This Week in Classical Music

by: Randy Kinkel

March 01, 2009

Bryn Terfel

This Week in Classical Music-March 1, 2009

( Phoenix )
•Terfel and Bell performances wow London
•Strad turns up near Black Sea

This week in classical music 3/01/09

It’s this week in classical music – a look at what’s happening in the classical music world—I’m Randy Kinkel.

Baritone Bryn Terfel’s return to the royal Opera in Wagner’s “Flying Dutchman” after an absence of two years has turned quite a few critics’ heads in London. Neil Fischer of the Times sums it up this way:” "Wagner singing is hardly ever this nuanced, but Terfel's bass-baritone is now so subtly controlled that he can fire it out over the orchestra or thin it down to a plaintive whisper."

Also a big hit on the road in England is the Minnesota Orchestra and Osmo Vanska with violinist Joshua Bell, who recently performed Samuel barber’s Violin concerto at the barbican. Ivan Hewitt of the Telegraph wrote:” It's a beautifully understated piece, and this performance brought out the strength of feeling hiding under those modest folky melodies. The soloist Joshua Bell's pure tone and delicately modulated line was exactly suited to the music's shy sincerity.” And the band’s Beethoven 3 earned two thumbs up as well—said Hewitt: “Vänskä and the Minnesotans built a cumulative tension through every twist and turn, right up to the final explosion of joy at the end.”

A violin believed to be a stolen Stradivarius has been found in Romania. The Instrument was found in the City of Constanta on the Black Sea coast after police searched a house based on a tip. According to a police spokeswoman, the violin has the word “Stradivarius” and the year “1721” engraved on it. An expert is to determine whether the instrument is a genuine Stradivarius. No word on who it might really belong to.

For more information on these and other items and events, go to the KBAQ website at KBAQ-dot-org.… be listening every week at this time for another update, and join me at noon every weekday for the Mozart Buffet, an hour of music by Mozart and his contemporaries, … I’m Randy Kinkel, for KBAQ’s “This week in Classical Music”… on 89-five KBAQ Phoenix, a service of Rio Salado College and Arizona State University.

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