Does anyone else need a vacation from their vacation? Some good classical music is just the thing to calm your nerves after battling the traffic or the airport crowds. Happily, we have some excellent things on the agenda for this week, before the Holiday Concert Madness truly sets in, beginning with some of the big guns. STAR CONCERTS: >> The main event this week as far as I am concerned is the recital by powerhouse…

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…