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Monday, 27 April 2026
in Atlanta, Georgia - USA
"Imagination is the soil where the seeds of truth take root." ~Kahlil Gibran

Monthly Archives: March 2019

Bent Frequency performs "Stay on IT" by Julius Eastman. *photo: Mark Gresham)

Review: Bent Frequency stays on thread with diverse contemporary works

Mark Gresham · March 17, 2019
Robert Spano conducts the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra .(credit: Katie Kelly, Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra Association)

Breaking news: Robert Spano named Principal Guest Conductor of Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra

Mark Gresham · March 16, 2019
The ASO's 2019-20 season, its 75th will be the penultimate valedictory year for music director Robert Spano. (credit: :eff Roffman)

Atlanta Symphony Orchestra unveils its 75th anniversary season

Mark Gresham · March 13, 2019

Riverside Chamber Players: violinist Justin Bruns, cellist Joel Dallow and pianist Rena Fruchter perform Arensky's Piano Trio No. 1, Op. 32. (photo: Mark Gresham)

Riverside Chamber Players close season with music of Arensky and Montero

EarRelevant Staff · March 12, 2019
The NYC'-based Unheard-of//Ensmble performed at Kopleff Recital Hall on Friday.

Unheard-of//Ensemble brings uptown Manhattan sensibility to downtown Atlanta

Mark Gresham · March 11, 2019
THE GLIDE CREATOR: Keith Groover ORIGIN: Spartanburg, South Carolina, USA

“The Glide” takes top prize in Guthman Competition

Mark Gresham · March 10, 2019

David Coucheron solos in the Violin Concerto of Julius Conus. (credit: Jeff Roffmasn)

Nánási draws powerful performance from ASO, Coucheron shines as soloist

Mark Gresham · March 8, 2019
Inventive minds gather at a Guthman Musical Instrument Competition event. (images courtesy of Georgia Tech)

2019 Guthman Musical Instrument Competition brings innovative technology to the fore

Mark Gresham · March 7, 2019
The String Quartet No. 1 of Czech composer Leoš Janáček closed the first half of the program. It was inspired by Leo Tolstoy’s novella, The Kreutzer Sonata, which was itself inspired by Beethoven’s Violin Sonata No. 9, familiarly known as the “Kreutzer Sonata,” because Beethoven dedicated it to the French violinist and composer Rodolphe Kreutzer. However, Kreutzer never played Beethoven’s piece. It was originally dedicated to violinist George Bridgetower, who premiered it with Beethoven, but immediately after the concert, over a few drinks, Bridgetower insulted the moral behavior of a woman whom Beethoven adored. Enraged, Beethoven changed the dedication. Needless to say, as a title for Tolstoy’s story, The Bridgetower Sonata would not have had the same ring to it. So we can thank Beethoven for his passion of the moment. That theme actually brings us directly to Tolstoy’s story, which inspired artists other than Janáček, including visual artist René François Xavier Prinet, whose famous 1901 painting, Kreutzer Sonata, was also based on Tolstoy’s novella. It has also inspired multiple adaptations for theater, film, radio and television. Tolstoy’s novella itself, which was published in 1889, was certainly controversial for its era. It was swiftly censored in Russia, but became circulated in mimeographed form. An English translation eventually reached America and was banned. In 1890 the U.S. Post Office prohibited mailing of serialized versions printed in newspapers. Even president Theodore Roosevelt called Tolstoy a “sexual moral pervert.” The ban on the sale of the novella was eventually struck down by courts. In the midst of its deep first-person examination of jealousy and rage, Tolstoy argues for an ideal of sexual abstinence. Pozdnyshev, the narrating main character, relates the events of his deteriorating marriage leading up to killing his wife, a amateur pianist, when he believed he had caught her in an adulterous relationship with a male violinist — with whom she played Beethoven’s “Kreutzer Sonata,” naturally. Clearly, Tolstoy would have been uncomfortable with the Beatles’ song, “All You Need is Love.” Janáček’s music is mostly dark and brooding, punctuated by raging emotional outbursts, in its juxtapositions of melodic and rhythmic fragments. The first movement, with its opening rising motif, sets the melancholy tone of the whole. The second is a grim scherzo. The third quotes a slow theme from the opening movement of Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata, as if heard in the mind of the obsessively jealous Pozdyshev. In the fourth movement, we hear a reprise of materials from the first movement and a tearful theme in the first violin, bringing the drama to a direful conclusion.

Review: Peachtree String Quartet closes season with all-Czech program

Mark Gresham · March 6, 2019

González and Moore as Tatyana and Onegin in the heated finale to Act III of Tchaikovsky's Eugene Onegin. (photo: Jeff Roffman)

Atlanta Opera digs deep into self-destructive relationships with Eugene Onegin

Mark Gresham · March 5, 2019

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