After yesterday’s preview of the endless list of holiday concerts in the area in December, it is time to discuss the piece that must not be named, Georg Friedrich Händel’s Messiah (1742). Yes, it is a masterpiece of music history, but the lamentable annual round of weary performances at Christmas time (in spite of the fact that Messiah is an Easter work), makes me want to run screaming for anything else this time of…

Marin Alsop had only to walk onto the stage of Meyerhoff Symphony Hall Friday night to receive a standing ovation. Rare have been the evenings with that hall so full for a concert by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in recent years. One can only hope that the honeymoon will be long-lasting for Alsop and Charm City. That this renewal was consecrated over a program of John Adams and Mahler is all the more remarkable. The…

Without a doubt, the most important event in classical music this week is the opening of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s season. It will be the occasion of the official installation of Marin Alsop as the group’s music director, the first woman to hold that position with a major American symphony orchestra. A celebrated champion of contemporary music, particularly by American composers, Maestra Alsop has come into her new job with a full head of steam,…

Memorial Day has come and gone, and we are now officially in the summer hiatus of the Classical Music Agenda. Here are some highlights for this week: in a week or two, this feature will take a well-deserved rest until Labor Day, when the classical concert schedule returns to full power. TOPS THIS WEEK: >> On Wednesday night, the excellent NPR radio program From the Top will be recorded in front of a live audience…

The nicer the weather gets, the busier we get across the Ist-A-Verse. But we like being busy. Here’s a peek at what we’ve been up to since last week! Chicagoist had an interview with Audrey Niffenegger, whose popular book, The Time Traveler’s Wife, was based in their fine city. They also had a heated discussion about Rush Limbaugh’s controversial Barack Obama parody, talked about whether Uncle Julio’s Hacienda is a good place to get…

There is little doubt that the main event this week is the opening of the final part of the Washington National Opera’s season. The company’s penultimate production, Leoš Janáček’s Jenůfa in a staging by David Alden, won the Laurence Olivier Award this year for best new opera production. For reasons beyond understanding, not a single performance has sold out, although this is likely to be the high point of the WNO season. Some people may…

There may not be many concerts happening during this coming work week, but the number of concerts scheduled for the weekend will require shrewd planning for serious listeners. SYMPHONY: >> Renaud and Gautier Capuçon, the brothers from France who play violin and cello with exceptional flair, will join the National Symphony Orchestra this week. The program in the Kennedy Center Concert Hall includes the Brahms double concerto (for violin and cello), Debussy’s iconic symbolist poem…

Here at DCist, we do not normally concern ourselves much with Baltimore, for obvious reasons contained in the name of this site. However, I do go up to Charm City regularly to hear concerts, and I mention things to hear there if they are exceptional. So, as I advised you all in last week’s Classical Music Agenda, on Friday night DCist Got In On It and heard the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall….

This is going to be a good week. There are so many things to hear, concerts that promise great delights. We’ll start with the best of the best and go from there. RECOMMENDED: >> For many serious fans of the piano, especially those who prize accuracy of technique and intellectual craft, there is only Maurizio Pollini. The last time that he played in Washington, I leapt at the chance to hear him, as I have…

After reporting yesterday on Dutilleux’s Correspondances with the National Symphony at the Kennedy Center, I made the trip up to Baltimore in the pursuit of new music. In this case, it was the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra’s performance of John Adams’s On the Transmigration of Souls at Meyerhoff Symphony Hall. It is the most celebrated work of music written to commemorate the victims of the September 11 attacks, having won the Pulitzer Prize for Music in…