1973

Abstract This chapter presents twenty-one reviews and essays written by Michael Steinberg and published in the Boston Globe between January 14 and November 25, 1973. Reviews include Russell Sherman’s recital performance of Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes (this is preceded by an extensive interview with the pianist); Claudio Abbado leading Mahler’s Sixth Symphony with the Cleveland Orchestra, and the Juilliard Quartet’s premiere of Elliott Carter’s String Quartet No. 3, both in New York; Seiji Ozawa’s first concert as BSO music director (Berlioz’s Damnation of Faust); Leonard Bernstein’s Norton Lectures at Harvard; early-career performances by Garrick Ohlsson, the Cleveland Quartet, and the Tokyo Quartet; Benjamin Zander leading Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony with the Boston Civic Symphony; William Steinberg and the BSO in Verdi’s Requiem; a program by the new-music group Collage featuring Peter Maxwell Davies’s Eight Songs for a Mad King; Leon Kirchner’s Lily led by the composer; and a paid-admission “Isaac Stern and friends” performance at Merrimack College candidly characterized by Stern himself to Steinberg as “a rehearsal.” Steinberg also ponders the art of reviewing concerts; analyzes Billboard’s classical chart (then topped by Scott Joplin); and marks the passings of Otto Klemperer and Pablo Casals.