Music

Last week the band played an intimate release show in New York celebrating its latest album, “Hackney Diamonds.” Now hear songs from the new LP in conversation with ones from the past.The Rolling Stones onstage in New York last week: Ronnie Wood, Steve Jordan, Mick Jagger (and yes, Keith Richards is just behind him!).Kevin MazurDear listeners,Last Thursday, I had the absurd good fortune of going to Racket — a 650-capacity club in Manhattan that one recent Google review called an “intimate venue, perfect vibe to see a small concert — to see a seven-song set by … the Rolling Stones.I know. I know. To quote the lead single from the band’s new album “Hackney Diamonds,” don’t get angry with me.The show was technically a release party for “Hackney Diamonds,” the Stones’ first album of original material in nearly two decades. (Jon Pareles spoke to them about it last month.) And though rumor had it the band would be playing, I did not believe it until I was standing several people back from a stage onto which Mick Jagger — 80 years old; unflagging; approximately a women’s size 00 in both jeans and leather jacket — strutted and announced, “We’re going to play old! We’re going to play new!” Even then, I did not quite believe it.They greeted our fair city with “Shattered,” that eternal anthem of New York squalor and survival. (I wish the song sounded more dated 45 years later, but alas there are still rats on the Westside and bedbugs uptown.) Ronnie Wood shredded exuberantly; Keith Richards strummed coolly in purple silk; Jagger shadoobied in fine form. They sounded — miraculously — just like the Rolling Stones.Well, with one obvious absence: Charlie Watts, the band’s longtime, quietly virtuosic drummer, who died in 2021. Steve Jordan, who was Watts’s personal pick to take over, meshed well with the group’s live energy, though. (The bassist Darryl Jones, the keyboardist Matt Clifford and the backing singer Chanel Haynes — who had a particularly impressive turn on “Tumbling Dice,” rounded out the lineup.)The set, as Jagger implied, pulled from the fresh and the classic, which is appropriate for a show introducing “Hackney Diamonds” to the world. There’s a throwback spirit to the album, but it also sounds rooted in the present tense, thanks in part to the production of the 32-year-old Andrew Watt. “Hackney Diamonds” at times also plays like an A-list rock ’n’ roll revue, featuring contributions from Elton John, Stevie Wonder, Paul McCartney and Lady Gaga — who, at Racket, came out for a transcendent encore of “Sweet Sounds of Heaven,” clad in a glittery jumpsuit that matched the smoldering fireworks display of her vocals.I’m still reeling from this show (did it actually happen?), so consider today’s playlist a postscript to it. I wanted to place some of the highlights from “Hackney Diamonds” in conversation with older Stones songs, to chart certain progressions and recurring sensibilities.Also, my dad has had familial Stones bragging rights for my entire life for seeing the “Exile on Main St.” tour in 1972. Please allow me my long-awaited hour of boasting.Listen on Spotify as you read.1. “Start Me Up” (1981)There’s an easy but irresistible simplicity to the leadoff track from “Tattoo You,” a bare-bones Stones classic: two verse chords, that chunky little riff, steady but shuffling percussion. The brilliantly low-concept music video — an early MTV staple — is also a master class in rock star charisma. (The cutaways to a smiling Watts are the best.) (Listen on YouTube)2. “Angry” (2023)Similarly, the Stones don’t overcomplicate things on “Angry,” the first single and opening track on “Hackney Diamonds.” I like the negative space in this song, which puts all of its elements — grumbling guitars, fleet-footed beat, Jagger sass — in stark relief, really making them pop. (Listen on YouTube)3. “Under My Thumb” (1966)A musical highlight of the Brian Jones era (some crucial marimba playing here) marred by some of the more controversial lyrics in the Stones’ catalog, “Under My Thumb” tells the spiteful story of a sexual power struggle — well, one side of it, anyway. (Listen on YouTube)4. “Depending on You” (2023)“I invented the game but I lost like a fool,” a heartbroken Jagger sings on this mid-tempo ballad, sounding uncharacteristically regretful and even repentant. The change has come: He’s under her thumb. (Listen on YouTube)5. “Street Fighting Man” (1968)Though some found the lyrics incendiary when it was first released in the tumultuous year of 1968, “Street Fighting Man” sounds less like a call to revolution than a cheeky, somewhat self-deprecating show of support from the sidelines: “What can a poor boy do ’cept to sing for a rock ’n’ roll band?” Jagger sings atop Richards’s spikily textured rhythm guitar. “’Cause in sleepy London Town there’s just no place for a street fighting man.” (Listen on YouTube)6. “Whole Wide World” (2023)The Stones revisit those London streets on this menacing rocker, though they don’t sound quite so sleepy this time around: “The streets I used to walk on are full of broken glass,” Jagger sings, referencing the image from which the new album gets its name. (“Hackney diamonds” are the shards of debris left over after a robbery.) The members of the Rolling Stones are obviously a long way from the shadier streets of Hackney now, but on this song they sound nostalgic (at least in theory) for a more hardscrabble past. (Listen on YouTube)7. “Gimme Shelter” (1969)An ominous, era-defining anthem that Jagger once called “kind of an end-of-the-world song,” “Gimme Shelter” is all about Richards’s serpentine riffs and the explosive guest vocals of Merry Clayton, the only female singer to be prominently featured on a Stones album for 54 years. At least until … (Listen on YouTube)8. “Sweet Sounds of Heaven” (featuring Lady Gaga and Stevie Wonder) (2023)… this gospel-tinged “Hackney Diamonds” highlight, which finds Lady Gaga and Jagger pushing each other ever higher into the stratosphere. (As if that weren’t enough star power, Stevie Wonder also plays keys on the track.) As the album’s producer Andrew Watt said, “She joined the band on that song. She’s almost embodying Merry Clayton.” (Listen on YouTube)9. “Stop Breaking Down” (1972)The influence of blues artists — especially Black American blues artists — looms large over the Stones’ entire discography. That’s explicitly apparent on the ambitious double-album “Exile on Main St.,” particularly on this grimy rework of a 1937 Robert Johnson song. (Listen on YouTube)10. “Rolling Stones Blues” (2023)The finale of “Hackney Diamonds” is this back-to-basics take on the Muddy Waters song that inspired the band’s name all those years ago. As Pareles put it in his profile, “It’s just Jagger’s voice and harmonica and Richards’s guitar, unadorned in real time, circling back to the love of the blues that brought them together as teenagers. It could be a career postscript or a reaffirmation.” (Listen on YouTube)Look at me, I’m in tatters,LindsayThe Amplifier PlaylistListen on Spotify. We update this playlist with each new newsletter.“The Rolling Stones, Past and Present” track listTrack 1: “Start Me Up”Track 2: “Angry”Track 3: “Under My Thumb”Track 4: “Depending on You”Track 5: “Street Fighting Man”Track 6: “Whole Wide World”Track 7: “Gimme Shelter”Track 8: “Sweet Sounds of Heaven” (featuring Lady Gaga and Stevie Wonder)Track 9: “Stop Breaking Down”Track 10: “Rolling Stone Blues”Bonus TracksOver the weekend I saw Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” — a great, challenging, heartbreakingly gorgeous American epic that I cannot recommend highly enough. I was especially moved by Robbie Robertson’s score (completed before his death earlier this year), which fuses blues and folk with the music he heard growing up on Canada’s Six Nations Reserve. It’s a fitting coda to a singular career, and luckily much of it appears on the soundtrack released last week. Give it a listen.Also, I avoided reading much about the movie before seeing it, so I had no idea that singer-songwriter Jason Isbell was in it (?!), let alone that he played such a prominent role. He was great! And he’s hilarious in one particular scene with Leonardo DiCaprio — if you’ve seen it, you know the one. More

Taylor Swift spent Sunday’s game in Kansas City, Mo., in a suite with Mr. Mahomes, an influencer known for problematic behavior and a sexual battery arrest.As Taylor Swift and Brittany Mahomes, the wife of Patrick Mahomes, quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs, slapped hands and bumped hips in a touchdown celebration that took over social media on Sunday night, a man in a white T-shirt and a backward baseball cap clapped behind them. The handshake, which was shown during the broadcast of a game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Los Angeles Chargers, finished with both women turning around and celebrating with the man, who bent down to their level with a broad smile.Taylor Swift and Brittany Mahomes getting Jackson Mahomes in on the secret handshake pic.twitter.com/3iCaDSFNTy— Jeff Eisenband (@JeffEisenband) October 22, 2023
Nothing about the man’s actions was particularly noteworthy. But the Swifties who had not followed football before Ms. Swift began going to Chiefs games this season soon realized what N.F.L. fans had known for years: Jackson Mahomes, who is Patrick Mahomes’s brother, has a knack for getting himself into the spotlight. And his personal history, which includes an arrest on charges of sexual battery, has the ability to complicate what has been a fairly straightforward relationship between Travis Kelce, a tight end for the Chiefs and one of football’s most beloved players, and Ms. Swift, one of the world’s most popular musicians.It was a situation that generated plenty of memes, and more than a few calls for the N.F.L. or the Chiefs to step in.Ms. Swift’s fans are known for finding Easter eggs in virtually anything she does and sniffing out any potential flaws in her romantic relationships. What they are learning about Jackson Mahomes is likely to continue to generate a great deal of discussion.Who is Jackson Mahomes?Mr. Mahomes, 23, is the younger brother of Patrick Mahomes, 28, the quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs. With 1.1 million followers on TikTok, Jackson Mahomes is a social media influencer who has parlayed his connection to his famous brother, and his friendship with his sister-in-law, Brittany Mahomes, to be a regular fixture at N.F.L. games and beyond.Before Sunday, Mr. Mahomes had not been much of a presence at games attended by Ms. Swift, who was at Arrowhead Stadium to cheer for Mr. Kelce.Jackson Mahomes has built a large social media following based largely on the popularity of his brother, Patrick, an N.F.L. star.Jay Biggerstaff/Getty ImagesWhat are some of his more notable incidents?At an N.F.L. game in 2021, Jackson recorded a TikTok dance on the field at the Washington Commanders’ stadium while standing on the uniform number of Sean Taylor, an N.F.L. star who was murdered in 2007 and was being honored with a jersey retirement ceremony that day. Mr. Mahomes eventually apologized and said he had not intentionally danced on Mr. Taylor’s number.“We were directed to stand in the area and I meant absolutely no disrespect to him or his family,” Mr. Mahomes said in a statement posted on social media.Earlier that year, Mr. Mahomes also had a run-in with fans in Baltimore in which he responded to their taunts after a Chiefs loss by pouring water on them. He later justified the behavior by saying the fans were “thirsty.”What about the assault accusation?Jackson was briefly jailed in May and wound up being charged with three counts of aggravated sexual battery and one count of battery. His arrest came after an encounter on Feb. 25 in which Aspen Vaughn, the owner of a restaurant in Overland Park, Kan., said that she had been discussing an earlier incident with him, in which he was accused of shoving a customer, and that he grabbed her by the throat and kissed her at least twice.“He forcibly kissed me out of nowhere,” Ms. Vaughn told The Kansas City Star. She said the advances were unwelcome and shocking.Mr. Mahomes was in court in May for a bond motion hearing in a sexual battery case. His preliminary hearing in the case has been postponed twice.Nick Wagner/The Kansas City Star, via Associated PressThe encounter was captured on video. While Mr. Mahomes and his representatives have said that he is prohibited from discussing what happened, they issued a statement when the accusation was first reported that said they had “substantial evidence refuting the claims of Jackson’s accuser.”He was released on a $100,000 bond. The preliminary hearing in the case was originally scheduled for August, but was delayed because the judge had tested positive for the coronavirus. It was rescheduled for Tuesday of this week, but on Monday The Kansas City Star reported that it would be postponed again, as Mr. Mahomes’s lawyers requested a continuance. A scheduling conference will be held on Tuesday instead.Will Ms. Swift be at more Chiefs games?We may not know for a while if Ms. Swift’s camp will step in to make sure there is more distance between her and Jackson, regardless of how his legal situation is resolved. That is because Ms. Swift’s Eras Tour resumes on Nov. 9 in Argentina, with the South American leg of the tour finishing on Nov. 26 with a show in Brazil.Preparations for those dates could keep her away from Kansas City’s games on Sunday (in Denver) and on Nov. 5 (against Miami in Frankfurt as part of the N.F.L.’s International Series).There has been rampant speculation online, however, that Mr. Kelce could turn the tables on the situation and visit Ms. Swift. The Chiefs do not play on Nov. 12, and while there would probably be practices in some form after the team returns from Europe, Mr. Kelce would be free to do as he pleases late in the week, meaning he could attend one of the shows in Buenos Aires.With another break in the Eras Tour scheduled for December and January, Ms. Swift could be back for more Chiefs games as the regular season winds down. Her return would seemingly be welcomed by the team. After Mr. Kelce recorded 179 yards receiving on Sunday — the second-highest single-game total of his career — Chiefs Coach Andy Reid made it clear that he did not view Ms. Swift as a distraction.“Kelce keeps getting better with time,” Mr. Reid said. “Taylor can stay around all she wants.” More

The producer got his start in the 2010s connecting underground electronic sounds and hip-hop. His first album, “Revanchist,” embraces a long-derided genre of dance music.It was the seventh soggy weekend in a row in New York, but a throng of 20-something club kids with chunky boots and shaggy mullets still made the pilgrimage to a punk venue in an industrial stretch of Brooklyn where the British producer Evian Christ was performing a four-hour D.J. set to celebrate the release of his debut album, “Revanchist.”Backlit by a rig of xenon strobe lights and silhouetted by arena-grade fog that engulfed the dance floor in a blissed-out haze, Christ did the most to bring a religious experience to the room. His masterful, theatrical buildups, full of relentless bass lines, pounding synths and prismatic arpeggios, blasted from the speakers as a single disco ball sparkled overhead. The crowd seemed to rise off its feet and levitate alongside it.But Christ, born Joshua Leary, didn’t always know how to work a room like this.“When I started, I could hardly D.J. at all, to be honest,” he said in a recent interview from his home in the northern English town Ellesmere Port, where he still lives. Over a decade ago, Christ was catapulted into the spotlight after his 2012 mixtape “Kings and Them” caught the attention of Kanye West, who invited him to produce on his buzzing, shape-shifting sex jam “I’m in It,” from “Yeezus.” The track helped catapult his career: Collaborations with the rappers Travis Scott and Danny Brown, an itinerant club night called Trance Party and a fresh record deal followed. But he didn’t put out a full-length album of his own until last Friday.Most artists don’t drop their debut a decade after their breakthrough, but Christ, 34, has long chosen the unconventional path. In the 2010s, he was part of a wave of producers seeking out intersections between underground electronic music and mainstream hip-hop, splicing chopped-up rap vocals with hard-edge synth stabs. His skill for that approach endeared him to ravers across the globe, in part because he has long been devoted to trance, an often-derided genre of dance music rooted in big climaxes and unabashed sentimentality. On “Revanchist” he leans into it at a critical moment in the sound’s bubbling comeback, making a statement about its relevance and power.It’s an audacious album from an artist who practically stumbled into music. The first time Christ stepped foot in a professional recording studio was at West’s request. He was in his early 20s, and had been making tunes in his mother’s garage while studying education and teaching schoolchildren during the day. “I was more interested in other hobbies, like sports,” he explained. “I just did music if it was raining.”At the end of 2011, he uploaded some experiments to YouTube, which the now-defunct Tri Angle released as the mixtape “Kings and Them” in February 2012. A year and a half later, West (now known as Ye) and his team flew Christ to Paris to work on “Yeezus.”“When I was really young, I found this music really exciting, uplifting and sublime,” Christ said. “And through no conscious decision of my own, I ended up getting drawn back into trance music.”Krista Schlueter for The New York Times“It was slightly weird,” he said, chuckling.Christ attributed the long wait for his first full-length partly to his desire to step out of the spotlight and refine his craft. “Since I started making music, I was suddenly expected to work on No. 1 records,” he explained. “I didn’t have the experience or know-how to follow through on that in a way that I felt good about.”His reverence for dance music was planted early. Christ fondly recalled playing the 1996 racing video game Wipeout 2097, which had a soundtrack featuring acts like the British electronic producer Sasha and the rave duo Orbital. “I was obsessed with the feeling of driving these spaceships around and listening to this music,” he said. His stepfather, who D.J.’ed on the weekends, had a room at home where he kept records and turntables; often he’d play compilations from the influential clubbing brand Gatecrasher.Christ was immediately infatuated with the flashy Y2K album artwork of the genre: colorful, sci-fi dreamscapes that featured skyscrapers or hovercrafts from the 22nd century. At the end of trips to the supermarket, his mother often rewarded him with trance CDs to play on his Walkman. “Trance music is quite childish in a way,” he said. “I found this music really exhilarating, really futuristic.”He was introduced to the art of production on weekend visits with his father, who was a fan of ’70s and ’80s synth-pop bands like Human League and Pet Shop Boys; his dad saved up to buy keyboards and sequencers. They’d fiddle around with the machines for fun, but when Christ was in his teens he struck up a Myspace friendship with his fellow English producer Lukid, who taught him the basics and encouraged him to continue exploring.Making “Revanchist,” he returned to old project files dating back to 2014, rummaging through unfinished ideas and upscaling the freshest ones. He completed an initial version of the album in 2020, but the pandemic and sample issues delayed its release. After a monthslong battle to clear one crucial sample failed, Christ decided to write some new songs instead, keeping what he still liked from the original draft of the album.“Revanchist” preserves the sweeping drama of Christ’s style, diving into hyperpop excess and apocalyptic delirium. Its epics embrace trance’s signature soaring supersaws — a type of synthesized sound created by layering de-tuned saw-toothed sound waves.“When I first started playing trance in my sets,” he recalled, “it was really challenging for people’s tastes.” He noted that the culture of electronic music was — and often still is — elitist. “It was like, ‘This is serious electronic music for people with taste. And this is garbage electronic music for normal people.’”The Dutch curator and trance expert Arjan Rietveld said many people perceive trance as the kind of music they’d hear on the radio or TV around the turn of the millennium, citing its commercial sound “with cheesy vocals and distasteful video clips.” (The Belgian artist Ian van Dahl’s turn-of-the-century blockbuster “Castles in the Sky,” for instance.) He said the genre’s negative perception was also somewhat the result of technological advances: “Making and sharing music became accessible to pretty much anyone with a computer, some software and an internet connection.”Today, trance is experiencing a resurgence and critical reassessment. Other electronic artists are returning to the sound: “Strong,” a song by the xx singer Romy and the British producer Fred again.. employs the genre’s sky-high arpeggios and penchant for feather-light vocals and inspirational lyrics. Though it was once a faux pas for D.J.s to spin these tracks in some avant-garde spaces, now it’s not uncommon to hear the genre’s colossal synth leads at underground nightclubs.“It’s a genre of music that has way more depth to it than even I probably have discovered yet,” Christ said. “If 1 percent of people end up doing half of what I’ve done, then it’s all worth it. ’Cause this music has been lambasted for so long.”The fact that “Revanchist” is arriving at a moment of renewed interest in the genre isn’t lost on him. “When I was really young, I found this music really exciting, uplifting and sublime,” Christ said. “And through no conscious decision of my own, I ended up getting drawn back into trance music.”“A lot of things in life go full circle somehow, and this has been one of them.” More

The song from Swift’s 2019 album, “Lover,” is a fan favorite that took on new life during her record-breaking Eras Tour. On the album chart, Bad Bunny debuts at the top.Four years ago, Taylor Swift included the song “Cruel Summer” on her album “Lover.” It became a fan favorite, and had been in line to be released as a single in 2020, before the Covid-19 pandemic changed all plans. “That is something that happened that stopped ‘Cruel Summer’ from ever being a single,” the singer said a few months ago.But this year, Swift played the song on her record-breaking Eras Tour, and it was belatedly given the proper promotional push. After breaking into the Top 10 in July, “Cruel Summer” has finally made it to No. 1, becoming Swift’s 10th track to top Billboard’s Hot 100 chart.Over the last week, Swift went all out to promote it. She discounted the track for digital sales and released an EP containing a remix and a live version, “so we can all shriek it in the comfort of our homes and cars,” as she announced on social media.Last week, “Cruel Summer” had nearly 19 million streams in the United States, sold 41,000 downloads — up from around 2,500 the week before — and had 78 million “airplay audience impressions,” a measurement of a song’s popularity at radio, according to the tracking service Luminate.On this week’s album chart, Bad Bunny sailed to the top with his latest album, “Nadie Sabe Lo Que Va a Pasar Mañana” (“Nobody Knows What Will Happen Tomorrow”), which the Puerto Rican superstar released on Oct. 13 with just a few days’ notice. The album, his third to reach No. 1, opened with the equivalent of 184,000 sales in the United States, including 240 million streams and 7,500 download sales, according to Luminate.Bad Bunny, who was the host and musical guest on “Saturday Night Live” over the weekend, released “Un Verano Sin Ti” last year — a surprise, like “Nadie Sabe” — and it went on to top the Billboard album chart 13 times; he was also the world’s top touring artist in 2022.Bad Bunny’s success bumps Drake to second place after one week at No. 1 with “For All the Dogs.” Also this week, the K-pop quintet Tomorrow X Together opens at No. 3 with “The Name Chapter: Freefall,” which sold 106,000 copies as a complete package and drew about 12 million clicks on streaming services.Zach Bryan’s self-titled LP is No. 4, and “Set It Off” by Offset, of the Atlanta rap trio Migos, opens in fifth place. More

Alexandre Kantorow made his Carnegie Hall recital debut after winning both the International Tchaikovsky Competition and the Gilmore Artist Award.The French pianist Alexandre Kantorow was supposed to make his Carnegie Hall recital debut on March 25, 2020, as a late replacement for the ailing Murray Perahia. We know what happened with that.When Kantorow, 26, finally made it to Carnegie on Sunday afternoon, it was again as a substitute for an eminent colleague, this time Maurizio Pollini. The symbolism of the rise of a new generation of performers was hard for me to miss, especially since after Kantorow’s recital, I walked to Alice Tully Hall to witness the Emerson String Quartet’s exquisite retirement concert.This wasn’t Kantorow’s first time playing at Carnegie; he performed two pieces at Zankel Hall in 2019, as one of the winners of that year’s International Tchaikovsky Competition. But Sunday’s very fine recital, on the hall’s main stage, was a wholly different kind of platform.And he arrived with expectations ratcheted up even higher than if he had merely (ha) won the Tchaikovsky. Last month, he received the elusive, prestigious $300,000 Gilmore Artist Award, given to a pianist every four years after a secretive selection process akin to the MacArthur Foundation’s “genius” grants; Kantorow didn’t know he’d been under consideration until he found out he had won.The stereotype is that competitions mint quick-fingered but mindless virtuosos, while the Gilmore rewards more mature, idiosyncratic artists. To win both the Tchaikovsky and the Gilmore suggests Kantorow has technical security as well as something to say.That felt true on Sunday. A quick glance at the lineup made this seem a potentially tired program: Brahms, Bach, Liszt, Schubert. But Kantorow chose Brahms’s Sonata No. 1, an unwieldy thicket of notes that is hardly a recital chestnut.And the Bach was Brahms’s austerely grand transcription for left hand of the great Violin Chaconne in D Minor, rather than the more popular, gaudier Busoni transcription for both hands. The Liszt was a set of his renderings of Schubert songs, none omnipresent and one never before played at Carnegie. Only Schubert’s “Wanderer Fantasy” could be called a true standard.As in his recordings of the other two Brahms piano sonatas, Kantorow approached this one with a poetically heavy use of rubato, the expressive stretching and pressing of tempo from moment to moment.It was often beautiful; in the first movement, the section before the recapitulation of the theme gave the sense of emerging from fire into quiet, snowy night. And — or, depending on your preferences, but — it conveyed atmosphere better than structure.Kantorow brought a peppery spirit to the Scherzo that turned it into something of a danse macabre. Both this and the fourth movement were exceptionally, even a little drainingly fast — more Presto than Allegro — but never muddied.His account of Brahms’s Bach was rigorous yet rich, with well-judged ebbs and flows of intensity and amplitude. Of the five Liszt-Schubert transcriptions, most interesting was the one new to Carnegie: “Die Stadt,” a collision of the song’s moodiness with Lisztian extroversion, sprays of notes drizzling out of the gloom.It attests to Kantorow’s subtlety and focus that there was no applause between these pieces and the “Wanderer Fantasy,” which felt as if it had emerged from Schubert’s songs — the opening more modest and lyrical than the usual bombast. This was assured, eloquent playing, the lines clear and balanced in each hand even in the chaos near the end of the piece.There is intriguing tension between Kantorow’s lucid, pearly touch and the Romantic wildness of his music-making. The two sides were in memorable balance in his encores: transcriptions of “Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix,” from Saint-Saëns’s “Samson et Dalila,” and the finale of Stravinsky’s “Firebird.” They brought together suavity and showmanship.Alexandre KantorowPerformed on Sunday at Carnegie Hall, Manhattan. More

A pillar of chamber music for nearly a half-century, the Emerson players bid farewell with Beethoven’s Opus 130 and Schubert’s String Quintet.Farewell to the Emerson String Quartet, a group that has beaten at the heart of chamber music in the United States, and far beyond, for almost half a century.More than two years after the essential string quartet of its era announced that it had decided to retire, its players took their final bows on Sunday before an Alice Tully Hall audience that paid them the best tribute any musician can hope to receive: listening, and listening well.The time was right, and the place was, too. It was on a Sunday in 1981 that the Emerson made its breakthrough on that very stage, playing all six Bartok quartets in a single, three-and-a-half-hour-plus sitting. The host of Sunday’s concert, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, is the institution for which the Emerson served as quartet in residence from 1982 to 1989, and for which its cellist David Finckel left the ensemble in 2013 to co-direct.Finckel’s departure permitted his successor, Paul Watkins, to spend a decade with the violinists Eugene Drucker and Philip Setzer to his right, and Lawrence Dutton, the violist, to his left. Even at the end, as Finckel rejoined the group for one last performance of the Schubert String Quintet, Watkins looked as if he could barely believe his luck.Who would feel any differently? For if Sunday’s concert was a reminder of anything, it was that the Emerson String Quartet was never just a string quartet. It was an establishment, a touchstone, a catalyst. Entire generations of listeners grew up with its recordings, or made one of the hundred and more concerts it undertook each year, with famous collegiality, a habitual date in their diaries. As early as 1984, George Tsontakis had composed it a piece called “Emerson,” as if it already owned the genre; Sarah Kirkland Snider, the last living composer whose music it played, has written that, to her, the Emerson catalog had appeared to be “the definitive interpretation of all the great string quartets in history.”From left, Drucker, Setzer, Watkins and Dutton in the concert’s first half.Da Ping LuoWas the Emerson the Emerson to the end? Close enough. “We were afraid of going on too long,” Setzer said recently, and Sunday suggested that he, Drucker and Dutton have stopped at the timeliest of moments, without cause for regret. Watkins, a soloist and a conductor before he took his chance, still has half his career ahead of him. There were speeches on Sunday, quiet notes of pathos, even a joke or two, but nothing really to get in the way of the music, which is as it should be. The Schubert received a heartfelt performance of inimitable focus, and before it came Beethoven’s Opus 130, with the “Grosse Fuge” duly included as its finale. It was exactly the valediction that one would have hoped for.It was also touching. Nobody could pretend that Sunday saw the Emerson reclaim the heights from which it conquered chamber music, though it was hardly far-off. If its most celebrated predecessors, the Juilliard after World War II and the Guarneri later on, were responsible for a boom in American quartet playing, then it was the Emerson’s part to demonstrate how accomplished a quartet could become. Surely it was not a coincidence that Setzer, who once told The New York Times that “when things aren’t together in the quartet, it sets off a real alarm,” was the son of two violinists in George Szell’s Cleveland Orchestra, and taught by two of its concertmasters.It did not take the Emerson long to set the formidable technical standards that we take for granted among chamber musicians today. “After five minutes of playing,” the critic Bernard Holland wrote of that Bartok concert in 1981, “one began to assume perfection. There were no disappointments.” There are none to be heard, either, in the Emerson’s recorded legacy, which, with all its vitality and its security, Deutsche Grammophon ensured defined the sound of a quartet in the digital age. Hearing them now is to be confronted with persistent excellence, an enduring commitment to quality that any musician would be proud of.If there was ever a justified criticism of the Emerson, it was that its playing was too responsible, too objective, too bland. That was not the case at its passing. Rarely can this ensemble have shaped Schubert’s melodies with such humanity and poignancy, or given such a raw, intense account of the Beethoven fugue. The Cavatina, the delicate emotional core of the Opus 130, will resound in the memory as little short of heartbreaking, and for all the right reasons: As its song faltered on the first violin, it seemed to be embraced, as if the other instruments were helping it through.Farewell, then, to the Emerson. But not to what made it great.Emerson String QuartetPerformed on Sunday at Alice Tully Hall, Manhattan. More

Had everything gone to plan, the singer-songwriter Baaba Maal’s move to Senegal’s capital from the northern hinterlands would have ended up differently — specifically, with a law degree. “When I first came to Dakar, I was supposed to study at the university because that was the wish of my parents,” he said, while a pair of sculptures, as if on cue, eyed him sternly.I met Mr. Maal — the “voice of Wakanda” to fans who know him from the soundtracks of “Black Panther” and “Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” — at Dakar’s Museum of Black Civilizations. As we roamed the galleries, he explained that he loved this place for its efforts to repatriate plundered African treasures and its power “to make the young ones interested in arts.” Now 70, he recalled being an artsy young one himself. “What was really, deeply strong inside me — which is to be a singer, to be a performer — came out when I got to Dakar,” he said. “If I wanted to be an artist, I said, ‘This is where I’m going to start a career.’”Baaba Maal, 70, released “Being,” his 14th studio album, this year.Matthew DonaldsonSo there went his parents’ plan, but his own has worked out nicely. This year alone, he released his 14th studio album, “Being,” to critical acclaim, became a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification — a continuation of the work of his nonprofit Nann-K — and began preparations for his arts and culture Blues du Fleuve festival in early December. While he still travels often, he said, “I’ve always wanted Dakar to be where I start my work, get ready for my tours — and come back.”The appeal was clear. Since he’d moved to Dakar, the city had instituted renowned biennales and fashion weeks. And just the small stretch of the thoroughfare where we stood featured not only the museum, but also the Grand Théâtre National and the restored Art Nouveau commuter rail station. “This is a new dynamic,” he said, pointing out a spot where hip-hop artists now draw thousands of young people to open-air performances. Reveling in the energy, he added, “I often pass by here, open the car window, look at the people coming out of the train and say to myself, ‘Yes, this is the kind of Senegal I want to see.’”Here are five of his favorite places in and around Dakar.1. Daniel Sorano National TheaterMusicians practicing during a ballet rehearsal at the Daniel Sorano National Theater.Carmen Abd Ali for The New York Times“I love to see tradition alive,” said Mr. Maal of the theater, inaugurated in 1965 by Senegal’s first president, the poet-philosopher Léopold Sédar Senghor. “And the tradition is still there — the national ballet, the lyrical ensemble, a lot of traditional African music.” He also loves the theater’s soul: “You can see the portraits of all the artists who passed away a long time ago, and who represent a lot to Senegalese people.”Pictures of artists who have performed at the Daniel Sorano National Theater, which was inaugurated by Léopold Sédar Senghor, a poet as well as Senegal’s first president, in 1965.Carmen Abd Ali for The New York Times2. Amadou Barry StadiumWatching a soccer team train at Amadou Barry Stadium in the suburbs of Dakar, where singing and drumming often accompany games and wrestling matches.Carmen Abd Ali for The New York TimesSports fan or not, any music lover will enjoy a match at this soccer and wrestling stadium, where singing and drumming accompany the action. Mr. Maal has a particular fondness for wrestling, the national sport. “It’s not just the sport itself; it’s the dramas, the singers, the costumes — all the culture around the wrestling,” he said. Amadou Barry is also a music venue, where Mr. Maal is a beloved veteran performer. To visit this suburban stadium, you may want a guide.3. Hotel Sobo BadeThe Hotel Sobo Bade near Dakar features thatched domes, mosaic archways and lush vegetation.Carmen Abd Ali for The New York TimesThe tranquil view of the ocean from the Hotel Sobo Bade, about an hour southeast of Dakar.Carmen Abd Ali for The New York Times“When friends come, it’s their favorite place to stay,” said Mr. Maal of this dreamy hotel — all thatched domes, mosaic archways and bougainvillea blossoms — in the suburb of Toubab Dialaw, about an hour outside Dakar, where the tranquillity-inducing views of the ocean and city lights inspired his iconic song “Dakar Moon.” He also recommends the nearby African dance institute École des Sables, where anyone can attend the performances at the end of each multiweek session.A room at the Sobo Bade. “When friends come, it’s their favorite place to stay,” Mr. Maal said of the hotel.Carmen Abd Ali for The New York Times4. Soumbedioune Fishing Beach and MarketFishermen at Soumbedioune Beach, a traditional fishing area in Dakar.Carmen Abd Ali for The New York TimesAs much as Mr. Maal is an artist, by birthright, he said, “I’m a fisherman.” And his favorite local connection to those roots is Soumbedioune, where the beach and market are “full of life, noise and energy — with all the boats going out early in the morning, the young people pulling them from the ocean and the women waiting to sell the fish in the markets.”Lobsters at the Soumbedioune market. The beach and market are “full of life, noise and energy,” Mr. Maal said.Carmen Abd Ali for The New York Times5. Galle Niwa RestaurantGalle Niwa, a restaurant on Gorée Island, is owned by “a friend who loves to feed people,” Mr. Maal said.Abbie KozolchykGorée Island, about two miles off the coast, was the site of the largest slave-trading center on the African coast for centuries, according to UNESCO, which lists it as a World Heritage site.Carmen Abd Ali for The New York Times“It’s beautiful, and owned by a friend who loves to feed people,” said Mr. Maal of this restaurant that’s part of a colonial estate turned hotel on Gorée Island, 25 minutes off the coast. His song “Fatmata” is dedicated to the proprietor, whose kitchen’s thieboudienne (fish, herby tomato sauce and rice), kaldou (garlicky fish and rice) and c’est bon (grilled fish and seafood with an oniony sauce) are favorites of his. And UNESCO-listed Gorée Island, ringed in aquamarine waters, is considered a must for any visitor, as is its Maison des Esclaves, a testament to the horrors of slavery. While the island’s beauty and brutality feel decidedly at odds, you can, in Mr. Maal’s view, “go from very hard, very sad experiences to see that after all, there is hope, there is light, and we can build something from that.”Gorée Island is considered a must-see for any visitor to Dakar. Its brutal history in the slave trade feels at odds with its natural beauty.Carmen Abd Ali for The New York TimesFollow New York Times Travel on Instagram and sign up for our weekly Travel Dispatch newsletter to get expert tips on traveling smarter and inspiration for your next vacation. Dreaming up a future getaway or just armchair traveling? Check out our 52 Places to Go in 2023. More

The agreement, which includes salary increases of nearly 16 percent over three years, ends months of tense negotiations.After months of wrangling at the negotiating table, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the union representing its musicians have reached a deal for a new contract.The three-year contract, which the members of the American Federation of Musicians, Local 77, ratified on Saturday, includes salary raises of nearly 16 percent over three years, a central demand of the musicians, who had argued that they were underpaid compared with other leading ensembles.The musicians’ union praised the agreement, which it said also included pay raises for substitutes as well as a requirement that the orchestra increase the number of musicians it hires each year to fill vacancies. The base salary for musicians in the orchestra in the 2022-23 season was $152,256, including compensation for recordings.“We are an ensemble, and we stuck together and refused to accept substandard deal after substandard deal,” David Fay, a double bass player since 1984 and a union leader, said in a statement. “This contract is a victory for the present and future for the Philadelphia Orchestra and its world-class musicians.”The contract was the first that the orchestra has negotiated since the coronavirus pandemic, which put financial strains on the ensemble, forcing the cancellation of more than 200 concerts and resulting in the loss of about $26 million in ticket sales and performance fees.“Our joint challenge was to find a new and financially responsible path forward that recognizes and furthers the placement of the Philadelphia Orchestra as one of the world’s greatest musical ensembles,” said Ralph W. Muller and Michael D. Zisman, who lead the board of the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Kimmel Center Inc., a joint entity that oversees the orchestra.The dispute grew heated over the past several months as orchestra members rejected several proposals from management. A vote in August to authorize a strike, if needed, won the support of 95 percent of those participating. Concerts proceeded as usual and talks continued through the expiration of the old contract in early September.The orchestra has gone through other painful periods in recent decades. It declared bankruptcy in 2011 after the financial crisis but has since balanced its budget and worked to rebuild. Despite expense cuts and bankruptcy, that has not been easy: In 2016, the musicians held a brief strike that began on the night of the orchestra’s season-opening gala. More