Music

“We met when we were 12 years old growing up in Los Angeles,” says pianist Lincoln Mayorga of his friendship of six decades with violinist Arnold Steinhardt.
“We performed in talent shows together,” the start of a lifelong association. “It was an exhilarating environment in Los Angeles in 1949. We rode streetcars that covered the entire city. And it was easy to find a good music teacher in those days.”

Whether you’re an avid gamer or have never picked up a controller, Tommy Tallarico wants you to have a great time at Video Games Live.

This immersive concert features music from popular video games and franchises (such as Mario, Zelda, Halo and Warcraft) performed by orchestras and choirs, along with synchronized video footage and interactive segments to give it “the excitement and energy of a rock concert.” It’s coming to the Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts in Hartford on Saturday, April 13, at 7:30 p.m.

Reading about Van Cliburn’s Russian triumph at the Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in 1958, on the occasion of his death last week, I was struck by how quaint and even ridiculous the Cold War scenario makes the story. As if producing a 23-year-old piano prodigy — straight from the Texas heartland, no less! — could somehow burnish America’s reputation, conquer a nation and repair the spirits of another nation psychologically diminished by a piece of orbiting metal (aka Sputnik), as one obituary suggested.

In the German-speaking countries of the 1890s, music lovers were tied either to Brahms or Wagner: The conservative romantic classicist or the visionary explorer of new musical frontiers.
Those descriptions were and are gross oversimplifications, but such was the passionate squabbling indulged in at the time, especially by music critics, that many listeners felt obligated to take sides.