Best Bets for April Classical Concerts By Tim Page Washington Post Staff Writer Special to washingtonpost.com Monday, March 31, 2003

	Pianist Lang Lang. (Photo by Christopher Jacobs)
Related Links Tim Page's "25 CDs for Your Classical Collection"

A more reliable and equally impressive artist, the Finnish maestro Osmo Vanska will make his much-anticipated return to the National Symphony Orchestra on April 3, 4 and 5, not only leading works by his countrymen, Jean Sibelius (the wonderful "Pohjola's Daughter") and the contemporary composer Kalevi Aho (Symphony No. 9), but also the Symphony No. 3 in F by Johannes Brahms. Vanska is a deeply musical conductor and he usually brings out the best in the NSO. Finland has one of the richest musical cultures in the world today. Think of the conductors this beautiful land has given us: not only Vanska, but Esa-Pekka Salonen, Mikko Franck and Paavo Berglund, among others.

On April 4, the Parish Choir of St. Paul's will present Bach's "St. John Passion" under the direction of Jeffrey Smith. The period-instrument ensemble Modern Musick, led by John Moran and Risa Browder, will provide "authentick" backing for this great work; the soloists will include Robert Petillo, Rosa Lamoreaux and Barbara Hollinshead.

Meanwhile, over at the Catholic University of America on April 5 and 6, the dean of the Benjamin T. Rome School of Music, Murry Sidlin, will lead a concert performance of Leonard Bernstein's "Mass," the multi-faceted, multimedia work that opened the Kennedy Center in 1971. Sidlin believes the work represents the best of Bernstein: It combines his eclectic musical language of American impressionism, jazz, Broadway, folk, rock, with his political and humanistic obsessions, his deep sense of faith and reverence against the backdrop of hypocrisy, vis-a-vis the lightweight justifications for the Vietnam War, the once-a-week religious edicts, and that many Americans of color had to fight or beg to vote and to have full citizenship privileges. As one might imagine, "Mass" is a work very much of its time, but the issues have not gone away and I'll be interested to hear how the music holds up.

With all of Washington so security-conscious, it's a little more difficult to get into the Library of Congress than it used to be. Still, you might want to make the effort on April 8 and April 9, as the Beaux Arts Trio will be playing a program of music by Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Lowell Liebermann and Paquito d'Rivera, the last commissioned especially by the group.

Marc-Andre Hamelin, an impeccably elegant French-Canadian pianist, will play music by Robert Schumann and Isaac Albeniz and his own "Con Intimissimo Sentimento" at the Clarice Smith Center April 11. One highlight of the program will be a rare performance of Leopold Godowsky's "Seven Studies After Chopin Etudes." It used to be said that the person who could play Chopin's Etudes could play anything. So what did pianist-composer Godowsky, who could indeed play anything, do to them? He made them even harder!

The euphoniously named, prodigiously talented young Chinese pianist Lang Lang has left a mixed impression of late, emphasizing his whiz-bang virtuosity rather than his searching and soulful musicianship. Still, anybody who has heard Lang Lang (he always uses both names) at his best knows that he is capable of extraordinary tenderness and intelligence, and he is coming to the Kennedy Center Concert Hall April 12. The program will include music by Haydn, Rachmaninoff and Tan Dun, as well as Liszt's transcription of melodies from Mozart's "Don Giovanni," the last a work in which pyrotechnics are not only welcome but necessary.

It's hard to believe but the composer, author and diarist Ned Rorem turns 80 this year. The National Symphony Orchestra will pay a fine tribute to the composer on April 24, 25 and 26 by reviving one of his strongest orchestral works, "Lions -- A Dream," under the direction of music director Leonard Slatkin. The program also includes Shostakovich's Cello Concerto No. 1, with cellist Truls Mork, and the last and grandest of Schubert's works for orchestra, the Symphony No. 9 in C (D. 944), aptly subtitled "The Great."

Don't forget the free concerts every night at 6 at the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage. The quality of these events has gone way up in the past year or two and they are sometimes worth a visit to the Kennedy Center all by themselves. You may also wish to check in at local churches, conservatories and schools to find out what is playing just around the corner.

Questions for Tim Page? Join The Post's classical music critic every other Wednesday at 2 p.m. for his washingtonpost.com Live Online discussion.