Lloyd Schwartz
Lloyd Schwartz is the classical music critic for NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross.
In addition to his role on Fresh Air, Schwartz is the Senior Editor of Classical Music for the web-journal New York Arts and Contributing Arts Critic for WBUR's the ARTery. He is the author of four volumes of poems: These People; Goodnight, Gracie; Cairo Traffic; and Little Kisses (University of Chicago Press, 2017). A selection of his Fresh Air reviews appears in the volume Music In—and On—the Air. He is the co-editor of the Library of the America's Elizabeth Bishop: Poems, Prose, and Letters and the editor of the centennial edition of Elizabeth Bishop's Prose, published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux in 2011.
In 1994, Schwartz was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for criticism. He is the Frederick S. Troy Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Boston and teaches in the MFA Program in Creative Writing.
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The opera, by the late composer Maurice Ravel, spins a modern fairy tale about a naughty child at bedtime. Critic Lloyd Schwartz reviews a new recording of it by conductor Seiji Ozawa.
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In 1955 and '56, NBC aired live telecasts of the Broadway hit Peter Pan, starring Mary Martin. Critic Lloyd Schwartz calls the performances, now available on Blu-ray, a "tribute to freedom and youth."
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A two-CD set featuring performers from the Lyric Stage of Irving, Texas, revives the complete score of the 1954 musical, The Golden Apple. Critic Lloyd Schwartz calls it a "game-changing" recording.
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Lloyd Schwartz discusses the timeless appeal of the late choreographer George Balanchine. "[He] was our Shakespeare. ... watching a Balanchine ballet is like watching music come alive," he says.
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In the 1940s, recording engineers perfected new sound techniques that were used in World War II — and which launched a hi-fi revolution. Lloyd Schwartz reviews the new 53-CD Decca box set.
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The string quartet invited composers like Vijay Iyer and Bill Frisell to compose pieces inspired by something outside of their world.
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Many historic recordings have been transferred to CD, but not always as accurately as desirable. But a small record company in France has been remastering these recordings in a revolutionary way.
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Among the best loved recordings from the 1950s were 15 LPs of Haydn string quartets. They originally appeared on the Haydn Society label, but were never reissued on CD until now.
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The Boston Museum of Fine Arts has assembled one of the largest exhibits of Goya's artwork ever seen in the U.S. His paintings, prints and drawings range in technique from exquisitely refined to raw.
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The Metropolitan Opera will be celebrating New Year's Eve with Franz Lehar's The Merry Widow in a new production starring soprano Fleming. But its greatest incarnations have been on film.