Classicalite's Five Worst: Valentine’s Day Music

As an L.A. Philharmonic tweet today pointed out, Valentine's Day is only two weeks away.

And, as the many romantically-themed concerts start to get booked up (in London one series traditionally gives every lady a rose on Valentine's Day), a spirit of mischief seizes us.

So, on behalf of all those devil-may-care counter-culturists out there, here Classicalite's Five Worst options for totally inappropriate music to hear on February 14th.

Don Giovanni

In a glorious thumbs-up at traditional romance, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, offer an evening in the company of Mozart's predatory womaniser. Not only does he never come close to staying faithful, during the action of the opera he's even unsuccessful in his attempted sexual conquests. Romance fail! But with Nicola Luisotti in the pit and Véronique Gens as Donna Elvira it should be worth catching...

The Bells

A Rachmaninov concert from the Philadelphia Orchestra sounds pretty on theme, until one notices that one of the programmed works is his The Bells. After the Edgar Allan Poe poem (yes, that Poe, the master horror writer) some have suggested that the poem is about a wife who been burned to death. Nice. Do go if you can, though, because it's great music and Vladimir Jurowski is conducting, one of the most interesting conductors on the face of the Earth.

eighth blackbird

Our favorite Grammy-winning roads-less-travelled ensemble hits Gettysburg College with a program beautiful in its perversity. Any group that starts a Valentine's Day concert with a work entitled Murder Ballades (by Bryce Dessner) is OK by us. The other pieces include Tom Johnson's Counting Duets, which the group's website describes as "Sesame Street on acid." And apparently Brett Dean's Old Kings in Exile is pretty sinister. So, not a typical Valentine's date show, then. Sounds amazing, nonetheless!

Moby Dick

Well, it's certainly about an obsession, but not of the romantic kind. Washington National Opera will afford a preview of their upcoming production of Jake Heggie's smashing opera version of the famous Melville novella. In which, you'll remember, man chases whale. Whale has other ideas.

Company

Symphony Space on New York's Upper West Side is showing a film of Stephen Sondheim's show Company (starring Neil Patrick Harris). As it's a show mostly about a guy not getting married, it seems splendidly inappropriate. Don't miss it!