performed by no one, at least not anymore (cover image by Ira Selendripity) This piece almost doesn’t exist. In preparing this stretch of pieces for the Editor’s Choice series, I knew it would be difficult to find a recording of Simpson’s violin … Continue reading Simpson Violin Concerto
(cover image by Christin Hume) Apologies in no particular order to: Charles-Marie Widor Jacques Ibert Rameau Cécile Chaminade Tristan Murail André Jolivet Pierre Capdeveille Jean Rivier Francis Poulenc Andre Gedalge Paul Le Flem Yves Ramette Henri Sauguet …among many others, … Continue reading The French Symphony in Review
Maybe. The cover for this article (by Dan Gold) may seem not at all related to the subject at hand, but at the moment this article was posted (give or take) I am (or will have been? was just recently?) … Continue reading Spotify for Classical Music?
(cover image by Freddie Marriage) Unfortunately, no one can know all there is about everything. I’m at least a little ashamed to admit the degree of my unfamiliarity with, say, most of the symphonies and string quartets of Haydn, or Mozart (but … Continue reading Editor’s Choice: A New Series
See? It’s not all about Sibelius. (cover image by Luca Bravo) You can find the entire series (in reverse chronological order) here. I’m guessing that for any of you readers who wouldn’t consider yourselves to be diligent students of classical … Continue reading The Finnish Symphony in Review
(cover image by Aldric Rivat) Move over, Hovhaness (67ish), Haydn (100+), Bourgeois (114), Dittersdorf (120ish), and even Rowan Taylor (265). You thought Shostakovich’s 15 symphonies, Niels Viggo Bentzon’s 24, Myaskovsky’s 27, Mozart’s 40+, or others held some record for most … Continue reading Quirky Quantity or Questionable Quality?
(cover image by Ian Dooley) The series is available, in reverse chronological order, here. This has been one of the most exciting series we’ve done. There has been such a wide spectrum of styles and approaches, but really just excellent … Continue reading The American Symphony in Review
(or inspiration) The Preciousness of the Live Music Experience A soapbox moment (cover image by Adrian Korte) If my memory serves me correctly, my first post on this blog, back when I thought I’d listen to and leave notes about … Continue reading The Importance of Excellence
or The American Symphony: a Series I’ve been wanting to use that line for so long, and I am positive someone’s used it somewhere but I haven’t even bothered looking because I’m so proud I thought of it. In any case, … Continue reading America’s Next Top Mahler
(cover image by Ian Baldwin) I started this (last) month’s series by talking about how difficult it was for me to appreciate and discover opera the way I listen to music (headphones, no visuals, no subtitles, etc.), but I discovered … Continue reading A Month of Opera in Review
1,000,000 is a lot of almost anything. 1 million seconds is about 11 and a half days. 1 million days is more than 2,737 years. You could log 1 million miles (ish) by circling the earth about 40 times, or … Continue reading A Million Musical Words
Phew. The series can be reviewed here. That was a ton of music. And really it’s a testament to how much excellent music there is from that small little corner of the world up there off the coast of mainland … Continue reading The English Symphony in Review
This is finally happening. There was a discussion I read online recently about countries or cultures ‘pulling their weight’ or not in classical music relative to the country’s international/historical influence and how the renown of their classical musicians is in … Continue reading Series: The English Symphony
In the past, we’ve done series about different instruments (and another one is queued up), and I’ve spoken before about the difficulty of warming up to and appreciating opera the way I am currently used to listening to music, but … Continue reading The Human Voice
And here we are again at the end of another month of marvelous music. I feel like if I could get around to doing more of these series for more individual nations/cultures, there would be so many gems to discover. … Continue reading Danish December: wrap-up
Well, that was fun. In most cases, I end up preparing/presenting a month or so of posts as a program, building around an idea or connecting things by some underlying concept. But not this month. Also, drop down below to the … Continue reading New November wrap-up (and soapbox)
Dear Orchestra I Was Looking Forward To Seeing This Year, (and also Famous Pianist I Don’t Really Know) I’m flattered, but also a little annoyed. In most cases, we are very glad to have your type come through. Living in … Continue reading You and Your Programming: an open letter
There isn’t much to say, maybe, about August’s line-up. There was quite a variety of influences peppered throughout the four composers featured this month, from Ravel’s earliest work and influence from Debussy to his later fascination with jazz and then … Continue reading Various Violin Virtuosity: A wrap-up
If you’ve read this blog for any length of time (as in, any more than about twice), you’ll know I’m a sucker for a good series. I try to approach things in an organized, logical manner, so I like to … Continue reading Various Violin Virtuosity
Needless to repeat, but I shall, that none of my series are comprehensive; there’s no way they can be. The blog as an entire entity is not comprehensive. But I think in this challenging and intense month of listening and writing (the … Continue reading Darmstadt 2016: A Review
It’s July. Do you remember what we did last July? Go have a look. It seemed like a cool thing at the time to dedicate July to an interesting program of stuff, and last year’s month-long piano series was originally … Continue reading Series: The Darmstadt School
Fugue for Thought 