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By M.L. Rantala, Classical Music Critic Composers will often say that music is all about the sound. But it has not been called the poetry of time for nothing. Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, an Italian who died in 1736 at the tender age of 26, contributed his greatest work in the poetry of time shortly before [...]

By M.L. Rantala, n 1759 Voltaire mocked the philosophy of Leibnitz- which he summarized in the oft-repeated declaration of Dr. Pangloss, “All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds- with the publication of “Candide.”  Adam Smith set out his explanation of sympathy and benevolence in “The theory of Moral Sentiments.”  This [...]

By  M.L. Rantala, Folks at Baroque Band’s final Hyde Park concert of the season June 5 at the Hyde Park Union Church got a lovely whiff of how modern baroque composers could be.  The program assembled by Clarke was remarkable: offering glorious baroque music with lots of crackle, along with the fascinating touches that show [...]

A few days after Easter I was back at Rockefeller Chapel for a performance of Handel’s “Messiah.” It was the Dublin version – that is, the original version as performed in that great city in 1742. Described in David Schrader’s program notes as “lean and mean,” this stripped down offering gave the listener a whole new [...]

Last month Baroque Band returned to Rockefeller Chapel as something of a musical debate team. They took the affirmative on the proposition that there is a wide range of good music written by British composers. Of course it wasn’t a debate at all, but the care taken in selecting the program and the excitement with [...]