September 2008
11 posts
4 tags
A mass of Bernstein
If you follow classical music you already know that orchestras and performing arts organizations around the world are celebrating the 90th birthday of Leonard Bernstein. The WCFSO will present a tribute in Iowa next week, and ahead of that event I will publish several posts dedicated to the conductor-composer’s work.
This morning on NPR Marin Alsop offers her insights into Mass, one of...
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Cultural debate?
How much can voters learn from a highly staged and politically charged presidential debate? Not much about the state of culture in America, according to Christopher Knight of the LA Times.
Update: More from the Times on this topic.
2 tags
Good idea
If you are in Louisville don’t miss Idea Festival, a three-day symposium devoted to discussions and interdisciplinary exploration in science, the arts, design, business, film, technology, and education.
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Hungary for orchestra
Having worked with a range of orchestras – from volunteer, high school and college ensembles to union and non-union professional groups – I’ve encountered just about every possible degree of commitment to music-making. Regrettably, it seems that in the higher reaches of the symphony business the pure excitement of performance is often tempered by boredom, apathy and contractual wrangling.
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Deconstructing Mozart
One last look at Mozart for the month, courtesy of an amusing video experiment. Four musicians were recorded playing ‘Eine kleine Nachtmusik’ in isolation and then their respective interpretations were edited together into one performance.
I’m normally not inclined to make this suggestion about classical music in the 21st century, but maybe we should stick with the...
6 tags
Rediscovering Mozart
Following up on my previous post, another fleeting glimpse into the world of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Here is a selection from the ‘Harmoniemusik’ arrangement of Don Giovanni, typical of wind music heard at artistocratic gatherings in late 18th-century Vienna.
Click to listen →
Mozart – Don Giovanni [arr. Triebensee], Act II Finale, excerpt WCFSO – September 2008
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Discovering Mozart
A fragment of a previously unknown piece by Mozart has been discovered in France.
The partial page contains a sketch for a religious work; its unaccompanied melody was penned in the late 1780s, in the midst of the composer’s aesthetically and intellectually curious later years.
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Same old concert? Not around here!
From Alex Ross’ recent piece in the New Yorker reviewing several books [including a new one by William Weber, author of the superb Music and the Middle Class] on concert history:
‘A new generation of American conductors, notably David Robertson, Alan Gilbert, and Robert Spano, is opting out of the one-masterpiece-from-each-column approach to programming, devising combinations of works...
3 tags
Scherzo swoosh
Several superb video pieces for Nike by 13thWitness. The one posted below is for you Beethoven lovers; my only quibble is that it really should be called The Nine.
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Musical storm Gustavo
It has been difficult to get an accurate sense of Gustavo Dudamel’s interpretive skills amidst the unabashed love affair the music media have had with him over the past few years. Tom Service’s excellent series of posts from Lucerne continues with a corrective view of the youthful maestro’s work.
5 tags
The record store
Before the advent of mp3s and media downloads I spent hours discovering music at record stores like Academy in NYC, Normal’s in Baltimore, and Fat Beats in LA. Now it’s possible to do the foraging from any place with a decent internet connection.
Stones Throw Records is the most ambitious and savvy independent label in the country, so no surprise that Peanut Butter Wolf and crew have...