E-Mail This Article to a Friend Boston feasts 2006: The year ahead in Classical Music BY LLOYD SCHWARTZ

James Levine and the Boston Symphony Orchestra (617.266.1492) continue to make the best kind of news. The maestro will be here for Schumann’s Symphony No. 4, Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique, and the world premiere of Jonathan Dawe’s The Flowering Arts (January 12-14 + 17), then Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis with an all-star line-up: Deborah Voigt, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Ben Heppner, and René Pape (January 19-21). He’ll also be conducting and playing the piano with the BSO Chamber Players in his Beethoven/Schoenberg series, with tenor Matthew Polenzani singing Beethoven’s An die ferne geliebte cycle and legendary soprano Anja Silja reciting Schoenberg’s Pierrot lunaire (January 22).

He’ll be back for a Beethoven program with violinist Miriam Fried, pianist Jonathan Biss (Fried’s son), and cellist Ralph Kirshbaum in the Triple Concerto (February 9-12 + 14) and a program of Schoenberg — Five Orchestral Pieces, Variations for Orchestra, Pelleas und Melisande — (February 16-18 + 21) and then another blockbuster, Schoenberg’s Gurrelieder, with Hunt Lieberson, soprano Karita Mattila, and tenors Johan Botha and Paul Groves (February 23-25). Levine ends his spring stay with Schoenberg’s Chamber Symphony No. 1 and the Beethoven Ninth (March 1-4).

BSO guest conductors include Kurt Masur (January 5-7 + 10); Bernard Haitink (with pianist Richard Goode, January 25-28 + 31; and leading Mahler’s Sixth Symphony, February 2-4); David Robertson (with Yo-Yo Ma in an Osvaldo Golijov premiere, March 15-18); Yuri Temirkanov (with violinist Joshua Bell, March 29-31 and April 1); Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos (Mozart with violinist Gil Shaham, April 6-8 + 11; and the Berlioz Requiem with Matthew Polenzani, April 13-15); Robert Spano (a Beethoven/Finnish-composer program with pianist Piotr Anderszewski, April 19-22 + 25); and Christoph von Dohnányi (with violinist Frank Peter Zimmermann, April 27-29 + May 2; and Mozart’s Jupiter Symphony and Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex, May 4-6).

The Bank of America Celebrity Series (617.482.2595) starts the New Year with a home-town guy, pianist David Deveau (Jordan Hall, January 14). Lovers of music as well as dance wouldn’t miss Mark Morris’s choreographing of Handel’s L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato, with Craig Smith conducting Emmanuel Music (Wang Theatre, January 20-22). Also on tap are cellist Matt Haimovitz (Sanders Theatre, February 3), German flutist Emmanuel Pahud with pianist Yefim Bronfman (Jordan February 4), Daniel Barenboim at the piano and conducting the Staatskapelle Berlin (Symphony Hall, February 10), contralto Ewa Podles (Jordan Hall, February 17), Italian chamber orchestra I Musici with pianist Stephen Hough (Symphony Hall, March 5), the St. Lawrence String Quartet with pianist Menahim Pressler (Jordan Hall, March 11), Kurt Masur leading the London Philharmonic (Symphony Hall, March 24), the hot new-music group eighth blackbird (Sanders Theatre, March 26), and pianist Murray Perahia (Symphony Hall, March 31).

Violinist Vadim Repin collaborates with pianist Nikolai Lugansky (Jordan Hall, April 8); they’re followed by the Emerson String Quartet (April 21). Superstar violinists Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zuckerman (who also plays viola) are sure to fill Symphony Hall (April 26); so is pianist Maurizio Pollini (April 30). Russian baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky closes the Celebrity Series season (Jordan Hall, May 13). I’m especially looking forward to NPR’s Terry Gross interviewing NPR’s Ira Glass (Symphony Hall, April 9).

Craig Smith and Emmanuel Music (617.536.3356) are celebrating Mozart’s 250th birthday with Russell Sherman (playing all of the piano sonatas), the Lydian String Quartet, mezzo-soprano Krista River, and some snazzy wind players in five concerts (Emmanuel Church, January 27, February 25, March 11, April 22, May 6). Smith will also lead a concert performance of The Magic Flute, in Alice Goodman’s English translation (April 28 + 30). The Handel and Haydn Society (617.262.1815) has three Mozart-birthday concerts: master oboist Stephen Hammer leading a "soirée" of music for winds (Jordan Hall, February 3 + 5) and Grant Llewellyn leading Mozart arias and choruses (Symphony Hall, February 17 + 19) and piano concertos, with Kristian Bezuidenhout (March 10 + 12). Coro Allegro (617.236.4011) celebrates with the Requiem (Sanders Theatre, February 12).

David Hoose with the Cantata Singers (617.868.5885) revisits a couple of his previous triumphs, Pierre Boulez’s bewitching Sur incises and Stravinsky’s rambunctious Russian wedding celebration Les noces, with soprano Susan Narucki and tenor Rockland Osgood (Jordan Hall, January 20). John Harbison won his Pulitzer Prize for a piece Hoose and the Cantata Singers commissioned. They’ll play the world premiere of Harbison’s But Mary Stood: Sacred Symphonies for Chorus and Instruments, along with some Bach (March 19). Then they’ll end their season with Handel’s timely oratorio Belshazzar, about a siege of Babylon (May 12).

Harbison himself will conduct a piece of his new to Boston, Songs America Loves To Sing, for Scott Wheeler’s Dinosaur Annex (First Church in Boston, April 30; 617.482.3852). Collage New Music (617.325.5200) has concerts at Pickman Hall (January 30 and March 27, including a Tod Machover premiere) and a tribute to the late composer Ed Cohen (Kresge Auditorium, February 27). Boston Musica Viva (617.354.6910) offers appealing works by Varèse, Ruggles, Respighi (with soprano Elizabeth Keusch), and Satie (Tsai Center, April 22). The Fromm Players (617.496.6013) at Harvard have three free electronic-music concerts, with work by Babbitt, Boulez, Nono, Cage, and Stockhausen (Paine Hall, March 10-12). And Christopher Taylor will play the complete piano etudes of György Ligeti (Gardner Museum, February 3; 617.278.5102).

The Boston Chamber Music Society (617.349.0086) presents ravishing Mozart (Jordan Hall, Sanders Theatre, January 13 + 15), plus concerts featuring Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Yehudi Wyner (February 10 + 12), Schnittke and Beethoven (March 24 + 26), and the Schubert Octet (April 28 + 30). Peggy Pearson’s Winsor Music (781.863.2861) moves to Brookline for Bach, Schumann, and Martin Brody (St. Paul’s Church, April 23).

The Boston Early Music Festival (617.661.1812) presents the great Italian gambist Paolo Pandolfo (First Congregational Church in Cambridge, January 13) and Jordi Savall’s Hespèrion XXI with La Capella Reial de Catalunya (Jesuit Urban Center, March 3). Boston Camerata (866.427.2092) is doing its celebrated French mediæval program with Anne Azéma and Shira Kammen (First Congregational Church in Cambridge, March 3). Boston Baroque (617.484.9200) offers Purcell’s The Fairy Queen, with soprano Amanda Forsyth (Jordan Hall, March 3-4), and Cherubini’s Requiem with Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony (Jordan Hall, May 5-6).

Boston Lyric Opera’s "Diva Season" (617.542.4912) continues with Verdi’s La traviata (Shubert Theatre, March 31–April 11) and a rare Boston performance of Massenet’s luscious Thaïs (April 28–May 9). Opera Boston (617.451.3388) has two rarities: the Boston premiere of Chabrier’s L’étoile (Majestic, March 3, 5, 7) and Donizetti’s brilliant Lucrezia Borgia, with Barbara Quintiliani (April 28, 30, May 2). Jeffrey Rink’s Chorus pro Musica (617.267.7442) returns to its forte, Verdi. This year it’s one of the rarest, Attila (Jordan Hall, June 4). Rink also leads the Newton Symphony (617.965.2555) in Donizetti’s Don Pasquale (Rashi Auditorium, January 22).

Welcome visitor Teatro Lirico d’Europa (617.824.8000) comes to the Majestic with Donizetti’s Lucia di Lammermoor (February 3-5), Puccini’s La bohème (March 28), and The Magic Flute (March 31–April 2). Benjamin Zander leads the Boston PhilharmoniC ORCHESTRA (617.236.0999) in programs of Beethoven (Emperor Concerto, with John Kimura Parker) and Elgar (Jordan Hall, Sanders Theatre, February 23, 25, 26) and Shostakovich (violinist Caitlin Tully) and Tchaikovsky (April 27, 29, 30). Zander’s pre-concert talks are a special bonus.

Gunther Schuller, who’s legendary in both classical and jazz circles, leads the Pro Arte Chamber Orchestra (617.661.7067) in a "Jazz with Schuller" concert featuring works by Schuller himself, Alexander Tcherepnin (Les douze, narrated by Laurence Senelick), and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue (Sanders Theatre, February 17). And this year’s Charles Eliot Norton Lectures (617.496.6013) will be delivered by conductor/pianist Daniel Barenboim (Sanders Theatre, "the week of May 15").