the National Gallery of Art on Sunday (April 5, 6:30 p.m.) the National Gallery String Quartet will join forces with the Poulenc Trio in music by Benjamin Britten and other British composers.
FURTHERMORE:
>> The Pacifica Quartet will give an intriguing program on Friday night (April 3, 8 p.m.) in the Barns at Wolf Trap, with music by Mendelssohn, Ligeti, and Brahms. Tickets: $35.
>> On Saturday (April 4, 8 p.m.) another fine young string quartet, the Calder Quartet, will perform on the concert series of the Candlelight Concert Society, at Howard Community College's Smith Theater in Columbia, Md. Older works by Mendelssohn and Mozart bookend newer pieces by Christopher Rouse and Ben Johnston. Tickets: $29 (students, $12).
>> Holy Week is a strange time to perform a Requiem Mass, but that will not stop the Washington Chorus from presenting Verdi's Requiem next Sunday (April 5, 3 p.m.) in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. Tickets: $15 to $60.
>> Far more liturgically appropriate is a setting of the Passion, proper to Palm Sunday, like Bach's extraordinary St. John Passion. The sort-of annual tradition continues next Sunday (April 5, 4 p.m.) in a performance by the Washington National Cathedral choirs.