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 that nearly ended his career. Keep your fingers crossed, but if all goes well, he will finally perform that recital next Sunday (October 28, 4 p.m.) in the Music Center at Strathmore, to open the Piano Master series inaugurated this season by WPAS. The program is classic Perahia: a Bach partita, a Beethoven sonata (op. 28, “Pastorale”), and pieces by Brahms and Chopin. At the time of writing, only a few tickets remain, at $75 and $85.
>> Again thanks to WPAS, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic comes to the Kennedy Center Concert Hall on Tuesday (October 23, 8 p.m.) for a concert with their director Yuri Temirkanov, former music director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. The program combines Mozart and Prokofiev with the Beethoven violin concerto played by one of the world’s best violinists, Julia Fischer. When she played the work under Temirkanov in Baltimore, it made me gush like a little girl in my review. This concert is already sold out, but it is certainly worth a call to the box office.
>> If you cannot actually hear that Russian orchestra, you can pretend, with the Evening of Russian Music offered by Choral Arts Society on Sunday evening (October 28, 7:30 p.m.) in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. Guest conductor Antony Walker, who does such excellent work with Washington Concert Opera, and soprano Alessandra Marc promise extraordinary things in scenes from Boris Godunov, Eugene Onegin, and more. The concert is dedicated to the memory of Mstislav Rostropovich. Tickets: $15 to $65.
Photo of pianist Murray Perahia by Watanabe, courtesy of Sony Classical
