This is going to be an excellent week for serious listeners of classical music, with several major events headlining the agenda and some other good concerts on the sidelines. In the spotlight are a piano recital, a visiting orchestra, Russian music, and possibly the greatest opera ever composed. HEADLINES: >> Pianist Murray Perahia had to cancel his 2006 recital for Washington Performing Arts Society, because of renewed pain from a finger injury in the 1990s... more ›

This week you could be a busy classical listener, and hearing a concert almost every day, sometimes twice, without paying anything. The problem is that not all free concerts are equally strong, but who can complain about hearing music for free? MONDAY: >> The women of the Salem Academy Glee Club will give a free lunchtime concert (February 26, 12:10 p.m.) at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. The program will consist of... more ›

This week, I cannot complain about not hearing enough Mahler. After hearing the multiphonic performance of Mahler's eighth symphony, the Symphony of a Thousand, with the National Symphony Orchestra, I was at Strathmore on Saturday night to hear the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra take on Mahler's second symphony, the Resurrection. This was the last program under Yuri Temirkanov, the departing artistic director of the BSO, who will be succeeded this fall by Marin Alsop, the first woman to lead a major American orchestra. Temirkanov began his tenure in Baltimore with a performance of the Resurrection symphony and obviously cares deeply for this extraordinary piece of music. Hopes were high for a fiery performance to exceed the NSO eighth. Alas, it was not quite to be. more ›

When Gustav Mahler, near the end of his life, conducted the world premiere of his eighth symphony, in Munich in 1910, he did so with amassed musical forces — orchestra, eight vocal soloists, off-stage brass, and several large choruses of adults and children — numbering over 1,000 people. Although Mahler never liked the name, the work is still often known as the "Symphony of a Thousand." More an oratorio than a symphony in many ways, it ends with a mysterious exaltation of the Sacred Feminine (literally, Das Ewig-Weibliche), in the musical climax called the Chorus Mysticus. No, it has nothing to do with The Da Vinci Code. Although the end of Goethe's Faust would be a logical choice for a quick name-dropping reference in Dan Brown's hack novel, given how the man writes, it seems unlikely that he has read Faust. more ›

June is here, and that means that many of the major performing groups will be going on vacation. However, just as that happens, we have the Washington Early Music Festival most of this month, about which I'll write more next week. This week, both of the area's major symphonies are presenting major transcendant symphonies by Gustav Mahler, some of the most extravagant musical statements ever made. These works are not performed all that often, because... more ›

Is there too much information in the Classical Music Agenda? This DCist tends to err on the side of being too complete, but we will endeavor to restrict ourselves to recommending nothing but the best, in the hope of not overwhelming you. If you think we're being stingy, go to our Classical Week in Washington feature at Ionarts for the whole scoop. more ›