Music Features

This week on Crossover, violin virtuoso Maria Bachmann returns to update us on her recent happenings since her last visit in the fall of 2010.

A student of Ivan Galamian and Szymon Goldberg at Philadelphia's Curtis Institute of Music, she was awarded the school's Fritz Kreisler Prize for outstanding graduating violinist. Bachmann made her professional debut in New York in 1987 after placing first in the Fritz Kreisler International Violin Competition in Vienna. She has since established herself as a leading concert and recital hall artist worldwide.

Bachmann is perhaps best-known for her performances of new music by George Rochberg, Leon  Kirchner, Albert Glinsky and Paul Moravec. Her debut recording on BMG, released in 1993, featured works from the 20th century, accompanied by award-winning pianist Jon Klibonoff. But her musical interests are wider than just new music.  Another BMG release of the Beethoven and Mendelssohn violin concertos was very well received.    

In 2010, she gave the world premiere performance of Moravec's Violin Concerto at the Kimmel Center with Philly's Orchestra 2001. She repeated that performance this past March with South Jersey's Symphony in C, under Rossen Milanov, which was recently broadcast on WRTI.  We'll hear an excerpt from that performance on this show. Moravec has written fourteen solo and chamber works specifically for Bachmann.    

Bachmann is also known for her chamber music performances, having appeared in concert and on recordings with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. She founded the Bachmann-Klibonoff-Fridman Piano Trio in 1993, which for a time was the resident ensemble at WQXR Radio in New York. In 2001, she formed Trio Solisti, comprised of Bachmann, Klibonoff, and cellist Alexis Gerlach. Bachmann is also artistic director of the Telluride Music Festival, for which Trio Solisti is the founding ensemble.  

Bachmann performs on a 1782 violin by Nicolo Gagliano.  

We'll hear the aforementioned excerpt of the Moravec violin concerto on the show, plus music from her new Bridge release called, French Fantasy. Bachmann is accompanied by pianist Adam Neiman on the disc, performing works of Debussey, Franck, and Saint-Saens.  

Listen for Jill's conversation with violin virtuoso Maria Bachmann on Crossover, Saturday morning, March 23rd at 11:30 am on WRTI-FM, with an encore the following Friday evening at 7 pm on HD-2 and the All-Classical web stream at wrti.org.

WRTI celebrates Passover with two great specials Monday evening: A Musical Feast for Passover with Itzhak Perlman at 8 pm, and The Passover Story at 9 pm - both on HD-2 and the All-Classical web stream.

In A Musical Feast for Passover with Itzhak Perlman, violinist Itzhak Perlman shares Passover music from many traditions, plus songs and memories from his childhood in Israel. The program draws its shape from the Passover seder and, like that ancient family ritual, the music gets progressively giddier as the show moves along.

So beautiful! Bach's St Matthew Passion BWV 244 is performed here under the baton of Enoch Zu Guttenberg, founder of the prestigious Neabeuern Choral Society. Vocalists include: Jard Van Nes, Hermann Prey, Claes-Hakan Ahnsjo, Margaret Marshall, and Aldo Baldin. Listen to the entire St. Matthew Passion on WRTI on Good Friday, March 29th at 12 noon, and in a Philadelphia Orchestra live, concert recording on Sunday, April 28th.

The Philadelphia Orchestra is mourning the loss of its conductor laureate, Wolfgang Sawallisch, who served as the ensemble's sixth music director from 1993 until 2003. He passed away on February 22, 2013 at his home in Grassau, Germany at age 89.

The maestro guest conducted all over the world, and had previously led the Opera Theater of Augsburg, the Vienna Symphony, L'orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Hamburg Philharmonic, and for more than two decades, the Bavarian State Opera. He was also a gifted pianist, playing chamber music and filling in for The Philadelphia Orchestra itself during an ice storm when an all-Wagner with singers was scheduled.

Susan Lewis  profiles the maestro, focusing on his Philadelphia years,  speaking with Philadelphia Orchestra violinists Davyd Booth and Jonathan Beiler, cellists Gloria de Pasquale, Kathy Reed, and Richard Harlow, and bassoonist Mark Gigliotti about their memories of the Sawallisch years.