Bernard Holland

When members of Concertante played Turina’s Piano Quartet in A minor at Merkin Concert Hall on Tuesday, it was hard to tell where classical music left off and the dance halls and cafes of Spain began.

Bartok’s “Contrasts,” as played at an evening called “Mitsuko Uchida and Friends” at Zankel Hall on Saturday, has the appearance of a European composer’s catering to the ambitions of an American jazz musician.

Kelley O’Connor sang Peter Lieberson’s “Neruda Songs” with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Bernard Haitink.

Music has a hard time being funny, especially music of the last 100 years. Gyorgy Kurtag’s piano pieces, as played by Mitsuko Uchida, come close today.

Isaac Babel said that “if the world could write by itself, it would write like Tolstoy.” Something similar drew me admiringly to Paul Lewis’s evening of piano music.

The fifth concert in a series bringing the Yale University’s school of music to Carnegie Hall appealed first to the curious.

Jessye Norman returned to Carnegie Hall on Thursday in a recital titled “The Five Seasons.”

Stravinsky’s “L’Histoire du Soldat,” along with Saint-Saëns’s “Carnival of the Animals,” enjoyed a substantial, well-conceived revival at the 92nd Street Y on Tuesday night.

Bryn Terfel’s recital described the wave of nostalgia that swept across Edwardian music.

Thursday evening’s concert of duos at St. Bartholomew’s Church offered pieces of Stravinskian quality that were also snapshots of a composer in his own diaspora, hustling to recoup.