Music

Closed last year, the Boston Symphony’s warm-weather home in the Berkshires will host an abbreviated six-week season.There won’t be the traditional, grand closing-night performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, with its stage full of singers. In fact, to reduce the risk of aerosol transmission of the coronavirus, there will be no vocal music at all at Tanglewood this summer.But there will still be a lot of Beethoven, along with crowd-pleasing tributes to the composer John Williams and familiar guests like Emanuel Ax, Anne-Sophie Mutter, Joshua Bell and Yo-Yo Ma.Tanglewood, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s warm-weather home in the Berkshires, announced in March that after remaining closed last year because of the pandemic, it would open this summer for a six-week season — about half the usual length — with limited crowds and distancing requirements. On Thursday, the orchestra filled in the programming: heavy on appearances by its music director, Andris Nelsons, and with a focus on Beethoven, whose 250th birthday last year was muted because of widespread concert cancellations.Nelsons will lead eight orchestral programs, including a Beethoven opener on July 10 featuring the “Emperor” Piano Concerto, with Ax as soloist, and the Fifth Symphony. On July 23, the Boston Pops will honor Williams, who turns 90 next year and is the Pops’ laureate conductor; the following evening, Mutter gives the premiere of his Violin Concerto No. 2, and on Aug. 13 Williams shares the podium for a night of film music. On July 30, the violinist Leonidas Kavakos does Beethoven trios with Ax and Ma, who also plays with the Boston Symphony under Karina Canellakis on Aug. 8. (Details are available at bso.org.)Throughout the summer, performances will last no longer than 80 minutes, without intermissions, and all concerts will take place in the Koussevitzky Music Shed, which is open on the sides. The space, which usually holds thousands, will have a reduced capacity, as will the lawn that surrounds it — a favorite spot for picnicking. Tanglewood is waiting to announce what might go forward in late summer of its well-loved series of pop performers like James Taylor.Students at the Tanglewood Music Center, the orchestra’s prestigious summer academy, will play chamber concerts on Sunday mornings and Monday afternoons, and programs are planned for the Tanglewood Learning Institute, a series of lectures, talks and master classes that began with great fanfare in 2019. The orchestra will host a two-day version of its annual Festival of Contemporary Music, July 25-26.The Knights, a chamber orchestra, will be joined on July 9 by the jazz and classical pianist Aaron Diehl for Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” and selections from Mary Lou Williams’s “Zodiac Suite.” Among the Boston Symphony’s guest conductors will be Thomas Adès (the orchestra’s artistic partner), Alan Gilbert, Anna Rakitina and Herbert Blomstedt; soloists include the pianists Daniil Trifonov, Jean-Yves Thibaudet and Kirill Gerstein, and the violinists Baiba Skride and Lisa Batiashvili.The Tanglewood season is part of the nationwide thawing planned for this summer of a performing arts scene that has been largely frozen for over a year. The Public Theater has announced that its venerable Shakespeare in the Park will go forward, as will Santa Fe Opera and the Glimmerglass Festival in upstate New York. On Thursday, the Aspen Music Festival and School in Colorado said it would move forward with a nearly two-month season.But as they reopen, institutions are reckoning with sharp losses. As it celebrated the return of Tanglewood, the Boston Symphony said its current operating budget was $57.7 million, down from its prepandemic budget of over $100 million. The orchestra estimated that it has lost over $50 million in revenue in the last year. More

The politically minded, never-before-heard 2010 album will be the first complete project released from Prince’s storied vault.For the first time since Prince died unexpectedly in 2016, the singer’s estate will release a completed — but never-before-heard — album from his storied vault of leftover music.Until now, the estate has largely focused on rereleasing some of the biggest albums of Prince’s career, like “1999” and “Sign o’ the Times,” or on compilations like “Originals,” made up of the singer’s demos that became hits for other artists.But on July 30, “Welcome 2 America,” a 12-track album recorded at Prince’s Paisley Park Studios in 2010, will finally see the light of day.In its announcement, the estate called “Welcome 2 America” a document of “Prince’s concerns, hopes and visions for a shifting society, presciently foreshadowing an era of political division, disinformation, and a renewed fight for racial justice.” The album touches on “golden parachutes, the superficial nature of social media, reality TV-fueled celebrity culture, and corporate monopolies in the music industry, ultimately concluding that America is the ‘Land of the free/home of the slave,’” the estate said.It also included a quote about the album from Prince at the time, written in his trademark style: “The world is fraught with misin4mation. George Orwell’s vision of the future is here. We need 2 remain steadfast in faith in the trying times ahead.”In line with that message, songs from the album include titles like “Running Game (Son of a Slave Master),” “Born 2 Die” and “One Day We Will All B Free.” On the title track, Prince sings, “Distracted by the features of the iPhone/Got an application, 2 fix Ur situation.”From 2010 to 2012, Prince played more than 80 concerts on a tour of the same name, but he never explained why he shelved the related “Welcome 2 America” album.It has been a fraught road for the estate since the singer died from an accidental overdose of an opioid painkiller five years ago this month. While Prince was known for fastidious control over his career, including retaining ownership of much of his music, he left no will. Prince was determined to have six family members who qualified as heirs, although one — a half brother — has since died.The release of “Welcome 2 America” will come via Legacy Recordings, a division of Sony Music Entertainment, which began releasing Prince music after an earlier $31 million deal between the estate and Universal Music was rescinded by a judge.The estate has since faced tax problems with the I.R.S., which said that the estate is worth $163.2 million — nearly double the $82.3 million claimed by the estate’s administrator, Comerica Bank & Trust. (A judge overseeing the estate has referred to a state of “personal and corporate mayhem.”)Prince’s vault at Paisley Park, his studio complex outside of Minneapolis, is thought to contain hundreds — or potentially thousands — of unreleased songs. More

A year ago, they infamously demonstrated the dangers of singing in the pandemic. What will it take to get the choir of Washington’s Skagit Valley — and the rest of the world’s choral musicians — back together again?

The Skagit Valley Chorale last sang together in person on the evening of March 10, 2020. Earlier that day, Skagit County issued a news release on its website recommending the cancellation of gatherings of more than 10 people. But the chorale didn’t see the advisory in time. The valley, a rural expanse in northwestern Washington cupped between the Puget Sound and the North Cascades, doesn’t have a dedicated TV station, and county officials rely on radio, The Skagit Valley Herald and Skagit Breaking, an online news site, to carry announcements. “Whenever I put out news releases, I’m expecting behavior change and common knowledge not to happen for days,” Lea Hamner, the communicable disease and epidemiology lead for the county’s public health department, told me. Businesses, schools, restaurants and other public spaces were open as usual.

Mary Campbell, a tenor who worked as the district manager for the libraries in a neighboring county, spent the day in discussions about how to keep staff and patrons “safe from touching things,” like returned books. She showed up at practice feeling stressed and tired — but knowing that 2½ hours of singing with the group would, through alchemy everyone felt but couldn’t quite explain, give her uplift and energy. More

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The ‘Game of Thrones’ star calls the song revamp ‘a bop’ while the ‘Fearless’ hitmaker reveals she is a huge fan of the actress’ famous television character.

Apr 8, 2021

AceShowbiz –
Taylor Swift has revisited her split from Joe Jonas for the latest “From the Vault” gem ahead of her “Fearless” album re-release on Friday (09Apr21).

The pop star wrote “Mr. Perfectly Fine (Taylor’s Version)” after Jonas reportedly ended their romance over the phone, and fans insist the song is all about their break-up.

She released her new version of the track on Wednesday (07Apr21), tweeting, “Me in 2020: life is chill, writing songs based in fiction to avoid drama, feeling pretty grown up My 2008 music from the vault, in a goblin voice: ‘REELEEEEEEASE MR PERFECTLY FIIIIIIINE.’ ”

In the song she sings, “Hello Mr. Perfectly Fine /How’s your heart after breaking mine? /Mr. always at the right place at the right time, baby /Hello, Mr. casually cruel /Mr. everything revolves around you /I’ve been Miss Misery since your goodbye /And you’re Mr. Perfectly Fine.”

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The re-release hasn’t upset Jonas’ wife Sophie Turner, who posted the Spotify listing of the song, writing, “It’s not NOT a bop @TaylorSwift,” prompting the singer to respond by referencing Sophie’s “Game of Thrones” character and stating, “forever bending the knee for the (queen) of the north.”

Over the weekend, Swift revealed the track listing for the “Fearless” bonus album, explaining it will include 27 tracks from the project’s recording sessions. She has already released two tracks – a reworked “Love Story” and a previously unheard collaboration with Maren Morris, called “You All Over Me” – and previewed a third, “Wildest Dreams (Taylor’s Version)”.

Swift is in the process of re-recording her old hits to thwart the new rights owners’ efforts to make money off the originals.

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Daniel Craig Allegedly Set to Earn Over $100 Million for Two ‘Knives Out’ Sequels

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In New York opera circles, an autograph request from her, the mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade said, was considered “a special type of approval.”For more than a half-century, nearly every prominent singer to perform at the Metropolitan Opera could expect to be approached backstage afterward by a wispy woman in thick glasses, who held piles of memorabilia to be autographed while she praised the performance in a raspy Brooklyn accent.This was Lois Kirschenbaum, one of New York’s biggest and longest-standing opera buffs and a nightly staple at the opera since the late 1950s, before Lincoln Center was built, when the Met was located in Midtown.Few operatic performances took place at the Met without being observed through Ms. Kirschenbaum’s large binoculars (she was legally blind from birth), usually from a seat in the uppermost balcony secured for little or no money by canvassing operagoers at the entrance just before the opening curtain.And few prominent singers went home without signing numerous items for Ms. Kirschenbaum, whose constant desire to get backstage helped her befriend some of the world’s most famous opera singers, from Beverly Sills to Plácido Domingo.Ms. Kirschenbaum died on March 27 at a hospital in Manhattan after suffering from pneumonia and renal failure, her longtime friend Sally Jo Sandelin said. She was 88.Such was Ms. Kirschenbaum’s reputation at the Met, as well as at New York City Opera, that singers half-joked that they had truly arrived on the New York opera scene only after being approached by Ms. Kirschenbaum after a performance.“It was like getting a special type of approval,” the mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade said. “I never met anyone who didn’t welcome her backstage and want to hang out with her.”She added, “We’d always look out for her and bring her in early if we could, because everyone loved her, and she’d have a hundred things to sign.”The bass singer Samuel Ramey said he was first approached by Ms. Kirschenbaum in his dressing room immediately after his first major role, as Don Basilio in “The Barber of Seville” with City Opera in late 1973.“I was told, ‘You’ve made it now — Lois has asked you for your autograph,’” he recalled, adding that Ms. Kirschenbaum became a constant presence backstage after his performances and that the two became good friends.“She was something else — she always got on the backstage list,” he said.Ms. Kirschenbaum, a wisecracking native of Flatbush, defied the stereotype of a highfalutin opera aficionado. She worked as a switchboard operator for the International Rescue Committee, the humanitarian aid organization, until retiring in 2004. She lived nearly her entire adult life in a rent-controlled apartment in the East Village, from which she would travel by subway and city bus to Lincoln Center while lugging a huge handbag full of photos, programs and recordings to be signed.Ms. Kirschenbaum with the soprano Renata Tebaldi in the late 1960s. Ms. Kirschenbaum’s love of opera began when she heard a recording by Ms. Tebaldi being played in a record shop.via Ken BensonIf she was unable to score a free or cheap ticket just before the performance, she would often slip in with the help of a friendly staffer.“Everyone knew her, from the workers who cleaned the bathrooms, to ticket takers, to the administration and of course the singers,” said another longtime friend, Carl Halperin. “All you had to say was ‘Lois’ and everybody knew who you meant.”Ms. Kirschenbaum was the grande dame of a group of hard-core fans who would flock to the backstage door for autographs and chats.With the help of her formidable handbag, she would quickly find her way to the front of the line and approach singers with complimentary and detailed critiques of their performances — from that night or from years earlier.“She could tell you anything going on in your performances on any given night — this or that particular phrase and what it meant,” the soprano Aprile Millo recalled. “For a singer, it gave you the feeling that you were being heard.”“She was so much part of the opera lore of New York, like the aficionados at La Scala,” the opera house in Milan, Ms. Millo said. Working the switchboard allowed Ms. Kirschenbaum to call singers and opera insiders for updates on news like cast changes or show cancellations, information she would then relay to fellow opera buffs.“For opera, she really was the internet before there was the internet,” said Ken Benson, a manager of opera singers and another longtime friend.And before the Met began putting out detailed schedules months in advance, Ms. Kirschenbaum became known for the homemade lists she compiled of upcoming performances and featured singers.She would distribute copies to fellow buffs during intermission, while enjoying the coffee and sandwiches she routinely smuggled in to avoid the expense of buying food at Met prices.“People would say that Lois’s list was more precise than what you’d get from the press,” Ms. Millo said.Ms. Kirschenbaum “was so much part of the opera lore of New York,” the soprano Aprile Millo said. Ms. Kirschenbaum’s request for an autograph, Ms. Millo added, meant “you got the blessing.”Julie Glassberg for The New York TimesMs. Kirschenbaum gleaned much of her information while soliciting singers’ autographs.“She’d ask them, ‘When are you coming back and what are singing next year?’” Mr. Halperin recalled. “And while Luciano Pavarotti was signing something for her, he’d say he’d be singing ‘La Bohème’ and ‘Tosca’ next season. And she’d collect all this.”Ms. Millo said Ms. Kirschenbaum might have her sign up to 20 pieces of memorabilia at a time. “It was a way to keep you engaged — it was clever of her,” she said.Lois Kirschenbaum was born in New York City on Nov. 21, 1932, to Abraham and Gertrude Kirschenbaum. Her father was an optometrist.An only child, she grew up in Flatbush and graduated from Thomas Jefferson High School in Brooklyn. Ms. Kirschenbaum was an avid Brooklyn Dodgers fan, but when the Dodgers left New York for Los Angeles in 1957, her obsession shifted to opera after she heard a recording by the soprano Renata Tebaldi being played in a record shop.In her later years, Ms. Kirschenbaum alternated between haunting the margins of the Met for tickets and autographs and being honored as a special guest at fancy galas held by opera organizations.For her 75th birthday, in 2007, she was feted at a party by singers like Marilyn Horne and Renée Fleming, as well as the Met’s musical director, James Levine — “Jimmy” to Ms. Kirschenbaum — who gave her a ring and an autographed operatic score of “La Bohème.”In 1980, she won a raffle to see Beverly Sills’s farewell performance gala at City Opera, after having seen every role Ms. Sills sang in New York, except one, for 25 years.“Beverly saw me after that and said, ‘Lois, it was fixed,’” Ms. Kirschenbaum laughingly told The New York Times in 2012.In recent years, Ms. Kirschenbaum had begun using a wheelchair and went to the Met only sporadically. She continued to listen to opera (and to Yankees games) on the radio.Friends said she never married and never spoke of any surviving family members.It was unclear what would become of the trove of autographs, programs and photographs left behind in Ms. Kirschenbaum’s apartment.“There was no one more devoted to opera and the artists she loved than Lois,” Ms. Fleming said. “She was a beloved member of the Metropolitan Opera family, like a favorite aunt. I will miss knowing she is watching from the balcony and seeing her afterward at the stage door.” More

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The ‘Rockstar’ hitmaker dominates the nominations at the upcoming iHeartRadio Music Awards by collecting a total of seven nods including the coveted Male Artist of the Year title.

Apr 8, 2021

AceShowbiz –
Rapper Roddy Ricch will be the artist to beat at the 2021 iHeartRadio Music Awards after landing seven nominations.

The hip-hop hitmaker will compete for Male Artist of the Year, Hip-Hop Artist of the Year, and New Hip-Hop Artist of the Year, while his DaBaby collaboration, “Rockstar”, is up for the Song of the Year honour, for which they will compete against The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights”, “Circles” by Post Malone, Dua Lipa’s “Don’t Start Now”, and Harry Styles’ “Watermelon Sugar”.

Ricch also has a high chance of winning the Hip-Hop Song of the Year title as he earns three nods in that category alone for “Rockstar”, “The Box”, and “High Fashion” (featuring Mustard), although “Rockstar” is oddly missing from the nominees for Best Collaboration, which is instead made up of “Savage (Remix)” by Megan Thee Stallion and Beyonce Knowles, Chris Brown and Young Thug’s “Go Crazy”, “Holy” from Justin Bieber and Chance the Rapper, “Mood” by 24kGoldn and iann dior, and Gabby Barrett and Charlie Puth’s “I Hope”.

Elsewhere, Megan Thee Stallion will do battle with Billie Eilish, Ariana Grande, Dua Lipa, and Taylor Swift for Female Artist of the Year, and the Best Duo/Group of the Year award will be a fight between BTS, Dan + Shay, the Jonas Brothers, Maroon 5, and twenty one pilots.

This year, there will also be a new fan-voted category, TikTok Bop of the Year, featuring nominees like The Weeknd’s “Blinding Lights”, Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion’s “WAP”, and Doja Cat’s “Say So”.

The winners will be unveiled at a live ceremony in Los Angeles on 27 May (21), a year after 2020’s TV celebration was cancelled due to the COVID crisis.

The full list of nominees for the 2021 iHeartRadio Music Awards is:

Song of the Year:

Female Artist of the Year:

Male Artist of the Year:

Best Duo/Group of the Year:

Best Collaboration:

Best New Pop Artist:

Alternative Rock Song of the Year:

Alternative Rock Artist of the Year:

Best New Rock/Alternative Rock Artist:

Ashe
Dayglow
Powfu
Royal & The Serpent
Wallows

Rock Song of the Year:

Rock Artist of the Year:

Country Song of the Year:

Country Artist of the Year:

Best New Country Artist:

Dance Song of the Year:

Dance Artist of the Year:

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Hip-Hop Song of the Year:

Hip-Hop Artist of the Year:

Best New Hip-Hop Artist:

R&B Song of the Year:

R&B Artist of the Year:

Best New R&B Artist:

Latin Pop/Reggaeton Song of the Year:

Latin Pop/Reggaeton Artist of the Year:

Best New Latin Artist:

Chesca
Jay Wheeler
Natanael Cano
Neto Bernal
Rauw Alejandro

Regional Mexican Song of the Year:

“Palabra De Hombre” – El Fantasma
“Se Me Olvido” – Christian Nodal
“Solo Tu” – Calibre 50
“Te Volveria A Elegir” – Calibre 50
“Yo Ya No Vuelvo Contigo” – Lenin Ramirez featuring Grupo Firme

Regional Mexican Artist of the Year:

Producer of the Year:

Andrew Watt
Dr. Luke
Frank Dukes
Louis Bell
Max Martin

Songwriter of the Year:

Ali Tamposi
Amy Allen
Ashley Gorley
Dan Nigro
Finneas

Best Lyrics:

Best Cover Song:

Best Fan Army:

Best Music Video:

Social Star Award:

Favorite Music Video Choreography:

TikTok Bop of the Year:

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Fans of Earl Simmons, the rapper known as DMX, rallied outside his hospital this week, as musicians and others hoped for his recovery.The rapper DMX, in a coma and on life support four days after he was hospitalized, was set to undergo brain function tests Wednesday, his manager said, as fans, relatives and fellow musicians continued to hope for his recovery.The rapper and actor, whose real name is Earl Simmons, was hospitalized after a heart attack Friday. His former manager said over the weekend that he was in a “vegetative state.”“Everything is the same,” his current manager, Steve Rifkind, said on Wednesday. “Just waiting on the results.”Since Mr. Simmons, 50, had a heart attack in his home in White Plains, N.Y., performers like Missy Elliott, Ja Rule and LL Cool J have posted messages of support on social media. Gabrielle Union, an actress who starred with Mr. Simmons in the 2003 movie “Cradle 2 the Grave” and LeBron James, who described Mr. Simmons as one of his favorite artists, said they were praying for him.People have posted stories about their interactions with Mr. Simmons, who used his unadorned, gravelly voice to rap earnest lyrics about his personal suffering.DMX performs during the Ruff Ryders and Friends Reunion Tour Past, Present and Future at Barclays Center of Brooklyn on April 21, 2017.John Lamparski/FilmMagicOn Monday, hundreds of fans joined the rapper’s family in front of White Plains Hospital to play his music and pray for him. The crowds became so large they held up traffic at points. Vehicles that passed by, including a fire truck from the city’s fire department, honked loudly in support as the crowds cheered and chanted “DMX.”“Everybody put up your X,” said Stephanie Reed, a friend of Mr. Simmons, as she led a prayer for him. The crowd complied, crossing their arms above their heads or in front of their chest as a clip of Mr. Simmons praying boomed from the speakers.Some people sobbed, others lowered their heads, and some fans held up balloons spelling out Mr. Simmons’s stage name.Ms. Reed, 52, who organized the event, said in an interview Wednesday that she was overwhelmed by the size of the crowd. At one point, she said, she saw hospital staffers in the windows holding up their arms in an X.A friend makes an X gesture in honor of DMX during a prayer vigil for the rapper outside of White Plains Hospital on Monday in White Plains, N.Y.Mary Altaffer/Associated PressPeople attend a vigil for the rapper DMX in White Plains, N.Y.David Delgado/ReutersMs. Reed said she saw Mr. Simmons two weeks ago when he came to Atlanta, where she lives, and cooked her spaghetti and King Crab legs. Mr. Simmons is deeply spiritual and always prayed before he performed or ate, she said.“We’ve just got a lot of great, great memories,” Ms. Reed said. “He was like my brother. He called me sister.”Born in Mount Vernon, N.Y., on Dec. 18, 1970, Mr. Simmons grew up in Yonkers, just north of the Bronx.In the late 1990s, Mr. Simmons became a hip-hop powerhouse, rapping about violence and redemption in what Rolling Stone termed “the roughest and grimiest voice in hip-hop, the sound of gravel hitting the grave.”Mr. Simmons was the first musician whose first five albums reached No. 1 on the Billboard chart. He became known for electrifying audiences at concerts with hits that include “Party Up (Up in Here),” from 1999, and “X Gon’ Give It to Ya,” from 2003. He also appeared in television shows like “Third Watch” and movies including “Never Die Alone.”Over the years, Mr. Simmons faced repeated arrests. In 2008, he pleaded guilty to animal cruelty, drug possession and theft, and in 2018 he was sentenced to a year in prison for tax evasion. During the sentencing hearing, his lawyer played his music in Federal District Court in Manhattan to Judge Jed S. Rakoff.“In the court’s view Mr. Simmons is a good man, a very far from perfect man,” Judge Rakoff said.Joe Coscarelli contributed reporting. More

Listen as Carlos Santana, Branford Marsalis and others pick their favorites of the moody master of 19th-century music.In the past, we’ve chosen the five minutes or so we would play to make our friends fall in love with classical music, the piano, opera, the cello, Mozart, 21st-century composers, the violin, Baroque music, sopranos, Beethoven, the flute, string quartets and tenors.Now we want to convince those curious friends to love the music of Johannes Brahms (1833-97), master of stirring symphonic exclamations and moody piano solos. We hope you find lots here to discover and enjoy; leave your favorites in the comments.◆ ◆ ◆Isata Kanneh-Mason, pianistThe beginning of Brahms’s Piano Concerto No. 1 is one of my favorite concerto openings. It’s got drama, intensity and emotion — and that’s before the piano even joins! The soloist doesn’t come in for almost four minutes while the orchestra has a long, thrilling introduction illustrating the themes of the movement. Brahms uses the full orchestra, with a lot of grandeur, so the entrance of the piano is always a beautiful surprise, coming in very lyrical and soft. And after such a long wait!Piano Concerto No. 1Krystian Zimerman, piano; Berlin Philharmonic; Simon Rattle, conductor (Deutsche Grammophon)◆ ◆ ◆Carlos Santana, guitarist and songwriterWhen my father died in 1997, I made a resolution that I wouldn’t listen to music for two months. And after two months, my father’s voice said to me, “I need you to play music now.” So I turned on the radio. I was taking my son to school, and as soon as I turned it on, I heard that melody. My father played the violin, and I felt a connection, that he was directing me to this song; it turned out it was Brahms. Not long after, we were working on “Supernatural” with Dave Matthews, and this song came up again. I shared it with Dave, and the next thing you know, it went on the album as “Love of My Life.”Symphony No. 3New York Philharmonic; Leonard Bernstein, conductor (Sony Classical)◆ ◆ ◆Branford Marsalis, composer and saxophonistUnlike a lot of modern musicians who are hellbent on this individuality thing, I openly admit to thievery. I steal. And I steal a lot from Brahms. There are times it’s unintentional, and times it’s quite intentional. This was 50/50. I did some music for “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” and I wrote a melancholy piece for Toledo, the piano player in the movie, and string orchestra. I’m writing the melody and I resolved it in the third and fourth bars. I stole that second half from somewhere, but it took weeks for me to figure out where. Of course, I took it from one of Brahms’s intermezzos.Intermezzo in A minor (Op. 76, No. 7)Glenn Gould, piano (Sony Classical)◆ ◆ ◆Barbara Hendricks, sopranoMy introduction to Brahms came in 1975 at Carnegie Hall, where Herbert von Karajan was conducting the Second and Fourth Symphonies with the Berlin Philharmonic. I had just auditioned for him; he asked me to prepare the soprano solo from the “German Requiem” so that I could sing it at the end of the tour, and he invited me to the concert. It was an unforgettable experience. I later recorded the “Requiem” with him and the Vienna Philharmonic: I dedicate that solo to all who have lost loved ones or are suffering because of this pandemic, essential workers, and victims of conflicts and tragedies all over the world.“A German Requiem”(Deutsche Grammophon)◆ ◆ ◆Tania León, composerDedicated to Clara Schumann, this intermezzo is emotional and intense. It has a magical spell, a loving aura that gently touches the heart. The power of this music sends you to a world of introspection and intimate tranquillity. It is a piece that never dies; it alludes to something you can never grab. You listen to its poetry, and it compels you to listen again and again.Intermezzo in A (Op. 118, No. 2)Murray Perahia, piano (Sony Classical)◆ ◆ ◆Anthony Tommasini, Times chief classical music criticI love the spacious, probing, moody Brahms; the Brahms of breadth and depth; the progressive composer whose mature harmonic language anticipated the atonality of Schoenberg. But Brahms, a virtuosic pianist in his prime, also has a wild side, a showy streak. And no music better captures him in that vein than the dancing, dizzying finale of his Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, which he calls a rondo “in the Gypsy style.” On this exciting recording from 1967, Artur Rubinstein, then a month shy of 80, joins far younger members of the Guarneri Quartet.Piano Quartet No. 1(Sony Classical)◆ ◆ ◆Zachary Woolfe, Times classical music editorHere’s more of that jovial Brahms: the finale of his Violin Concerto, a dance with one foot in a sumptuous ballroom, the other in a down-and-dirty village square. After the concerto’s tender slow movement, it’s an irresistible explosion. The soloist here is the silver-toned Janine Jansen; I heard her play this not long before the pandemic began, so for me it’s a precious reminder of what came before — and what will come after.Violin ConcertoOrchestra dell’Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia; Antonio Pappano, conductor (Decca)◆ ◆ ◆Bongani Ndodana-Breen, composerBrahms gave us music of great emotional depth that forces us to pause and reflect. On the whole, his musical demeanor is serious and beautifully melancholic. His “German Requiem” has lived with me since my teens in South Africa, when I first heard it at an arts festival. Three years later I would turn to it when mourning the devastating loss of my grandmother. Instead of the traditional Latin Requiem, Brahms assembled his own beautiful text from biblical sources, in a setting that gave them new meanings. From the opening motif in the cellos to the first words sung by the chorus — “Blessed are they that mourn” — we are embraced with warmth, comfort and, dare one say, love. I have had to turn to it again during this pandemic to quietly grieve the loss of close friends.“A German Requiem”WDR Symphony Orchestra; Jukka-Pekka Saraste, conductor◆ ◆ ◆Peter Pesic, pianist and scientistWhen I was 11, I went deaf from ear infections. After an operation, I was taken to a concert to try out my recovering hearing. The effect of this music was overwhelming. Later, I realized that no other piece of music begins like this: at the crisis, the critical moment. Over the insistent throbbing of a drum, the orchestra soars slowly upward, straining against gravity, struggling so hard yet falling short. It spoke to me even as a child. How could something so heart-rending be so beautiful? Where did this immense struggle lead? I had to know.Symphony No. 1Columbia Symphony Orchestra; Bruno Walter, conductor◆ ◆ ◆Iman Habibi, composerBrahms’s most intimate emotions manifested themselves in his final sets of piano pieces, Op. 116 to 119. My appreciation for them grew with each encounter: first, when I learned some of them as an undergraduate piano student; later, when I had the opportunity to study them in graduate school; and, most recently, as this composer’s last thoughts resounded through our home as my wife, Deborah, performed and recorded the Op. 119 set. These pieces feel personal and remarkably mature in their simplicity, teeming with an abundance of beauty and intricate detail.Intermezzo in E minor (Op. 119, No. 2)Deborah Grimmett, piano◆ ◆ ◆Hyeyung Sol Yoon, violinistI think back to my ornithologist father-in-law wondering aloud, “How was Brahms able to create music that sounds like the vastness of nature?” And to my former teacher ruminating that Brahms was always trying to write textures that were too big for a given ensemble. I listen to the slow movement of the Clarinet Quintet, and I hear, at a microscopic level, that he is creating a boundless world. It’s like seeing the sinew of the body, the veins of the leaves. There’s so much to take in: richness of the harmonies, rhythm of duplets and triplets rubbing against each other. They all gather to bind the sadness and beauty of this revelatory work.Clarinet QuintetAnthony McGill, clarinet; Pacifica Quartet (Cedille)◆ ◆ ◆Valerie Coleman, composer and flutistBrahms’s Fourth Symphony never fails to fill concert hall seats with its charm and familiar interplay between strings and woodwinds. I love it because of how it makes me feel. It’s an old friend who visits. Together we walk along a woodsy trail, laughing and reminiscing in a constant dialogue of all the happy memories of summer festivals gone by.Symphony No. 4Philadelphia Orchestra; Yannick Nézet-Séguin, conductor◆ ◆ ◆Jeff Scott, hornistWhen I went to Manhattan School of Music in the mid-1980s, I’d go to the library to do my listening homework. One day I was preparing for a reading of the Brahms Op. 40 Trio; one version looked interesting because it had been recorded at the Marlboro Festival, which I knew, even as a freshman, was prestigious. The horn player was Myron Bloom, one of the greats — though I had no idea who he was at the time. The pianist Rudolf Serkin and the violinist Michael Tree were also legends. This recording changed my perception of what classical music is — and how beautifully the French horn could fit into the canon.Horn Trio(Sony Classical)◆ ◆ ◆Simon Halsey, choral conductor“Music for the soul,” “medicine for the voice”: These are two of the comments from my singers when we made this recording of “A German Requiem.” To go deep into the text — its phrasing, diction and meaning — was part of a fascinating journey with this great choir and orchestra, savoring the instinctive understanding of the tradition; the warm, velvety choral sound; and the virtuosity of the Berlin Philharmonic. Everything came together. This piece is so well known in Germany that you can feel the audience singing along in their imaginations; it’s music that elevates us as we share it.“A German Requiem”Berlin Radio Choir and Berlin Philharmonic; Simon Rattle, conductor (Warner Classics)◆ ◆ ◆Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim, Times music writerIt’s not just strange, the change from major to minor: In this breathless ride of a Scherzo, it feels violent, with existential stakes, as the two modes tussle for control with the gritted urgency of antagonists fighting atop a runaway train. The rhythm, too, veers sharply between duple and triple forms, even as the momentum barrels forward. The sense of unity and propulsive flow that grows out of this destabilizing mix of elements is uncanny — Brahms at his intoxicating and brainy best.Piano Quintet in F minorQuatuor Ébène; Akiko Yamamoto, piano (Erato)◆ ◆ ◆Seth Colter Walls, Times music writerWas Brahms a classicist or a progressive? Why not both? Wilhelm Kempff’s restrained, artful approach to the late piano works serves as a reminder of how to bring it all together. Gorgeous melodic lines are shaped with a singing quality; surprising ruptures have a teasing playfulness. And not long after the three-minute mark in a recording of Op. 119, No. 4, Kempff honors some stray, crunchy low-end notes that trouble the otherwise lilting passage — balancing Brahms’s strangeness with his grace.Rhapsody in E flat (Op. 119, No. 4)(Deutsche Grammophon)◆ ◆ ◆Hélène Grimaud, pianistWith and in music, one can withstand the ambient chaos of life and rediscover a possible harmony which doesn’t speak of lost paradise but of paradise found. Romanticism is a way of being. It is a fight for wholeness, for what is essential. It is to go toward that goal with empty hands and an open heart. Music is passion which has found its rhythm. With Brahms, the music’s inner pulse is very close to that of the human heart. Through his signature “Rückblick,” this sense of longing and looking back, his language becomes poignant beyond words.Symphony No. 3Vienna Philharmonic; Carlo Maria Giulini, conductor (Deutsche Grammophon)◆ ◆ ◆Joshua Barone, Times editorIf anyone ever tells you that Brahms is boring or unemotional — and, bafflingly, that’s bound to happen — just respond with any of the three intermezzos of his Opus 117. After the first, a lullaby of crushing beauty, comes No. 2, in B flat minor. It too is a lullaby, with a lilting melody — as simple as the two-note phrases that open his Fourth Symphony — emerging from gently flowing runs. Despite the cascading architecture, it is not so much a passionate outpouring as an invitation, from one lonely soul to another, for five minutes of deeply felt intimacy.Intermezzo in B flat minor (Op. 117, No. 2)Radu Lupu, piano (Decca)◆ ◆ ◆David Allen, Times writerIt took me a long time to love Brahms, whose music once struck me as all too sleepy — “autumnal,” we critics often call it. It wasn’t until time forced me to learn that to live is to lose, I think, that I came to obsess over the dark side of his scores: the grief and sorrow, the loneliness and guilt, the desperation, even the anger. Nowhere is that darkness more engulfing than in his fourth and final symphony, a work with rage at its heart, whatever face it might try to maintain. And no conductor has made its horrors more consuming than Wilhelm Furtwängler.Symphony No. 4Berlin Philharmonic (Pristine Audio)◆ ◆ ◆ More