Spring Arts - Classical Music: Spring brings musical stirrings and changes

The guard is changing.

After 27 years, Alan Harler is stepping down from the Mendelssohn Club of Philadelphia, but not without first conducting Bach's St. Matthew Passion. Also departing after Year 27 is Orchestra 2001's founder and director James Freeman, who will do what he does best - George Crumb - in an 85th-birthday tribute to the great composer whose works he has so often launched.

David Hayes seems too young to have been with the Philadelphia Singers for 25 years, but it's true, and he announced his departure before the group said that this season would be its last as well. Rossen Milanov, the Philadelphia Orchestra's former associate conductor, is leaving his post at Camden's Symphony in C after 15 years.

Nor are edifices immune. The Prince Music Theater probably will reopen at some point, but for now Curtis Opera Theatre's spring productions have some "venue TBA" marks next to them.

But the sky is not falling. Natural evolution is certainly at work, and while each artist is an irreplaceable individual, one never knows when reincarnation will occur. Still, enjoy these while you can.
Below are events my colleague Peter Dobrin and I anticipate most in this season of change.
- David Patrick Stearns, Inquirer music critic
Relache Ensemble. (Jan. 25 at Penn Museum) Relache's annual new-music accompaniments for silent films focuses on the 1918 German film Eyes of the Mummy - not the Boris Karloff version but one directed by Ernst Lubitsch with Pola Negri and Emil Jannings. The new score is by Philadelphia composer Mike Stambaugh. (215-898-4000 or www.pennmuseum.org) - D.P.S.

Curtis Symphony Orchestra. (Jan. 25 at the Kimmel Center) This school year's ensemble made a less-than-assured debut in its fall concert, but one suspects that Osmo Vänskä won't be putting up with any nonsense Sunday afternoon when he leads the students in Lutoslawski's Concerto for Orchestra and Sibelius' Symphony No. 5. 215-893-1999 or www.curtis.edu.)

- Peter Dobrin.
English Chamber Orchestra. (Jan. 27 at the Kimmel Center) Concerts by major forces that swoop in out of nowhere are usually instigated by philanthropist Judith Scheide, who defies the classical music world's years-in-advance planning habits. In a benefit for Musicopia, Mark Laycock conducts Mozart's Symphony No. 29, Robin Holloway's Ode for Four Winds and Strings, and Elgar's Serenade. (215-893-1999 or www.kimmelcenter.org) - D.P.S.
Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov. (Feb. 5 at Princeton's Richardson Auditorium) Violinist Faust and pianist Melnikov are among the hottest chamber duos in the world right now, and would easily warrant a drive to New York. Instead, they're just up the road in Princeton with an adventurous program including Enescu and Antheil. (609-258-9220 or www.princetonuniversityconcerts.org) - D.P.S.

St. Matthew Passion. (Feb. 8 by Mendelssohn Club at Girard College; April 1 and 4 by the Philadelphia Orchestra at the Kimmel Center) Though in close proximity, these two performances aren't really in competition. The Mendelssohn Club has the historically important version by Mendelssohn, who revived Bach's works after long eclipse. Soloists include Susanna Phillips, Marietta Simpson and Eric Owens. (215-735-9922 or www.mcchorus.org) Yannick Nézet-Séguin conducts the Philadelphia Orchestra version with distinguished soloists headed by soprano Carolyn Sampson. (215-893-1999 or www.philorch.org) - D.P.S.
Rudolf Buchbinder. (Feb. 13 at the Kimmel Center) You might have wished for terrain less traveled than the repertoire Buchbinder mapped out for his all-Beethoven recital (Moonlight, Pathétique, and Appassionata). But in a way, that is the point of a Buchbinder recital. Whatever he does, it sounds like nothing you've heard before. (215-569-8080 or www.pcmsconcerts.org. - P.D.

Met at the Movies. (Feb. 14 and 18 at area movie theaters) In the masterly score of Bluebeard's Castle, Bartók seems to reference a dozen or more of his other works, giving the opera a full spectrum of expressive devices for the operatic telling of Charles Perrault's chilling tale. A one-act, it pairs with Tchaikovsky's Iolanta in Metropolitan Opera HD showings (www.metopera.org) - P.D.

A Shorter Soldier. (Feb. 15 at Lenfest Hall) Students from the Curtis Institute perform an abbreviated version of Stravinsky's L'Histoire du soldat (A Soldier's Tale) for young listeners in two Sunday performances as part of the school's family series. With two dancers choreographed by R. Colby Damon, and narrator David Ludwig. 215-893-7902 or www.curtis.edu) - P.D.

Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. (Feb. 22-23 at the Kimmel Center) How's this for defiance? The little-orchestra-that-can will perform the Mahler Symphony No. 4 in a chamber-sized adaptation. And music director Dirk Brossé isn't one to put any great composer on a pedestal. Prepare for something different. (215-893-1999 or www.chamberorchestra.org) - D.P.S.
Joseph Swensen and Jeffrey Kahane. (March 3 at the Kimmel Center). Both these instrumentalists long ago turned to conducting, but here they return to where they started: Swensen on violin, Kahane on piano. So don't be surprised if Brahms's Violin Sonata in G Major, Op. 78 and Prokofiev's Violin Sonata in F Minor, Op. 80 feel orchestral in scope. (215-569-8080 or www.pcmsconcerts.org) - D.P.S.

Frank Martin Mass for Double Choir. (March 15 Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul) This daunting, great, and seldom-heard work by the 20th-century Swiss composer gets a rare airing by the Temple University Concert Choir. (215-587-3696 or www.cathedralphilaconcerts.org) - D.P.S.
To Be Certain of the Dawn. (March 20 at the Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul) This 2005 Stephen Paulus oratorio commemorates the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Nazi death camps, but unlike many occasional pieces, it continues to be heard and will be performed by Bryn Mawr Presbyterian Choir, Cathedral Basilica Choir, and Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia. (215-587-3696 or www.cathedralphilaconcerts.org) - D.P.S.

Symphony in C. (March 14 at the Rutgers-Camden Center for the Arts) You'd definitely want to hear the departing Rossen Milanov conduct the Symphony No. 3 in this all-Brahms program, but the hidden attraction may be pianist Alon Goldstein, always a magnetic presence, in Piano Concerto No. 1. (856-240-1503 or www.symphonyinc.org) - D.P.S.

Owens, Phillips, Schubert. (March 24 at the Kimmel Center) Song recitals are rare, all-Schubert song recitals rarer. Which makes bass-baritone Eric Owens and soprano Susanna Phillips, along with pianist Myra Huang, stand as near-heroes in certain quarters for this recital featuring more than a dozen Schubert songs. (215-569-8080 or www.pcmsconcerts.org) - P.D.

Orchestra 2001 (March 27 at Lang Concert Hall in Swarthmore and March 29 at the Curtis Institute) The Crumb@85 festival's first concert offers the two-piano Music for a Summer Evening with the musicians who premiered it, James Freeman and Gilbert Kalish. The second program's Voices From the Morning of the Earth (American Songbook No. 6) features his daughter Ann Crumb and 100 percussion instruments. (267-687-6243 or www.orchestra2001.org) - D.P.S.
Dorothea Röschmann and Mitsuko Uchida. (April 15 at the Kimmel Center) A visit from smoothly expressive soprano Dorothea Röschmann is, by itself, irresistible, but in a collaboration with pianist Mitsuko Uchida, this recital promises to be something of an event. Songs by Schumann and Berg. 215-569-8080 or www.pcmsconcerts.org) - P.D.

Don Carlo. (Presented by Opera Philadelphia April 24, 26, 29, May 1, 3 at the Academy of Music) Verdi's dark, psychologically complex opera portrays a world in revolt and a royal family whose son is in love with his stepmother. Eric Owens is a major draw as Philip II, but you know that music director Corrado Rovaris is going to have strong ideas about how this massive score should go. (215-893-1999 or www.operaphila.org) - D.P.S.
Astral Artists. (May 3 at the Trinity Center for Urban Life) Violinist Kristin Lee, cellist Clancy Newman, and pianist Michael Mizrahi are three of the most cultivated, original artists to appear on Astral Artists' roster. Put the three together and expect something explosive. Program includes Lonesome Roads by Dan Visconti, the composer whose Andy: A Popera is now in progress at Opera Philadelphia. (215-735-6999 or www.astralartists.org) - D.P.S.

Goodbye. (May 16 at Church of the Holy Trinity) It was to have been David Hayes' farewell concert as the Philadelphia Singers' artistic director. Now, sadly, it marks not only his departure but the final appearance of the Singers themselves. (215-751-9494 or philadelphiasingers.org) - P.D.