Alan Rich

... the words young and youth

Bravo, Gustavo!

Alan Rich
It has been a mere four years since Gustavo Dudamel began his conquest of the musical world, and he has spent that time very well indeed. The steps he has climb...
article placeholder

So I Keep Hearing

Alan Rich
Classical music critic 1992-2008 May I presume? Leonard Bernstein, whose anniversaries we widely and wisely celebrate this year, made his first public noise — that famous New York Philharmonic broadcast — in November 1943. Merely one year later, almost to the day, I too generated a kind of noise: my......
Credit: Kyle T. Webster

Hallelujah Junction: A Minimalist Life

Alan Rich
Is there anything about the composer John Adams that still needs writing down? The critics have surely had their say: Mark Swed in the Los Angeles Times, Alex Ross in the eloquent epigram to his important book (The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the 20th Century), myself in these (sob!)......
law logo2x b

A Street Musician's Symphonic Movement

Alan Rich
Back in September 1964, Jascha Heifetz, the formidable fiddler, was attempting an ill-advised comeback recital at Carnegie Hall. The crowd out front was enormous, and it naturally included many people with long faces hoping for a turned-back ticket to this sold-out event. I was covering it as a music critic......
law logo2x b

Parting Shots

Alan Rich
The Last Romantic Betty Freeman (Click to enlarge) Composer Helmut Lachenmann Helmut Lachenmann cuts a solitary figure in today’s musical world. At a time when much of the talk centers on accessibility, on a generation of composer-heroes — Adams, Adès, Reich, Saariaho, Salonen, just for starters — who have found......
article placeholder

Dear Old Friends

Alan Rich
Before There Was Ambien The air was full of memories at the season finale of the “Piano Spheres” concerts last week; the music was too. Ursula Oppens was the pianist — “Oyssla,” as Morty Feldman always called her in his high Brooklynese — and everything on her program was also......
article placeholder

And When the Dust Had Settled …

Alan Rich
Don’t Feed the Animals (Click to enlarge) Fabio Biondi of Europa Galante More of the same: The new guy has come and gone after his two-week Philharmonic guest shot, leaving behind echoes of adoration and tumults of anticipation — next Disney gig: November 24 — and memories of a sound......
article placeholder

Fantastique Shake-Up

Alan Rich
Genius, Age 27 Sylvia Lelli (Click to enlarge) He’s real, he's ours: Gustavo Dudamel. You could almost say they were made for each other, even to a similarity of hairdo — Hector Berlioz, who astounded musical society with his Symphonie Fantastique at the age of 27, and the Philharmonic’s maestro-designate,......