One of our favorite annual round-ups, "Notable Performances and Recordings" by Alex Ross is a great guide to the classical music we missed in 2017, like Yo-Yo Ma playing Bach cello suites in the Hollywood Hills.
Since the death of Luciano Pavarotti, Ma has been the most popularly celebrated of classical musicians. Very few other soloists could have sold out the Bowl. If Ma enticed thousands to the space, it was Bach who held them rapt, for nearly three hours. The enthusiasm of large crowds is always a bit unsettling: no matter how innocent the occasion, you can imagine the energy of the collective being channelled to less wholesome ends. The huge, serene company at the Bowl was another matter: it was under the spell of a solitary searcher in the dark. One of the only sounds I heard around me was someone quietly sobbing.
There's plenty of less predictable stuff, like "a maker of erudite entertainments that inhabit a self-invented realm halfway between opera and philosophy," or Tyshawn Sorey's "Verisimilitude."
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