Anne Midgette’s best classical music of 2011

Do you measure a year’s classical music highlights in terms of CD releases, or live concerts, or the new music that emerged? I’m splitting the difference: My Top 10 list for 2011 includes my five favorite concerts in Washington and five CDs of new and recent music (with Charles Ives as the one name from the past). — Anne Midgette

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Charles Dutoit and the Philadelphia Orchestra, May 20, Kennedy Center (Washington Performing Arts Society)

The fabulous Philadelphians declared bankruptcy in April, yet their performance of the Tchaikovsky Fifth was possibly the richest musical experience of the year.

Chris Lee / Chris Lee

Daniil Trifonov with Valery Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra, Oct. 8, George Mason University

The winner of this year’s Moscow’s Tchaikovsky Competition showed he deserved the prize with a performance of the first concerto that was sometimes disturbing, often brilliant and always compelling.

Vadim Shults / Vadim Shults

Wolf Trap Opera gala, Aug. 24, Wolf Trap

Wolf Trap’s opera companies celebrated their 40th anniversary with a starry gala in which even the weakest links were pretty darn strong, and the strongest — Lawrence Brownlee, Mary Dunleavy — offered old-school excellence that’s as good as you’ll find anywhere in the opera world today.

Sarah L. Voisin / The Washington Post

Marc-Andre Hamelin, April 29, Strathmore (WPAS)

A thinking man’s piano virtuoso, Hamelin plunged into two centuries of repertory with the ebullience of a child leaping into a swimming pool, freshening a Haydn sonata, elucidating Stefan Wolpe’s challenging passacaglia and adding compositions of his own.

Fran Kaufman / Fran Kaufman

Neeme Jarvi and the National Symphony Orchestra, May 5, Kennedy Center

The 74-year-old Jarvi is a familiar and sometimes routine figure on international podiums, but the NSO players, always idiosyncratic, responded happily to his authority and savvy, especially in the Shostakovich Sixth.

AP Photo/Carlos Osorio / AP Photo/Carlos Osorio

Meredith Monk: “Songs of Ascension”

A pioneer of the avant-garde vocal scene continues to break ground with this ambitious and luminous new work comprising 21 distinct musical microclimates, adding a string quartet and other instruments to her palette of extended vocal techniques.

Courtesy of ECM Records

Steve Reich: “WTC 9/11.” Kronos Quartet

Unfortunately, debate about the cover art (featuring an image of a plane flying into the World Trade Center) overshadowed the reception of this poignant and beautiful new piece, which layers taped voices and sound in a musical collage about the process of remembering and memorializing the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Courtesy of Nonesuch Records

Jefferson Friedman: “Quartets.” Chiara Quartet, Matmos

Friedman, not yet 40, has written three pieces for the NSO. His wonderful second and third string quartets -- insistent, beautiful and often played around the country -- were finally released on a CD in strong performances by the Chiara Quartet, for whom they were written.

Courtesy of New Amsterdam Records / Courtesy of New Amsterdam Records

Ives: “Four Sonatas.” Hilary Hahn, Valentina Lisitsa

A century on, Charles Ives’s music remains bracing and quirky, like a daguerreotype of an American landscape warped by a funhouse mirror. The four violin-piano sonatas here get appropriately sepia-toned and lyrical readings from thoughtful star violinist Hahn and pianist Lisitsa.

Courtesy of Deutsche Grammophon / Courtesy of Deutsche Grammophon

Part: “Piano Music.” Ralph van Raat

Arvo Part is beloved for his shimmering, static compositions; but his work for solo piano is neither static nor well known. The Dutch pianist van Raat changes that with a five-decade survey of the Part you didn’t know, from baroque-influenced sonatinas of 1959 to an exquisite tonal miniature from 2006, and including a ponderous concerto led by JoAnn Falletta.

Courtesy of Naxos / Courtesy of Naxos

FEATURED PHOTO GALLERIES

epa03708924 Franziska (C) wears a helmet and carries a shield during the recreation of The Battle of the Teutoburg Museum in Bramsche, Germany, 20 May 2013. The everyday life of Romans and the Germanic people is depicted at Museum Park Kalkriese during the Romans and Germanic people days. EPA/Friso Gentsch

Photos of the day

Battle of Teutoburg Forest reenactment, Mars Curiosity rover drilling, massive tornado strikes Moore, Oklahoma and more.

A Burrowing owl tries to perch on a protective rope in a public park in Cooper City, Fla. Monday, May 20, 2013 as rain falls. (AP Photo/J Pat Carter)

Animal views

Fun and fascinating creatures around the world.

ANNAPOLIS, MD - MAY 20: The Herndon Monument Climb is the traditional culmination of plebe year at the United States Naval Academy. The plebes climb to the top of the lard-covered 21 foot high monument and remove the 'dixie cup' hat at the top replacing it with an upperclassman's hat. After completing this, the freshmen are called 'fourth class midshipmen.' This class completed the task in 1 hour 32 minutes and 43 seconds. The hat was placed by Patrick Lien from Orlando. (Photo by Sarah L. Voisin/The Washington Post)

The Herndon Climb

The Herndon Monument climb is the traditional culmination of plebe year at the U.S. Naval Academy.

This combination of Associated Press photos shows left, a neighborhood in Moore, Okla., in ruins on Tuesday, May 4, 1999, after a tornado flattened many houses and buildings in central Oklahoma, and right, flattened houses in Moore on Monday, May 20, 2013. Monday's powerful tornado in suburban Oklahoma City loosely followed the path of a killer twister that slammed the region in May 1999. (AP Photo)

Okla. tornado loosely followed path of 1999 twister

Monday’s powerful tornado in suburban Oklahoma City loosely followed the path of a killer twister that slammed the area in May 1999.

Lea Bessinger salvages a picture of Jesus as she and her son Josh Bessinger sort through the rubble of the elder Bessinger's tornado-ravaged home Tuesday, May 21, 2013, in Moore, Okla. A huge tornado roared through the Oklahoma City suburb Monday, flattening an entire neighborhoods and destroying an elementary school with a direct blow as children and teachers huddled against winds. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)

Tornado near Oklahoma City causes more damage

Rescue workers are searching for survivors after a twister carved a long path of destruction in a suburb of Oklahoma City. It was part of the...

FILE - In this undated publicity file photo, members of the Doors, from left, John Densmore, Robbie Krieger, Ray Manzarek and Jim Morrison, pose for a portrait. Manzarek, the keyboardist who was a founding member of The Doors, has died at 74. Publicist Heidi Robinson-Fitzgerald says in a news release that Manzarek died Monday, May 20, 2013, at the RoMed Clinic in Rosenheim, Germany, surrounded by his family. (AP Photo, File)

Ray Manzarek, founding member of the Doors, dies at 74

Manzarek co-founded the Doors after meeting then-poet Jim Morrison in California. The band went on to become one of the most successful rock-and-roll...

US actress Rosario Dawson smiles on May 20, 2013 as she arrives for the screening of the film 'Wara No Tate' (Shield of Straw) presented in Competition at the 66th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes. Cannes, one of the world's top film festivals, opened on May 15 and will climax on May 26 with awards selected by a jury headed this year by Hollywood legend Steven Spielberg. AFP PHOTO / ALBERTO PIZZOLIALBERTO PIZZOLI/AFP/Getty Images

Eye on entertainment

Rosario Dawson, Alec Baldwin, Michael Douglas, Matt Damon, Bow Wow, Amy Poehler and more.

A man walks on sulphur and mineral salt formations near Dallol in the Danakil Depression, northern Ethiopia April 22, 2013. The Danakil Depression in Ethiopia is one of the hottest and harshest environments on earth, with an average annual temperature of 94 degrees Fahrenheit (34.4 Celsius). For centuries, merchants have travelled there with caravans of camels to collect salt from the surface of the vast desert basin. The mineral is extracted and shaped into slabs, then loaded onto the animals before being transported back across the desert so that it can be sold around the country. Picture taken April 22, 2013. REUTERS/Siegfried Modola (ETHIOPIA - Tags: BUSINESS SOCIETY TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY)

ATTENTION EDITORS: PICTURE 2 OF 30 FOR PACKAGE 'ETHIOPIA'S ANCIENT SALT TRAIL'
SEARCH 'DANAKIL DEPRESSION' FOR ALL

Ethiopia’s salt trail

For centuries, merchants have traveled to Ethiopia’s Danakil Depression with caravans of camels to collect salt from the surface of the vast desert basin. The mineral is extracted...

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