Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Met Orchestra offered an exceptionally detailed reading, sustaining long vocal dialogues through finely calibrated shifts in tempo and dynamics. The playing was rich and cohesive, with inner voices emerging vividly and blending seamlessly.
Lise Davidsen brought immense force to Isolde, her voice carrying a depth that felt like the essence of Wagner, even within these constraints.
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On 3.15.2026 at Zankel Hall, Tabea Zimmermann and Javier Perianes offered a luminous recital. From Schumann’s expressive early works to Brahms’s intimate Viola Sonata, Britten’s reflective Lachrymae, and Shostakovich’s late Sonata, their playing was passionate, nuanced, and deeply human.
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Dear my friend Y,
I’m so sorry for your loss.
Yesterday I heard Mahler’s Second Symphony, and the final movements speak about pain, but also about resurrection and hope.I wanted to share this music with you.
It feels like a prayer—for your father, and for all of you who loved him.
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インファンごめんよ。
On March 10, 2026, at Carnegie Hall, Yannick Nézet-Séguin led the Philadelphia Orchestra in Mahler’s Symphony No. 2. From anxious violins to radiant brass, each movement shimmered with detail. Joyce DiDonato’s mezzo soared in Urlicht, and the Resurrection finale proclaimed, “Rise again!” A vivid, masterful 90-minute performance.
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On March 5, the New York Philharmonic, conducted by Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, opened with Elgar’s Violin Concerto featuring Vilde Frang. Kurtág’s Brefs messages followed, with soloists creating intimate musical dialogue. Schumann’s Symphony No. 1 Spring conveyed youthful passion, and Mirga’s conducting drew the audience fully into the music.
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New York Philharmonic was conducted by Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla. Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis opened with sustained low strings, thick inner voices, and sweeping harmonies, creating intimacy and depth as solos emerged naturally. John Williams’s Piano Concerto premiered next, honoring jazz pianists, blending twelve-tone-like textures and intricate orchestration with Ax’s piano singing in shadows of improvisation. Weinberg’s Symphony No. 5 portrayed sadness, tension, and introspection, with delicate interplay between strings and brass; Mirga transformed sorrow into beauty, concluding with echoes of Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 15, completing a profound musical journey.
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Wien-Strauss-Zaratustra set, see the left back bell
Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra translates Nietzsche’s philosophy into music, using organ, harps, and tubas to depict sunrise, human longing, and life’s highs and lows. Steude and fellow musicians transform the piece through precise playing and dance, creating a transcendent experience. Sibelius’s Symphony No. 2 follows, capturing the breath of the earth, tension, and hope, with sweeping, cosmic gestures. Vienna 2026’s New York performances closed with Strauss’s existential questions and Sibelius’s natural imagery, and the encore waltz brought the three-day musical journey to a luminous, celebratory conclusion.
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ドボルザーク6番のセット
Wien and Nelsons at Carnegie Hall 2026, Day 2: from the gravity of Kurtág to Mozart’s elegant Vienna, and finally to Dvořák in a Vienna fraught with ethnic tensions, where the voices and dances of the local populace express strong national consciousness.
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Wien and Nelsons performed at Carnegie Hall on February 27, 2026. The concert opened with Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3, with Lang Lang weaving each note with improvisatory freedom. Nelsons let the music breathe; the second movement felt tender, a quiet entrusting of the heart. The encore dissolved softly into space. Mahler’s Symphony No. 1 followed, with shimmering strings, resonant horns, and colorful percussion creating a cosmic expanse. Nelsons precisely unified veterans and young musicians, tracing a journey from Bartók’s inner light to Mahler’s vast currents, an experience where sound and silence intertwined, leaving the listener introspective and awed.
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Since first hearing the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Daniel Barenboim in the 2000s and later under Riccardo Muti, I’ve known the Orchestra’s power and elegance. But this evening, with 30-year-old Finnish conductor Klaus Mäkelä at the podium, Chicago felt freshly alive.
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Conductor Santtu-Matias Rouvali debuted with the Philadelphia Orchestra on 2.14.2026, alongside Hilary Hahn’s long-awaited comeback. Tchaikovsky’s Italian Capriccio was light and dreamy; Hahn’s Prokofiev Concerto showcased clarity and tone. Rouvali’s Shostakovich 6 felt raw yet rewarding. Thunderous applause closed the concert.
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Budapest Festival Orchestra and conductor Iván Fischer performed Mahler's Symphony No. 3 at Carnegie Hall on 2.6.2026. Mahler's nature finds a voice, speaking profound secrets that man can only foresee in dreams. Running over 100 minutes, it depicts divine beauty and harshness, human sin and salvation.
A horn fanfare awakens Pan, god of the hall, on a January day at -15°C. Brass responds, joined by bass drum and solo trombone. The orchestra’s noble spirit reflects the earth’s breath, chaos, destruction, and creation. Double basses and percussion are placed around the hall, making Carnegie’s 2,800 seats breathe as one living creature. A march begins, life surging forth; Fischer draws crystal-clear sound, stirring the heart.
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At Carnegie Hall on 2.6.2026, the Budapest Festival Orchestra, led by Iván Fischer, opened with Pärt’s Summa, singing a Credo—“I believe.” Their voices, simple yet prism-like, created a wave of quiet light through the hall. In Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, Vengerov’s eloquent solo and the orchestra engaged in a lively dialogue. Brahms’ Symphony No. 2 revealed transparent interplay, with lines ascending and descending like light, while a Hungarian folk medley returned the music to its roots, inviting audience participation and joy.
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The Cleveland Orchestra performed Mozart’s Symphony No. 41 “Jupiter” and Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 11 at Carnegie Hall on January 21, 2026, under Franz Welser-Möst. In his program notes, Welser-Möst questioned what “authenticity” means, citing Mozart’s excitement over large forces and his belief that vibrato should arise naturally, like the human voice. Heard the day after Verdi’s Requiem, Jupiter sounded less light and transparent than physical and vocal, shaped by weight and breath. Shostakovich’s Eleventh, placed in the second half, avoided emotional excess; instead, Cleveland’s precise ensemble revealed cold repression through clarity and structure. As revolutionary fervor hardened into order and violence, the innocence and perfection of Mozart felt altered—almost like something already lost.
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Verdi’s Requiem resonated deeply. With the Cleveland Orchestra, Most, and the Cleveland Choir, the opening Requiem aeternam felt as if the sound arose from behind me. In Dies iræ, the intense orchestra conveyed the fear of sin, while the trumpet in Tuba mirum echoed through Carnegie Hall. In Recordare, the solo voice quietly pleaded for remembrance, and in Lacrimosa, the final Amen felt intimate and personal. In Offertorio and Sanctus, prayer and praise seemed to emerge from within; in Agnus Dei and Lux Æterna, voices and strings purified the heart. Finally, in Libera me, the fear of death and longing for salvation resonated powerfully through orchestra, choir, and solo singers—an unforgettable spiritual experience.
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On Sunday afternoon, January 11th, at Annenberg Hall, Dalia Stasevska conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra. She shaped string phrasing into long, continuous lines, balanced textures so percussion and brass never obscured the sound, and moved effortlessly between contemporary and Romantic styles. With an orchestra as responsive and colorful as Philadelphia’s, her clarity of structure and spontaneous breathing brought the music vividly to life.
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Bellini’s I Puritani on January 6, 10, and 18 at the Metropolitan Opera. From the opening, the orchestra surged into the hunting-horn tutti, with strings, horns, bassoons, and timpani building intensity, while the Puritans’ triple-meter march intertwined with the chorus like a massive concerto. Lisette Oropesa’s Elvira floated above the violas’ weight, her delicate voice revealing the trembling of her heart. Artur Ruciński’s Riccardo sang unbroken lines that seemed to stretch time, while the orchestra responded with harmony and articulation, creating a vivid dialogue between voice and ensemble.
I Puritani combines simple marches into a complex, kaleidoscopic structure, revealing both the purity of the human heart and the expressive freedom of bel canto.
Read MoreSound, rising from silence,
Fingertips find the edge of the chair.
Breaths overlap.
Time slips away.
沈黙から生まれた響きは
指先で椅子の縁に触れ
呼吸が重なり時間を忘れる
The spatiality of sound is invisible, yet felt like sculpture. In Monteverdi’s Duo seraphim, two voices become three, then merge into one; syllables stretch, words do not end, and time itself sways. In Jacobs’ performance, the melisma aligns with breath, and sound approaches silence. Without explaining doctrine or narrative, Monteverdi lets listeners experience the Trinity through sound alone. One simply senses presence, and the music becomes the very air of the space.
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The concert opens with John Adams’s kinetic Short Ride in a Fast Machine, followed by Samuel Barber’s lyrical Violin Concerto with Augustin Hadelich. It concludes with Mahler’s transparent and ironic Symphony No. 4, featuring soprano Joélle Harvey, under Dalia Stasevska.
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