Chris Fitzsimmons’ Classical Music Lovers Revie

Chris Fitzsimmons’ Classical Music Lovers Revie Reviews of classical music concerts and recordings.

Canadian composer Vivian Fung (b. 1975) has a “stunningly original compositional voice” (Philadelphia Inquirer), as se...
09/26/2026

Canadian composer Vivian Fung (b. 1975) has a “stunningly original compositional voice” (Philadelphia Inquirer), as seen in these brisk, swarming, constantly inventive string quartets.

Accessed on Apple Classical Music.

“In Tempus Praesens” (In the Present Tense, a violin concerto, 2007), by Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina, is my favor...
09/03/2026

“In Tempus Praesens” (In the Present Tense, a violin concerto, 2007), by Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina, is my favorite of her works. It’s musically free, limber, rich and dramatic.

A solo violin struggles against powerful storms; she sinks, yet somehow keeps bobbing back up to the surface and is ultimately triumphant.

“Glorious Percussion” (a percussion concerto, 2008) celebrates the phenomenon of musically striking one object against another. It offers an abundance of percussion instruments, which, arrayed against the orchestra, range from quiet purring to thunderous crashing.

The composer writes:

“Percussion has an acoustic cloud around it. These instruments enter into that layer of consciousness which is not logical; they are at the boundary between the conscious and the subconscious.” (Wikipedia)

Accessed on Apple Classical Music.


Modern Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina (1931-2025) is all business. I’ve not heard a single light moment, a fun littl...
09/02/2026

Modern Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina (1931-2025) is all business. I’ve not heard a single light moment, a fun little scherzo, in any of her music.

If I were to identify a unifying theme in these three muscular pieces, it would be that of the lonely individual resisting the enormous forces aligned against her.

In “Dialogue: Me and You,” the brave solo violin struggles against the orchestra, underscored by thunderous percussion. The few quiet passages seem to speak to the loneliness of the fight.

The title of the 2nd piece, “The Wrath of God,” speaks for itself.

The third work, “The Light of the End,” shows no slackening of intensity, though it is slightly more ethereal in a few places.

Accessed on Apple Classical Music.

Violin Concerto No. 3 (“Alhambra,” 2018), by Peter Eotvos, is, like other works of his I’ve reviewed recently, wonderful...
08/28/2026

Violin Concerto No. 3 (“Alhambra,” 2018), by Peter Eotvos, is, like other works of his I’ve reviewed recently, wonderfully made: so free, so musically liberated, as passages grow serendipitously from what came before.

The Eotvos concerto is paired with the greatest orchestral work of the past century-and-more: Stravinsky’s “Le Sacre du Printemps” (The Rite of Spring, 1913), whose Paris premiere caused a near-riot, between those who feared Stravinsky was sweeping away the musical traditions they loved, and those who hungered for change.

Music arises from the swamp and fog near a primitive Russian village; it builds slowly, then explodes, as a young girl, directed by the elders and urged on by the villagers, dances herself to death, as an offering to the gods of Spring.

Accessed on Apple Classical Music.

Here are three satisfying concertos (for violin, clarinet and piano, respectively) by the avant-garde Hungarian composer...
08/27/2026

Here are three satisfying concertos (for violin, clarinet and piano, respectively) by the avant-garde Hungarian composer Peter Eotvos (1944-2024).

The sounds ebb and flow, like the wind, blowing here and there, sometimes swirling, at times growling, at times barely a whisper - and fully invigorating!

Accessed on Apple Classical Music.

I didn’t like this music at first. But I stuck with it, and it grew on me.The two string quartets (one of them with a br...
08/26/2026

I didn’t like this music at first. But I stuck with it, and it grew on me.

The two string quartets (one of them with a bright soprano vocal accompaniment) are like hallucinations, like music I might hear in Alice’s Wonderland.

Somehow, this strange music means more to me than the elegant string quartets of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Probably because they more fully represent my fragmented, frayed and frazzled experience of living.

Hungarian composer Peter Eotvos (1944-2024) was also director and conductor of Ensemble Intercontemporain, a French group and a key presenter of 20th Century avant-garde music.

Accessed on Apple Classical Music.

This album is the twin sibling of the collection I just reviewed: the Dudok Quartet Amsterdam plays Shostakovich’s Strin...
08/21/2026

This album is the twin sibling of the collection I just reviewed: the Dudok Quartet Amsterdam plays Shostakovich’s String Quartet No. 5 and seven additional preludes, transposed for string quartet.

I find much of Shostakovich’s music to be “off-kilter,” swinging drunkenly back and forth, and I wonder why. He knows music, knows its history and lives in its current state (in the repressive Soviet Union).

I believe much of his music is sarcastic: it is warped to express his exasperation with this limiting, confining musical world.

Also on these twin albums are enticing string quartets by the Finnish composer Kajia Saariaho and the Polish composer Grazyna Bacewicz.

Accessed on Apple Classical Music.

I’m drawn to the playing of the Dudok Quartet Amsterdam (see my last review), who seem to be fearless in attacking music...
08/19/2026

I’m drawn to the playing of the Dudok Quartet Amsterdam (see my last review), who seem to be fearless in attacking music that is unusual, that challenges them to play precisely in very close quarters.

In this album, we find the String Quartet No. 3 and seven short preludes (arranged for string quartet) by the great Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-75), whose sometimes odd music is “characterized by sharp contrasts, elements of the grotesque and ambivalent tonality.” (Wikipedia)

Just up my alley!

Accessed on Apple Classical Music.

Have you seen the Blue Angels, the U.S. Navy’s thrilling aerobatic flight team, as its jets, in tight formation, zoom pa...
08/17/2026

Have you seen the Blue Angels, the U.S. Navy’s thrilling aerobatic flight team, as its jets, in tight formation, zoom past rapt crowds of onlookers?

The four strings of the Dudok Quartet Amsterdam fly in tight musical formation, generating exciting sounds as they soar overhead.

They draw on contemporary, medieval and modern sources for their vigorous program.

Accessed on Apple Classical Music.

Two modern orchestral works:I’ve know “Sinfonia Votiva” (Symphony No. 8) by Polish composer Andrzej Panufnik (1914-91) f...
08/12/2026

Two modern orchestral works:

I’ve know “Sinfonia Votiva” (Symphony No. 8) by Polish composer Andrzej Panufnik (1914-91) for a long time.

It begins quietly with a dialogue between flute and vibraphone; then add oboe; then clarinet; then harp; then cello. As more instruments are included, the intensity builds, then wanes, then builds again - but doesn’t quite come to a boil.

By contrast, the second and final movement starts with alarms; emergency; run! (Think of Picasso’s “Guernica.”) It builds to a crashing end. What an exciting eight minutes of music!

American Roger Sessions’ (1896-1985) Concerto for Orchestra won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for Music, but I don’t see the attraction: it’s nondescript atonal music. Not my style.

Accessed on Apple Classical Music.

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