Tchaikovsky

Baltimore School for the Arts will hold its annual orchestra concert at 7 p.m. today in the school's Schaefer Ballroom, 712 Cathedral St. Tickets are $6 for adults and $4 for students. Works by Tchaikovsky, Vivaldi and Mozart will be featured in the debut of the school's new conductor, Ruben Capriles. Information: 410-625-0403, or www.bsfa.org.

The all-Tchaikovsky program by the Baltimore Symphony in Meyerhoff Hall this past weekend delivered some good news: The future of the masterworks of the past is in good hands -- in this case those of Daniel Hege, the orchestra's 31-year-old assistant conductor, and of 21-year-old Terrence Wilson, the soloist in Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor.That Hege is a conductor with big potential was demonstrated by the way he handled the composer's program-concluding "Capriccio Italien."

When Tchaikovsky's Sixth Symphony, the one nicknamed "Pathetique," was first heard on Oct. 16, 1893, the St. Petersburg audience had mixed reactions. The slow, somber conclusion of the work, in particular, caused some puzzlement. But when, eight days later, the composer died, the "Pathetique" suddenly took on new significance. It was now considered a profound swan-song, a requiem for Tchaikovsky himself. And then the conspiracy theories started. Surely, a composer who could write such sad music just before dying must have had either a premonition of his demise or, better yet, a wish to die. That's why he deliberately drank a glass of unboiled water at a restaurant, even though he knew there was a cholera scare in town!

Let it be known that the Chesapeake Youth Symphony Orchestra is in very capable hands.Scott Speck, in his debut concert at the helm, had his 56 musicians in excellent form Sunday evening in a program of Tchaikovsky, Bizet, Brahms and John Adams at Key Auditorium in Annapolis.Mr. Speck, 33, establishes a much different podium persona from that of his predecessor, Arne Running, the emotional Philadelphian who served the CYSO so well in his two seasons here. Where Mr. Running stomped the feet and stabbed the air to inspire his troops, Mr. Speck's kinder, gentler stick work coaxes the players in a less insistent manner.

Although occasionally asked, I've always declined invitations to sit on the jury of a competition.This is a matter of common sense. Reviewing concerts is relatively easy; I merely have to decide whether a performance is good or bad. Judging is hard; jurors often find themselves forced to compare a pear, an apple and an orange, all of which may be good.That was certainly the situation in which the jury of the William Kapell International Piano Competition found itself last Saturday evening at the Kennedy Center in the competition's final round.

When it comes to gala season-openers, the National Symphony Orchestra knows how to deliver. The annual tradition comes complete with a grand ball for Washington's well-heeled and well-positioned, but it lets just plain, non-black-tie folks in on the action at ordinary prices during a concert beforehand. To get the 2006-2007 season officially rolling, the NSO packed them into the Kennedy Center Concert Hall on Sunday night for what might have been a ho-hum all-Tchaikovsky program. It was hardly that.

Mozart and Tchaikovsky lived roughly a century apart - and were light-years apart emotionally - but had in common an effortless gift for ear-catching melody. Although Mozart could do infinitely more with his melodies than Tchaikovsky (or anyone else, for that matter), Tchaikovsky, at his best, could mold ideas into structures of Mozartean proportion and symmetry. That's one good reason to pair these two composers on a program, as the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra has done. Another is that Tchaikovsky positively worshiped Mozart's music.

WASHINGTON -- One look at the size of the orchestra that waited for Boris Berezovsky to begin Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto at the Kennedy Center on Sunday was enough to let one know that something unusual was about to happen.The Bolshoi Symphony Orchestra, which had opened its program under music director Peter Feranec earlier with excerpts from the same composer's "Sleeping Beauty," had been reduced in size to a slender five double basses and six cellos from a beefy nine double basses and 12 cellos.

Now things get really interesting. Annapolis Symphony conductor Leslie B. Dunner has stuck like glue to the standard Germanic symphonic repertoire for most of his early tenure with the orchestra. With this weekend's concerts at Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts, he ventures off the beaten path into the heart of Mother Russia's musical tradition, an idiom that engages his aesthetic sensibilities to the fullest. Dunner, who has been studying Russian in anticipation of concerts he'll conduct in St. Petersburg this season, has programmed unfamiliar works by three of Russia's greatest composers.

Concert series should end with a bang. In the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra's tony Celebrity Series, those bangs tend to be pieces such as a gigantic Mahler symphony or next month's Verdi Requiem. But in the case of the more popularly based Favorites Series, the first of whose final concerts took place last night in Meyerhoff Hall, the bang was more literal: The concluding selection was Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture," which is replete with the sound of cannon and all manner of other noise.You could say that this final Favorites program was nothing but big bangs: five mostly immensely popular pieces.