Freshness Gives Way to Deja Vu

The classical music nominations were unusually fresh this year; the winners, however, were not.

For instance, much Grammy-ed choral conductor Robert Shaw, who died last month, was the inevitable sentimental favorite. His bland recording of music by Barber, Vaughan Williams and Bartok won best classical album, best choral performance and best engineered classical recording.

Among other names Grammy has loved before and loves still is French conductor Pierre Boulez, winner of 20 previous Grammys, whose shelf will now sag with two more: best orchestral performance (Mahler’s Ninth Symphony) and best opera recording (Bartok’s “Bluebeard’s Castle”)--outstanding discs both, but not the most imaginative recordings in their respective categories.

Two awards, for performance and composition, went to violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter’s flashy and alluring rendition of Krzysztof Penderecki’s flashy and derivative Violin Concerto No. 2. And other equally predictable names filled the list: pianist Murray Perahia (for his obsessively nuanced playing of three Bach English Suites), violinist Gil Shaham and pianist Andre Previn for their lovely collaboration in accessible American music, soprano Renee Fleming for the stunning sound she makes in French arias, and Steve Reich and Musicians for their electrifying performance of Music for 18 Musicians. Yo-Yo Ma’s soul-sapping “Soul of the Tango” was the best the voters could come up with in the new category of classical crossover.