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Articles by Peter Burwasser
Barraine: Symphonies 1 & 2
A A A Here is yet another discovery of a formidable female composer who was somehow sidelined in a male-dominated artistic culture. Although Elsa Barraine was a well-established member of the modern French musical ecosphere, her reputation faded quickly after her death in 1999. She was a Parisian-born child prodigy and became a student of Paul Dukas in 1927. The influence of her teacher’s vaunted technical skills is heard in these two symphonies from the 1930s.
Glass: Hourglass
A A A Pianist Simone Dinnerstein founded the chamber ensemble Baroklyn in 2017. The name is a verbal play on Brooklyn, her home base, and baroque, the musical genre they intended to explore (and in particular, Bach’s music for keyboard and orchestra).
Bud Shank: Holiday in Brazil
A A A Bud Shank once remarked, “I don’t even know what the hell West Coast jazz is,” although he was commonly associated with the genre.
Tabakova: Sun Triptych
A A A Dobrinka Tabakova was born in Bulgaria in 1980, but has lived in London since the age of 11, where she has received all of her formal musical training. Naturally, her style reflects both of these distinct cultural influences, which merge into a singular voice, as heard on this collection of new works for orchestra. And like any curious artist, she seems to have picked up other threads as well, such as American jazz, as heard in the strong Gershwin overtones in Suite in Jazz Style.
Into the Light. Musicians of the Old Post Road
A A A Every now and then, some ancient composer is “rediscovered” and becomes the hot thing in classical music. A few years ago, it was Jan Dismas Zelenka, a baroque Bohemian musician whose jaunty tunes were suddenly all over the radio and in concert halls. Is Christoph Graupner the next Zelenka? Maybe. Probably not. Graupner (1683–1760) spent most of his career in the German city of Darmstadt, where he produced over 2000 works for the church and the royal court.
Choctaw Places
A A A Charles Shadle is an academically trained composer and serves on the esteemed MIT music faculty. He is also a member of the Choctaw Nation. These diverse influences merge in the beautifully crafted chamber music featured on this album. The title work, Choctaw Places (Chahta Aiasha, in the native tongue), an oboe quartet, is at the heart of the program. It was written in 2022, and consists of five parts played without pause.
Tchaikovsky: The Seasons
A A A Tchaikovsky wrote his set of piano miniatures, The Seasons, on a commission from a Russian music magazine, and as a relatively unchallenging source of income. Despite the somewhat misleading title, the work consists of 12 works issued month by month (in the manner of Charles Dicken’s serial writing) in 1876, each depicting the seasonal environments of the particular time of year.
Filament presents Consorts Reframed
Filament almost fits the definition of a broken consort in its usual configuration: Evan Few on the baroque violin, Elena Kauffman playing a viola da gamba, and John Walthuasen at the harpsichord. To form a traditional broken consort, they invited three superb colleagues to perform with them in a varied program of short works that exuded a delicately earthy flavor.
Schubert: Winterreise
Schubert wrote Winterreise in the lastyear of his short life (he died at the age of 31 in 1828), one of two settings for piano and voice that he made from the poetry of Wilhelm Müller. The soul-shattering emotional depth of the music has attracted virtually all art singers (most notably the legendary Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, who recorded the music seven times). It is music that is so dramatically nuanced that no two performances are alike, and new versions tend to attract keen attention.
The Philadelphia Orchestra presents Julius Eastman, John Williams,…
Rediscovering Eastman Eastman’s musical career began with great promise. He studied piano at Curtis with the legendary Mieczysław Horszowski, and after making composition the mainstay of his career, he joined the faculty of SUNY Buffalo in the late 1960’s, which at the time was at the epicenter of American musical modernism. His luminous and highly original music was acclaimed by his colleagues, if not achieving wider attention.
Beethoven Piano Sonatas 12-15
A A A Beethoven’s career is commonly divided into three distinct periods, beginning with his formative years, firmly in the shadow of Haydn and Mozart, a middle period dominated by his large, robust works that dominate the concert halls, and finally his last years, enshrouded by deafness, but still exuding music that seemed to flow directly from his complex soul. And yet at any given point in his career there was music that evaded such categorization.
Monteux Conducts Ravel Vol. 2
A A A Many record collectors evoke a golden age of stereo recording, roughly the decade between 1955 and 1965, when labels including Mercury, RCA, EMI and Decca were issuing minimally miked, lush-sounding orchestral recordings that were notable for highly realistic instrumental timbres and hall ambience.
Shostakovich Discoveries
A A A It took a decade for the Boston Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of music director Andris Nelsons, to deliver their complete set of all of the symphonic music of Dmitri Shostakovich, culminating in a 19-CD box set on the Deutsche Grammophon label. It is a magnificent achievement, featuring superb performances and demonstration quality sonics of one of the great musical legacies of the 20th century.
Gál: Music for Viola, Volume 2
A A A If you are a classical music lover looking for something new, and not yet another Beethoven symphony set, the Toccata Classics catalog is worth a look. This small British label has an uncanny ability of unearthing excellent music by composers whose popularity did not survive their careers, or were not ambitious enough to promote their work. The case of Hans Gál is a typical example of a fine artist whose life was turned upside down by the cataclysms of the 20th century.
Neave Trio: La Mer
A A A Transcriptions of large scale works for piano or small ensembles were a common way of bringing music into private homes in the pre-phonograph age. In most cases they are now anachronistic, but a well-made reduction of orchestral music can reveal details that enlighten the curious listener, as if an x-ray were exposing the bones of the score. Case in point, Sally Beamish’s reduction of Debussy’s great orchestral work La Mer for violin, cello, and piano.
The Philadelphia Orchestra presents John Adams’s The Rock You Stand…
BSR publishes on a weekly schedule, with an email newsletter every Wednesday and Thursday morning. There’s no paywall, and subscribing is always free. A Philly thing at the orchestra Oct 06, 2025 | | 4 minute read The world premiere of John Adams’s The Rock You Stand On, in a Philadelphia Orchestra program including Bela Bartók’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and selections from Sergei Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet, was definitely a Philly thing.
Ubique: Anna Thorvaldsdottir
A A A Iceland is regularly cited as one of the happiest countries on earth, after Finland and Denmark. If the brooding, often solemn music of the acclaimed Icelandic composer Anna Thorvaldsdottir is a proper reflection of this honor, it is distinctive kind of happiness, perhaps reflecting the special bond between the unique physical characteristics of the island nation and its inhabitants.
Messiaen: Turangalîla-Symphonie
A A A When Serge Koussevitsky commissioned Messiaen to write an orchestral work for the Boston Symphony in 1946, he told the composer, “Choose as many instruments as you desire, write a work as long as you wish and in the style you want.” Messiaen took him at his word, creating a ten-movement behemoth for an overflow ensemble with an immense percussion section, plus two soloists, calling it Turangalîla-Symphonie.
Ives: The Eye Is the First Circle
A A A Simone Dinnerstein’s breakthrough recording was of the Bach Goldberg Variations, one of the most frequently recorded works in the keyboard repertoire. Her performance was distinguished by an exceptionally lyrical and thoughtful approach, making it stand out in a very crowded field.
The Absolute Sound
A A A This album is a love letter to American music from a Korean-born artist who could barely speak English when she came to the United States at the age of seven. Kristin Lee went on to study at Juilliard, and even took lessons with a legend, Itzhak Perlman. She is a stunning virtuoso, with dazzling agility expressed in a joyful, rhythmically buoyant style.
Network for New Music presents Songs Without Words – Without Borders
BSR publishes on a weekly schedule, with an email newsletter every Wednesday and Thursday morning. There’s no paywall, and subscribing is always free. Celebrating 40 years with 40 commissions May 20, 2025 | | 3 minute read Forty years ago, a young musician named Linda Reichert, fresh out of Temple with a doctorate in piano performance and nowhere in particular to go, decided to start a new music ensemble—a daring endeavor at the time, to put it mildly.
Variant 6 and the Sylvan Consort of Viols present Kile Smith’s…
BSR publishes on a weekly schedule, with an email newsletter every Wednesday and Thursday morning. There’s no paywall, and subscribing is always free. Old is new and new is old again Mar 18, 2025 | | 3 minute read Philadelphia composer Kile Smith is well-known for work including his 2008 Vespers, commissioned, premiered, and recorded by Piffaro in collaboration with The Crossing choir.
Beethoven: Early String Quartets
A A A Great recordings of Beethoven’s string quartets, as is the case with all of his core repertoire, are available in an embarrassment of riches. This new release of his early quartets, all six of the Opus 18, is nevertheless unique in a number of ways. The Narratio Quartet is a period instrument ensemble, which is rare, but not entirely unknown in this music.
Puccini: Love Affairs
Puccini has long been an important composer in the career of the great German tenor Jonas Kaufmann, but his main place on the opera scene has been in the heldentenor repertoire, which most famously features tenor roles in Wagner operas, but also includes such grandiose parts as Otello, in Verdi’s late masterpiece of the same name. This deeply satisfying all-Puccini album finds him an interesting place in his vocal development.
Carpenter: Complete Ballets
A A A John Alden Carpenter, like his more famous contemporary Charles Ives, that highly successful New England-based life insurance executive, pursued musical composition as a sidelight to his successful career in his Chicago family business. Carpenter is frequently referred to as a jazz-age composer, and it is true that he was one of the earliest academically trained musicians to include jazz and ragtime in his work, but his three ballets are more conservative.
TRPTK - The Absolute Sound
The number three has special meaning in musical history. The first notated meter in music history, for example, was three beats to a measure, indicated by a full circle. It seems esthetically appropriate, then, that the Dutch high-end label TRPTK, which was founded in 2014, started as a band of three (thus, “TRPTK”—sound it out) consisting of an audio engineer, Brendon Heinst, as well as his friends Luuk Meijssen and Nicky Regelink, both of whom have moved on.
Bonis: Entre Soir et Matin
A A A Mélanie Bonis was born into a conservative middle-class family in Paris in 1858, in an era when proper women were discouraged from becoming musicians. Yet her genius could not be contained, and by the age of 16 she was enrolled in César Franck’s composition class, where her fellow conservatoire students included Debussy, Ravel, and Satie. As she began her professional life, she shortened her name to Mel, in order to disguise her gender.
The Lark. Jascha Heifetz
A A A At the famous 1917 American debut of Jascha Heifetz at Carnegie Hall, so the story goes, fellow violinist Mischa Elman leaned over to his friend, the great pianist and composer Leopold Godowsky and commented, “It’s hot in here, don’t you think?” Godowsky’s reply: “Not for pianists.” One of the works on the program that legendary evening was the Chaconne by Tomaso Vitali, in Respighi’s arrangement for violin and organ.
Gavin Bryars: A Native Hill
The music of British composer Gavin Bryars fits the sound of the acclaimed Philadelphia choir The Crossing like a silk glove. The collaboration between Bryars and The Crossing runs deep. His composition The Fifth Century was recorded by The Crossing (in collaboration with the Prism Quartet) on the ECM label in 2016 and won a Grammy (one of three that the ensemble has garnered to date).
George: A Lifelong Journey
A A A When the progressive monarchs of the Russian Empire decided to emulate the culture of Western Europe, they chose to import the talent rather than nurture native artists. Case in point, Sebastian George, a German composer who was hired by Catherine the Great to establish the musical styles of Moscow and St. Petersburg in the late 18th century. Apparently, he thrived there, teaching, writing and even operating a wine shop.
The Power of the Keyboard
A A A Nathan Ben-Yehuda is a young Juilliard trained pianist with an elegant and introspective manner that is immediately apparent in the opening music on this record, Haydn’s Piano Sonata in G. The two-movement work contrasts a dreamy, if somewhat quirky Allegretto with an ingenious madcap Presto, and Ben-Yehuda deftly underlines the dramatic shift.
Dante - The Absolute Sound
A A A The British composer Thomas Adés, now in his mid-50s, can no longer be described as an enfant terrible, and as it happens, his music no longer reflects that moniker. He gained fame and notoriety for his 1995 chamber opera Powder Her Face, which includes a musical description of fellatio (the BBC banned broadcasts of the opera). Much of his sensationalist, if brilliant work can sound self-consciously clever.
Music for 18 Musicians
A A A Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians was an immediate and powerful success at its premiere in 1976. If Terry Riley’s 1964 classic In C can be regarded as the origin of the American minimalism movement, Music for 18 Musicians marks the emergence of minimalism from out of the fringes and into the mainstream. This glistening new recording reveals the work with no loss of power compared to the venerated premiere recording on ECM, in a performance supervised by the composer.
Frid: The Complete Works for Violin and Piano
A A A The pride of the Soviet Union was not necessarily its tanks and missiles, but its vast cultural apparatus, especially in the realm of classical music. Remarkably, more than a generation since the demise of the USSR there are still great performers and composers to be discovered, mainly from artists who, for whatever reasons, did not travel beyond the Iron Curtain. Grigory Frid, a composer who lived from 1915 to 2012, is a vivid example of this phenomenon.
Éventail - The Absolute Sound
A A A Swiss oboist Heinz Holliger established his celebrated career with popular recordings of baroque and classical era standards but has always had another side of his artistic life as a modernist composer and staunch supporter of music of other living composers. This delightful new recording finds him somewhat in between those two worlds with a program of French music of the 20th century, nearly all of it tonal and accessible.
From Method to Madness: The American Sound
A A A The four works here for cello and piano have at least two things in common; they are all written by young men (all under the age of 30 at the time of the premieres) who are also American. Samuel Barber’s imposing three movement Cello Sonata, penned when he was still a Curtis student, almost immediately became a mainstay of the cello repertoire. Like all of the music on this recital, it is based on a familiar format, in this case the classical sonata.
Marc Copland Quartet: Someday
A A A On 40 albums as a leader, pianist-composer Marc Copland has distinguished himself as a master of reharmonization and impressionism. On this highly interactive quartet outing, he is joined by bassist and longtime collaborator Drew Gress and two more recent collaborators in drummer Mark Ferber and Belgian saxophonist Robin Verheyen, whose breathy tenor tone on “Someday My Prince Will Come” sounds like the proverbial dry martini (a description Paul Desmond once assigned to his own alto sound).
Makaya McCraven: In These Times
A A A The opening to Makaya McCraven’s In These Times stops you in your tracks, tugging you into his “polytemporal compositions.” A minimal motif churns underneath a spoken-word introduction, which eventually blooms into a rich blanket of glistening instrumentation ranging from vibraphone to every member of the string family. The motif is interspersed throughout this title track, hinting at a technique McCraven draws upon for the remainder of the record.
Review: PS Audio BHK M600 Monoblock Power Amplifiers
Before we get to the specifics of this amplifier I should first comment on the current incarnation of PS Audio. The BHK 600 amplifiers are somewhat extreme, with the result that they might not be what you expect from PS Audio and they might surprise you. Those of you who’ve been around for a while, I mean decades, may think of PS Audio as a solid, high-quality manufacturer of mid-priced, high-end audio.
Davis: X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X
A A A This epic opera first appeared in 1985, as a feature project of the American Music Theater Festival in Philadelphia. It was produced by the New York City Opera shortly thereafter and given a premiere recording several years later. Now, a generation later, we have this fine new version, with sufficient editing of the original to constitute a sort of premiere in its own right.
Scriabin: Poem of Ecstasy; Prometheus; Piano Sonata No. 5
A A A Poem of Ecstasy has fully earned every bit of its fame. The colors coaxed from the orchestra are brilliant yet always used in service of the music. Scriabin’s main themes are easy to remember and recognize even as they make their peregrinations through the twists and turns of his chromaticism. And the heights of jubilant grandeur the piece reaches are surrounded by their own rare air.
Art Ensemble of Chicago: The Sixth Decade from Paris to Paris: Live at Sons d’hiver
A A A In June 1969, Roscoe Mitchell, Lester Bowie, Malachi Favors Maghostut, and Joseph Jarman traveled to Paris and, assuming the name Art Ensemble of Chicago, garnered performing and recording opportunities and a degree of acclaim they had never experienced at home in the United States.
R.E.M.: Chronic Town: 40th Anniversary Edition
A A A After the 1981 release of their debut single, “Radio Free Europe,” the fledgling R.E.M. returned to the studio with producer Mitch Easter. They emerged in 1982 with this five-song EP, first released on vinyl and later included on Dead Letter Office and The Originals. Now Universal has released Chronic Town as a no-frills standalone CD (in a nod to tape collectors, the label also has issued a cassette edition). The release presages the 40th anniversary of the band’s 1983 debut LP Murmur.
Carr: Landscapes and Lamentations
A A A Richard Carr belongs to the ever-burgeoning band of American composers who have left the academia of their youth behind, instead creating music that happily draws from a variety of sources, including pop and folk music. This latest collection of his chamber music works is mainly devoted to material inspired by nature, which tempts the listener to hear it as a sort of contemporary impressionism. But that is somewhat misleading, suggesting imitative writing in the manner of Debussy.
Weyes Blood: And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow
A A A Three years ago, Weyes Blood introduced us to her ongoing musical trilogy with its exposition, Titanic Rising. A slightly psychedelic tour of languid chamber-pop tracks peppered with slide guitar flourishes, the record set the stage for singer-songwriter Natalie Mering’s next move. With her new release, And In The Darkness, Hearts Aglow, Mering is engulfed in Act II, grappling with loneliness and futility in an isolated world.
Gerber: (Mostly) Solo Piano Music
A A A Steven Gerber (1948–2015) was an American composer and pianist who—like many of his generation—began writing in an atonal, pointillist idiom but gradually adopted more traditional resources. This new collection of his piano and piano-violin music shows just how good his works in both modes are.
Elgar: Viola Concerto. Bloch: Suite for Viola and Orchestra
A A A Edward Elgar wrote his last major work, the Cello Concerto, in the dispirited, gray mood of post-World War One England in 1919, and nearly a decade since the demise of the glorious Edwardian age, for which he essentially wrote the soundtrack. Not surprisingly, the work is magnificently dark, but also tinged with moments of playful nostalgia. The score was reworked as a viola concerto, in 1929, by the great British violist Lionel Tertis, with the composer’s blessing.
Beethoven: The Five Piano Concertos
A A A Nathalie Stutzmann began her musical career as a singer, and many of her admirers therefore ascribe a vocal quality to her conducting. But her riveting style also betrays the natural rhythms of a born dancer, even in the measured classicism of the Beethoven piano concertos.
Future TAS: Audiovector QR 7 Loudspeaker
The design goal of the Danish speaker manufacturer’s QR series has always been to offer the most advanced technology in a perfectly finished and proportioned high-end package. The sound is big, bold, and dynamic, yet subtle and detailed when required—an excellent solution for all types of music. The QR 7 is the flagship in the QR range.
Is Shunyata Research Saving Your Next Heart Surgery? | In Conversation w/ Grant Samuelson
As part of our visit to Shunyata’s factory, Lee Scoggins sat down with Marketing and Sales Director Grant Samuelson to talk about Shunyata’s origins, their pioneering into cables and power conditioning, and how their tech is (literally) helping save lives… We’d like to again extend our gratitude to Grant and the rest of the Shunyata team, for their time, efforts, and hosting. Tags: CABLES POWER RESEARCH SHUNYATA TECHNOLOGY
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