Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra Perform at Carnegie Hall

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Friday, 14 November 2025 14:54

Written by Jack Angstreich

Photo by Fadi Kheir

At the excellent Stern Auditorium, on the night of Monday, October 27th, I had the privilege to attend a fabulous concert—presented by Carnegie Hall—featuring the superior Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, admirably led by its Music Director and Conductor, Jaap van Zweden.

The event started brilliantly with the US premiere of Inferno by Jung Jae-il, who is known for his score for Bong Joon Ho’s extraordinary 2019 film, Parasite. The composer has commented on the work as follows:

This is the very last section of Italo Calvino’s novel Invisible Cities. Marco Polo says this to Kublai Khan:

“The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of the inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space.”

This piece began with that passage.

As I reflect on the countless deaths, suffering, and farewells caused by wars, plagues, and natural disasters occurring around the world, I realize that their scale is far beyond what I could ever fathom.

In the face of darkness and flames, where not even an inch ahead is visible, I tried to think about how we are to go on living.

Though I am a composer without formal classical training, I would like to express my deep gratitude to Maestro Jaap, who encouraged me from our very first meeting and gave me the courage to take on the challenge of composition.

Inferno opens forcefully and dissonantly but soon acquires a more meditative and elegiac cast; this section is succeeded by more exciting music, with a driving rhythm, and then a dulcet, more affirmative interlude arrested by dramatic measures. The composition concludes quietly but beautifully with another solemn episode. Jung was present to receive the audience’s acclaim. 

An amazing soloist, Bomsori Kim—she wore a gorgeous, bright yellow gown—then entered the stage for a terrific performance of Felix Mendelssohn’s marvelous, Violin Concerto in E Minor, Op. 64, which underwent its final revision in 1845–in the period after Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and before Samuel Barber and the modernists, Mendelssohn’s concerto’s only peers may be those of Ludwig Van Beethoven, Johannes Brahms, Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, and Jean Sibelius. The initial, Allegro molto appassionato movement begins lyrically and emotionally with some urgency but there are exquisite, reflective moments amidst the bewitching virtuosity; the music builds to a thrilling climax. The ensuing Andante is introspective but song-like too, an uninterrupted flow of irresistible melodies; it becomes more serious in inflection, ending softly. In the finale, a brief, pensive, Allegretto non troppo introduction is followed by an Allegro molto vivace main body that is propulsive and joyous; it closes exhilaratingly. Enthusiastic applause elicited an enjoyable encore from the soloist: Fritz Kreisler’s “Schön Rosmarin” from his Old Viennese Dances.

The second half of the evening was maybe even more memorable: a sumptuous account of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s magnificent Symphony No. 2 in E Minor, Op. 27, completed in 1907. The composition starts somewhat lugubriously with an extended Largo introduction; the movement’s Allegro moderato main body is livelier, although an undercurrent of sadness is discernible throughout—there are moments that recall the Sibelius of his Second and Fifth symphonies. Towards the end of the movement, the music accelerates, but it finishes abruptly. The succeeding Allegro molto is even more spirited—it has some playful qualities but it also expresses the longing that is a hallmark of Rachmaninoff’s creative personality. A central episode has an unusual intensity and turbulence; after another agitated section, it concludes quietly. 

The Adagio is the most sheerly lovely of the movements, an outpouring of pure Romanticism; the music is much sunnier and more serene towards the close, ending pacifically. The finale, marked Allegro vivace, is largely exuberant, with a more consistently positive valence, although it is not entirely free from disquiet; it concludes triumphantly. A deserved, standing ovation was rewarded with another splendid, indeed exultant, encore: Antonín Dvořák’s delightful Presto from the Slavonic Dance in G Minor, Op. 46, No. 8.

November '25 Digital Week I

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Wednesday, 12 November 2025 15:38

Written by Kevin Filipski

In-Theater/Streaming Releases of the Week 

Nouvelle Vague 

(Netflix/Film at Lincoln Center)

I’ve never been a Richard Linklater fan—even his “serious” films like Boyhood and Last Flag Flying are better in theory than in execution—but even by those standards, his paean to Jean-Luc Godard and the French New Wave seems like a particularly desperate way to look relevant to film buffs. The result might wow film festival audiences but is too lightweight for any insight into a classic era in cinema history.

 

 

And when Linklater introduces dozens of characters who have tangential or no relevance to the story being told of Godard directing his debut feature, 1959’s classic Breathless, the contrivance is eye-rolling. Some of the actors are good, like Zoey Deutsch’s charming Jean Seberg, while others are less so, like Guillaume Marbeck’s amusing but caricatured Godard and Aubry Dullin’s unmagnetic Jean-Paul Belmondo. 

 

 

 

Hedda 

(Amazon)

Despite a committed performance by Tessa Thompson as Henrik Ibsen’s fiery heroine, this shaky adaptation by writer-director Nia DaCosta seems content to willfully undermine Hedda Gabler, including making the pivotal character of Eilert—who was once in love with Hedda before ruining his life and their future—has become Eileen, for no good reason aside from giving Hedda a same-sex love interest.

 

 

Despite her good work with Thompson, DaCosta has also directed Nina Hoss—a heretofore indestructible actress—to shamelessly overdo it as Eileen, further making a mockery of a pivotal relationship in Ibsen’s play. 

 

 

 

A House of Dynamite 

(Netflix)

Director Kathryn Bigelow can ratchet up tension effortlessly, as in her real-life military and political dramas The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty and Detroit. Although this drama about a missile fired from somewhere in Asia that’s headed toward a major American city and how everyone from the president to those responsible for retaliatory weapons responds is tautly made and vividly written (by Noah Oppenheim), its many moments of real-life scariness owe a great debt to past films like Fail Safe and Dr. Strangelove. 

 

 

In fact, I couldn’t get the Kubrick classic out of my head, especially when Bigelow’s war room has a sign that reads “Big Board” and George C. Scott’s masterly comic performance in Strangelove reared its head. There’s excellent acting by Tracey Letts, Rebecca Ferguson, Idris Elba and Jared Harris, among others, but Bigelow and Oppenheim’s “beat the clock” precision leads to diminishing dramatic returns. 

 

 

 

4K/UHD Releases of the Week

Andrea Bocelli—The Celebration: 30th Anniversary 

(Mercury)

When beloved Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli wanted to commemorate three decades of his unparalleled singing career, so many celebrities and musicians came out to honor and perform with him that the celebration extended for three concerts in July 2024.

 

 

This two-disc set, comprising nearly five hours of music, includes Bocelli singing not only greatest “hits” like “O Sole Mio” and “Ave Maria” but also duetting with everyone from the amazing American soprano Nadine Sierra and pianist Lang Lang to pop singers and actors Katharine McPhee, Jon Batiste, Russell Crowe and even Will Smith. The highlight, though, is the unlikely but unexpectedly emotional performance of Queen’s “Who Wants to Live Forever” with the band’s legendary guitarist Brian May. It’s captured beautifully in UHD, with first-rate surround sound.

 

 

 

Downton Abbey—The Grand Finale 

(Universal)

The final chapter in creator Julian Fellowes’ magnum opus about the interwoven lives of the Earl of Grantham’s family and their loyal (and occasionally disloyal) servants comes off as nothing more than a two-hour episode, but when it’s done this well by writer Fellowes, director Simon Curtis and the large cast led by Hugh Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern, Michelle Dockery and Laura Carmichael, no fan of the series will complain.

 

 

Even a cameo by Noël Coward could have been a bit precious, but Arty Froushan’s understated portrayal works. There’s a sumptuous 4K transfer; extras include on-set featurettes and interviews along with a commentary by Curtis and McGovern.

 

 

 

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest 

(Warner Bros)

After 50 years, Randall P. McMurphy remains Jack Nicholson’s signature role: the intense stare, smirking line readings, energy to burn and sarcastic attitude are present and accounted for in his performance, which won him his first best actor Oscar.

 

 

Milos Forman’s bittersweet tragicomedy about inmates at an Oregon insane asylum remains a touchstone film, mainly for the terrific supporting actors (Oscar winner Louis Fletcher, Brad Dourif, Will Samson, William Redfield, Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd). There’s also Forman's tenderness in presenting these people as victims of unfeeling bureaucracy, something unoriginal even in 1975 but which continues to reverberate strongly. Warners’ latest re-release includes a very good UHD transfer along with a few special features ported over from previous releases.

 

 

 

Blu-ray Release of the Week 

Lady Chatterley’s Lover 

(Icarus Films)

Marc Allegret’s tame 1955 adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s classic novel can only allude to Constance Chatterley’s sexual encounters with her husband’s gamekeeper Oliver, but the casting of Danielle Darrieux in one of literature’s greatest female roles at least makes this stuffy reimaging of the book watchable.

 

 

Of course, Constance and Oliver have a happy ending, instead of the novel’s more uncertain denouement, and Darrieux shines throughout, outclassing her costars, Leo Genn (husband) and Erno Crisa (lover). The film looks wonderful in a new restoration, but there are no extras.

 

 

 

CD Release of the Week

Pacifica Quartet—The Korngold Collection 

(Cedille)

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (1897-1957) was a musical prodigy, as the remarkably mature and inventive chamber works on this disc—played sensitively by the Pacifica Quartet and special guests—indisputably demonstrate.

 

 

Korngold would later become famous when he moved to Hollywood and wrote some of the most memorable and rousing film scores ever, but several of these chamber-music gems (he wrote the superlative string sextet at age 17!) prove that he was a masterly composer from the start: the first quartet, piano quintet and sextet are as adventurous and confident in their musical language as quartets 2 and 3, which Korngold wrote years later. 

 

Schreker/Korngold/Krenek—Orchestral Works 

(BIS)

Franz Schreker (1878-1934), Erich Korngold (1897-1957) and Ernst Krenek (1900-91) were three of the most inventive composers of their time—but their wholly original, often innovative music went out of fashion after World War II, as serialism and atonality took over from their grandly ambitious Viennese sounds.

 

 

 

But the works on this CD—performed beautifully by the Orchestre national des Pays de la Loire under conductor Sacha Goetzel—provide a glimpse into their accomplished artistry in the shimmering loveliness of Schreker’s overture to his magnificent opera Die Gezeichneten, the youthful dazzlement of the 16-year-old Korngold’s Sinfonietta, and the alternately festive and melancholy feeling of Krenek’s Potpourri. 

Off-Broadway Review—Leo McGann’s “The Honey Trap” at the Irish Rep

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Thursday, 06 November 2025 19:28

Written by Kevin Filipski

Mathis and Hayden in The Honey Trap (photo: Carol Rosegg)