St Lawrence String Quartet at Music Toronto make Haydn, Britten and Zwilich sing

Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony electrify Edinburgh with Mahler 1. 

Born in Argentina to Eastern European Jewish parents, composer Osvaldo Golijov certainly brings many cultural influences to the musical table, influences that shone through in the three works of his performed at Zankel Hall on Monday night.

Inspiration for a composition can come in many forms; a letter from Clara Schumann, the brutality of Stalin's police, growing deaf or hearing birdsong. The final concert of John Adams’ short residency at the Barbican focused on a more reverent strain of influence, however: the peculiar tendency for living composers to want to reference dead ones.

Bravo to Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony for blowing the dust off of some of the boldest innovators America has produced. As part of a mini-festival at Carnegie Hall of 20th- and 21st-century composers who stretched musical and formal boundaries (to put it mildly), the program on Tuesday night was packed with rarely-played wonders.

Never hold back – this would serve well as a motto for the St. Lawrence String Quartet. The quartet has been concertizing for over two decades and has seen two member changes, but the intensity and bravery with which they approach music-making has not waned in the slightest.

Magnifiquement recréée par Alice Julien-Laferrière et son ensemble, la musique de Biber est apparue dans toute son originalité : vivante, mouvante, presque organique, respirant à travers ses tensions et ses passions.