performed by the RSO Berlin, Dunn, Fassbaender, Baur, Hollweg, and Schmidt under Riccardo Chailly, or below by The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and lots of people under Sir Simon Rattle (cover image by Roman Mavrin) We got around to … Continue reading Mahler: Das klagende Lied
performed by Thomas Hampson and David Lutz, piano (cover image by Joanna Kosinska) These three songs are Mahler’s earliest surviving works, dating from 1880. They were originally to be part of a set of five songs, but work on this … Continue reading Mahler: Three Lieder
performed by Jessye Norman and the London Symphony Orchestra under Sir Colin Davis (cover image by Eberhard Grossgasteiger) Can you believe this is (sort of) the first formal appearance of Richard Wagner on the blog(ner)? It is. I’ve reviewed two of … Continue reading Richard Wagner: Wesendonck Lieder
performed by Barbara Hendricks and the London Symphony Orchestra under Michael Tilson Thomas, a remarkable performance, or below by Dawn Upshaw and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s under David Zinman We are talking now of summer evenings in Knoxville, Tennessee … Continue reading Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915
performed by Anne Sofie von Otter and the Vienna Philharmonic under Claudio Abbado or, because she’s an outstanding performer and it’s a (somewhat unclear) video of a live performance, Jessye Norman and the London Symphony under Pierre Boulez If you’ve … Continue reading Berg: Sieben frühe Lieder
performed by the Quatuor Diotima and Sandrine Piau, or below by the New Vienna String Quartet and Evelyn Lear If I had to pinpoint a moment in musical history, a piece in particular that is the breaking point, the straw that … Continue reading Schoenberg String Quartet no. 2, op. 10
performed by Violeta Urmana, Michael Schade and the Vienna Philharmonic under Pierre Boulez With one stroke, I have lost everything I have gained in terms of who I thought I was, and have to learn my first steps again like … Continue reading Mahler: Das Lied von der Erde
performed by Régine Crespin and the L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under Ernest Ansermet [The poems] form a narrative which leads from a spring-born joie de vivre (Villanelle) and a loss of innocence (Le spectre de la rose), to the … Continue reading Berlioz: Les nuits d’été, op. 7
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
performed by Barbara Hannigan and the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra under Andris Nelsons, or below with Hannigan and the Gothenburg Symphony under Kent Nagano Abrahamsen – let me tell you from Göteborgs Symfoniker on Vimeo. Hans Abrahamsen was born on … Continue reading Hans Abrahamsen: let me tell you
featuring Julie Comparini, available here or in iTunes I’ve recently been interested in people’s musical backgrounds, or (formal) lack thereof, and how it informs their eventual careers or interests in music. Ms. Julie Comparini was one of those people, but … Continue reading Podcast: From Bach to Brecht
performed by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, with Susanne Otto, Marek Torzewski, Barbara Bonney, Dietrich Knothe & Rundfunkchor Berlin under Claudio Abbado If any evidence exists that Webern’s work does not mark the esoteric “expiry” of Western music in a pianissimo of … Continue reading Nono: Il Canto Sospeso
(Songs on the Death of Children) performed by Anne Sofie von Otter and the Vienna Philharmonic under Pierre Boulez Rückert’s 428 poems on the death of children became singular, almost manic documents of the psychological endeavor to cope with such … Continue reading Mahler: Kindertotenlieder
This is apparently an NSO tradition: the salon concert to kick off the season and/or celebrate the release of the program for the upcoming year, and I was thrilled to have been included. The program is below, followed by some thoughts I had during the program, followed by a recap. click here for a readable version I didn’t know much about it before it was mentioned to me, and to be perfectly honest, it seemed like something I wouldn’t be too interested in. I’m not a fan of medleys or performances of excerpts and all that, and this ‘salon concert’ … Continue reading 2015/16 Concert Season: Salon Concert
I just got home. And I’m exhausted. So I probably won’t finish this tonight. Gurre-Lieder Gotta give credit where credit is due This was the first time I’ve heard a piece anything like this performed live, and while some little … Continue reading Schoenberg’s Gurre-Lieder (part 2 of 2)
performed live by the National Symphony Orchestra (aka Taiwan Philharmonic, aka 國家交響樂團) on 12.31.14 and 1.1.15 in Taiwan’s National Concert Hall in the Taiwanese premiere, or as below by lots of people (details in the YouTube page for the video) … Continue reading Schoenberg’s Gurre-Lieder (one of two)
Music You Can Understand: Part 4 (I use this title not condescendingly, but to suggest that the featured piece is not one obscured by highbrow classical ideas or too difficult to grasp. It is easy to understand and enjoy.) performed … Continue reading Mahler: Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen
sung by Dietrich Fischer–Dieskau; Gerald Moore, piano Music You Can Understand: Part 3 https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/BR8_n-B8qu0&source=uds This is an actual ‘song,’ in the actual sense of having lyrics, although we could more properly call it by its German name, a Lied (rhymes with ‘need’), plural Lieder (rhymes with feeder). I was preparing for what will now be next week’s post, and it is based on this song, so I thought it only logical to get familiar with this one first. It nearly made me weep. The video above has the German text with English translation, but below is the German text. Ich komme vom Gebirge her, … Continue reading Schubert: Der Wanderer, D. 489
This piece has been revisited, and an updated article has been written. Please read it here. I’ll keep the original article (below) for posterity, but I would suggest reading the new article instead. performed by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus under Yoel Levi Mary Phillips, mezzo-soprano, Barbara Bonney, soprano Buckle up. This is a long one. The post and the symphony. Before I start talking about baseless, subjective things, let’s get a few cold, hard facts out of the way. Mahler’s second symphony was written between 1888 and 1894, and premiered on December 13, 1895 in Berlin under the composer’s baton. … Continue reading Mahler Symphony no. 2 "Resurrection"
Fugue for Thought 