Classical Music

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• For Harold Shapero

  Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise

  Alex Ross

  18 May 2013 | 11:32 am

  The distinguished Boston-area composer, a deft practitioner of mid-century neoclassical style, has died at the age of ninety-three. He was the last living representative of the Copland generation, that remarkable phalanx of American composers who came to the fore in the thirties and forties. While others went in for brawny populist gestures, Shapero was always elegant and restrained, a faithful yet distinctive devotee of Stravinsky in his Symphony in C phase. Shapero's Symphony for Classical Orchestra, from 1947, is a masterpiece of its time and place — a "marvel," Leonard…

• Harold Shapero

  Iron Tongue of Midnight

  18 May 2013 | 1:04 pm

  Photo: Gordon Parks for LifeI logged on to Twitter a while ago to tell Alex Ross that we won't have much Wagner in SF on the 22nd either, but before I could get that tweet off, I saw Alex's For Harold Shapero link, and knew what had happened. The composer died last night in his sleep, peacefully, from complications of pneumonia, at 93.Harold Shapero was one of my professors at Brandeis in the 1970s. (If you didn't already know my approximate age, you do know.) When I started, he was some years into what we thought was a major-league composer's block. Over at Sequenza 21, where there's a…

• The week in NY opera (April 22-28)

  an unamplified voice

  JSU

  22 Apr 2013 | 9:34 am

  Somehow it's Sweden week... Metropolitan Opera Giulio Cesare (M/SM), Twilight (T), Rigoletto (W/SE), Rheingold (Th), Valkyrie (F) Ring Cycle 1 closes Tuesday with its only non-matinee performance before Cycle 2 (the one with Katarina Dalayman) has its first two installments. City Center NYCO La Périchole (T/Th/SE) City Opera-in-exile wraps its Offenbach run and its season. Carnegie Hall Nathan Gunn recital (M) Oratorio Society of NY War Requiem (M) Misoon Ghim recital (M) NY Philharmonic concert (F) Monday: Gunn's recital at Zankel, postponed from February, is all in English. Meanwhile…

• Andris Nelsons is the BSO's Next MD

  Opera Chic

  opera chic

  16 May 2013 | 9:03 am

  (credit: Stu Rosner) Boston Symphony Orchestra appoints Andris Nelsons as its next Music Director, following in the footsteps of Nikisch,...

• Michael Mayer's Staging Of the Met's New Rigoletto

  Sounds & Fury

  A.C. Douglas

  18 May 2013 | 6:20 am

  We just finished watching our DVRed copy of PBS's Friday night telecast of the Met's HD film of its new production of Michael Mayer's Regietheater...

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  About.com Classical Music

• 2013 Summer Classical Music Festivals

  12 May 2013 | 12:56 pm

  It may be wishful thinking, but now that warm weather has officially rolled in and taken stay and the flowers are in bloom I cannot get visions of summer out of my head.  So to tide myself over for the time being, I thought I'd put together my annual list of summer classical music festivals.   Though I'd like to list every single one, here are a handful of 2013 summer classical music festivals around the US that will surely be worth a visit.

• Dido and Aeneas Synopsis

  5 May 2013 | 1:32 pm

  One of the earliest known English operas, Henry Purcell's first opera, Dido and Aeneas, is based on the Roman poet Virgil's Aeneid.  It is believed the opera was first performed in 1688.   After 325 years, the opera, having survived many rewrites and adaptions, is still quite successful today.  Learn the synopsis of Dido and Aeneas.

• "Percé jusques au fond du coeur" Lyrics and Translation

  29 Apr 2013 | 8:10 pm

  Wrapping up this week's look at Jules Massenet's opera, Le Cid, here is one last aria that gives insight into the protagonists heart.  Sadly, I couldn't find a clip for you to listen to while you read the lyrics.  If anything, it will give you a better understanding of the opera.   Learn the lyrics and translation of "Percé jusques au fond du coeur."

• "Pleurez! pleurez mes yeux!" Lyrics and Text Translation

  28 Apr 2013 | 6:13 pm

  Here's another great aria from Jules Massenet's opera, Le Cid. This sad soprano aria is sung by Chimene.  Learn the lyrics and translation of "Pleurez! pleurez mes yeux!" and follow along with this YouTube clip of the magnificent Maria Callas.

• "O noble lame étincelante" Lyrics and Translation

  27 Apr 2013 | 2:59 pm

  Get even more familiar with Massenet's opera, Le Cid, by listening to this energetic tenor aria sung by the opera's protagonist, Rodrigue.  (I've included a link to the aria's video clip within the lyrics.)   Learn the English translation and the French lyrics to "O noble lame étincelante."

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  Classical

• Joshua Bell And Jeremy Denk On 'Song Travels'

  17 May 2013 | 10:01 am

  Connect the dots between classical music and standards with the dynamic violin-and-piano duo.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

• Polly Want An Ostinato?

  17 May 2013 | 8:40 am

  Fridays are funnier with a classical cartoon at noon from Deceptive Cadence.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

• Andris Nelsons Named Music Director Of The Boston Symphony

  16 May 2013 | 9:07 am

  The announcement that the 34-year-old Latvian conductor is taking the reins of the ensemble puts an end to years of uncertainty at the storied orchestra, following James Levine's 2011 resignation.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

• Spring For Music: Detroit Symphony Orchestra At Carnegie Hall

  13 May 2013 | 7:00 am

  Pink Martini singer Storm Large joins Leonard Slatkin and the orchestra for Kurt Weill's satirical Seven Deadly Sins, in a program bookended by composers who straddled the turn of the last century. Slatkin says Maurice Ravel and Sergei Rachmaninov struggled with the idea of being 20th-century composers while having hearts and souls grounded in prior traditions. The orchestra performs Ravel's La valse and two lesser-known Rachmaninov works.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

• Spring For Music: National Symphony Orchestra At Carnegie Hall

  11 May 2013 | 3:00 am

  Hear an evening of exciting and intriguing 20th-century Russian music — including Shostkovich, Schnittke and Shchedrin — that pays tribute to the orchestra's late and longtime leader, conductor and cellist Mstislav Rostropovich.» E-Mail This     » Add to Del.icio.us

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  NYT > Music

• Texas Monthly: In Texas, Van Cliburn Piano Contest Goes On Without Him

  By CHRISTOPHER KELLY

  18 May 2013 | 7:09 pm

  The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition begins next week, and its problems cannot all be attributed to the death of its namesake earlier this year.    

• Crime Scene: After Many Miles in a Chevy Van, a Rough Gig in a Place Called Brooklyn

  By MICHAEL WILSON

  17 May 2013 | 7:12 pm

  After winning over a Webster Hall crowd, the band Wild Cub said on Facebook: “Thank you New York. You gave us two sold out shows in one week, we gave you half our equipment.”    

• Playlist: CDs From Deerhunter, Patty Griffin and Bobby McFerrin

  By JON PARELES

  17 May 2013 | 3:50 pm

  This week, Bradford Cox barks on Deerhunter’s “Monomania”; Patty Griffin’s “American Kid” is an elegy for her father; and Bobby McFerrin takes a playful yet devotional look at Negro spirituals on “Spirityouall.”    

• The Met Packs Up Its Notorious ‘Ring’ Machine

  By JAMES BARRON

  17 May 2013 | 3:12 pm

  With nary an encore, the troubled, and troublesome, mechanized set for the “Ring” cycle at the Met is being placed in storage for at least a few years.    

• Music Review: Talea Ensemble and Ekmeles at the Czech Center

  By STEVE SMITH

  17 May 2013 | 3:02 pm

  In “Fama,” the composer Beat Furrer seamlessly blends notions from two disparate sources: Ovid’s depiction of a house in “Metamorphoses” and Arthur Schnitzler’s novella “Fraulein Else.”    

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  Slipped Disc

• What the Cliburn must do to survive Van Cliburn

  Norman Lebrecht

  19 May 2013 | 12:31 pm

  I have offered some thoughts to a New York Times reporter on how the competition can outlast its founder. And I will add one comment of mine which was not used in the report: There is justified and growing suspicion of the judging panels and the pre-selection. One of the Cliburn judges has, I think, nine [...]

• La donna e mobile – at 92 years old

  Norman Lebrecht

  19 May 2013 | 10:25 am

  The tenor Angelo Loforese, born 27 March 1920, is still going strong. Very strong.

• By the sword: Now Malaysia slashes its music director

  Norman Lebrecht

  19 May 2013 | 10:04 am

  Claus Peter Flor, who aided and abetted a hardhat management in unfairly getting rid of some of the best players in the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, has himself been laid off. If you have tears to shed, save them for a better cause. The MPO remains under an international musicians’ boycott. Conductors should resist this unsavoury temptation. [...]

• Death in Venice to be shot in Britain. Well, we’ve got canals, too…

  Norman Lebrecht

  19 May 2013 | 9:01 am

  Peter Greenaway is to make his first movie in Britain since The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover, quarter of a century ago. Apparently the funding breaks are better over here, and the canals are just…. Venetian. Anyone written a British opera on the subject?

• Lang Lang teaches piano with green apples

  Norman Lebrecht

  19 May 2013 | 3:40 am

  The piano superstar is in the Colombian cities of Bogota and Medellin, holding open masterclasses and having a good time.  But can someone tell us why his students are holding green apples? Have they been waiting all morning and missed lunch?  

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  Adaptistration

• Is There An Unmistakable “Cone Of Ignorance” In Minnesota?

  Drew McManus

  17 May 2013 | 12:00 am

  Apropos to yesterday’s poll about the Minnesota Orchestra Association (MOA), the 5/15/2013 edition of MPR News published an article by Euan Kerr that reports the MOA’s prolonged work stoppage is inflicting hardships on partner institutions within the local Minneapolis performing arts sector. This shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone and according to Kerr’s article, the Minnesota Chorale appears to be hard hit by the loss of the MOA’s entire season. “With no resolution to the impasse between the Minnesota Orchestra and its musicians, we have to be able to…

• Minnesota Poll

  Drew McManus

  16 May 2013 | 12:00 am

  Sure, the Minnesota Orchestra Association (MOA) has a full four minutes left on its Doomsday Clock, but most colleagues I talk to think they’re already done for. At the same time, there’s a good bit of divergence of opinion when narrowing the discussion down to specific items. As such, let’s see what you think about the more common questions surrounding this situation. Do you think the MOA will reach a settlement in time to implement their ad-hoc "summer line-up" concerts?DefinitelyProbablyNot SureProbably NotDefinitely NotIf the work stoppage continues into…

• A Completely Different Type Of Ample Endowment

  Drew McManus

  15 May 2013 | 12:00 am

  There’s a terrific article in the 5/13/2013 edition of Ms. In The Biz by opera soprano Rhoslyn Jones titled “You Look Like An Opera Singer.” All in all, it’s an entertaining piece with Jones taking aim at a number of physical stereotypes, not to mention a delightfully entertaining paragraph length digression about her own ample endowment (granted, she calls it a “full balcony” but this is an orchestra business blog so we might as well wallow in our own parlance). But Jones’ post did get me thinking about some of the all-too-real stereotypes of…

• Coffee, Tea, Or Verdi?

  Drew McManus

  14 May 2013 | 12:00 am

  Violinist Holly Mulcahy published a warm & fuzzy style post on 5/12/2013 about a recent experience where she struck up a conversation with a fellow airline passenger and orchestra concert newbie that ultimately ended in him buying tickets for a pair of Grand Teton Music Festival (GTMF) at 30,000 feet courtesy of Wi-Fi. Apparently, the conversation progressed from food to farming, to flying, to Seal Tem 6, to Django Unchained; and the last item was all Mulcahy needed to get a foot in the door. This fellow passenger and I probably would not find ourselves in the same social circles in…

• Work Stoppage Avoided In Seattle

  Drew McManus

  13 May 2013 | 12:00 am

  The Seattle Symphony Orchestra (SSO) and Seattle Symphony and Opera Players’ Organization (SSOPO) released statements on 5/6/2013 to announce that the organization has reached a tentative labor agreement that will extend through 8/31/2015. The SSO has been close to a work stoppage on a few occasions throughout the 2012/13 season but the pair of recent announcements appears to put those concerns to rest. Specific details of the agreement are not yet known as the musicians have yet to approve the agreement, but plan to conduct a ratification meeting on Tuesday, 5/14/2013. However, the…

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  [listen]

• darcy james argue

  Steve Hicken

  17 May 2013 | 2:17 pm

  My review of Darcy James Argue's Secret Society's new disc, Brooklyn Babylon, is up at Burning Ambulance. (Photo above by James Matthew Daniel from stereophile.com)While we're on the subject of Burning Ambulance, a new issue is out, with a wealth of fine writing on jazz and metal. Please check it out.

• solo bang

  Steve Hicken

  30 Apr 2013 | 5:52 pm

  Tomorrow evening, at 7:30 at the Recital Hall of the School of Music of the University of South Carolina (Columbia), my nephew, Gordon Hicken, will be giving the premiere performance of When Your Time is Orange, which I wrote for this occasion. The recital also includes music by JS Bach, Becker, Carter, Masson, Stevens, and Thomas.If you're in the neighborhood, please drop in.

• hear the bang

  Steve Hicken

  15 Apr 2013 | 7:38 am

  Phil Freeman has posted the recording of the first performance of my Percussion Concerto at Burning Ambulance. Thanks, also and again to Omar Carmenates (pictures), Leslie Hicken, and the Furman University Wind Ensemble for their fine performance.

• southern expressive

  Steve Hicken

  8 Apr 2013 | 5:13 pm

  Carlisle FloydSome thoughts on the Florida State Opera production of Carlisle Floyd's Cold Sassy Tree (2000) I attended this weekend:As is almost always the case, the production and performance were of as high a quality as one could hope for from a university opera company. These productions are mounted for academic credit and are given a fraction of the support given to many other activities that are, frankly speaking, not strictly related to a university's mission.The renovated Ruby Diamond Concert Hall continues to amaze me with its sound, its appearance (more on that in a bit), and its…

• his life on the plains

  Steve Hicken

  3 Apr 2013 | 3:51 am

  Lee HylaMy review of Lee Hyla's new disc of music for small ensemble, My Life on the Plains, is up at Burning Ambulance.An interview I did with Mr. Hyla a few years ago can be found here.More later.

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  NewMusicBox

• Monterrey Afterword

  Ratzo B. Harris

  17 May 2013 | 9:50 am

  Though luckily there were no drug cartel-associated mass murders in Monterrey as their had been on the opening night of last year's festival and again on the morning after the last performance, this year's Encuentro Internacional de Jazz y Música Viva was framed by its own internal controversy that emerged from its saxophone competition.

• One Tradition Deferred–No Rain at the 2013 Ceremonial

  Frank J. Oteri

  17 May 2013 | 7:59 am

  This year the academy gave out a total of $910,000 to 68 visual artists, architects, writers, and composers during the 2013 Ceremonial. Bob Dylan was inducted as an honorary member of the academy.

• Lost to the Ages

  Rob Deemer

  17 May 2013 | 7:04 am

  Obviously there are some genres--jazz quickly comes to mind--in which specific musical creative events occur and are lost on a daily basis. We can't keep everything, so it goes, but when it comes to our musical creations, this is how we as composers are going to be remembered.

• Different Spaces: Erewhon and Fusion

  Andrew Sigler

  16 May 2013 | 8:58 am

  Aside from the spectacular content, these shows illustrated (to me at least) the impact of the venue and how spaces shape the experience and help guide the audience.

• Recycling

  Alexandra Gardner

  16 May 2013 | 7:36 am

  I'm curious about composers recycling their work. As useful as repurposing material can be for stimulating ideas, has it become in some instances a shortcut by which we avoid the hard work of creating truly new material "out of thin air"?

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  Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise

• For Harold Shapero

  Alex Ross

  18 May 2013 | 11:32 am

  The distinguished Boston-area composer, a deft practitioner of mid-century neoclassical style, has died at the age of ninety-three. He was the last living representative of the Copland generation, that remarkable phalanx of American composers who came to the fore in the thirties and forties. While others went in for brawny populist gestures, Shapero was always elegant and restrained, a faithful yet distinctive devotee of Stravinsky in his Symphony in C phase. Shapero's Symphony for Classical Orchestra, from 1947, is a masterpiece of its time and place — a "marvel," Leonard…

• Wagner everywhere but New York

  Alex Ross

  18 May 2013 | 9:57 am

  A program from 1913, courtesy of Joan Matabosch. Wagner's two-hundredth birthday arrives on Wednesday, and most of the world's major music cities will mark the occasion in some way. In Leipzig, Wagner's birthplace, there will be a celebratory concert, a staging of Götterdämmerung, and an afternoon coffee party; in Venice, where he died, La Fenice has a day of music and lectures. In London, as part of Wagner 200, the Philharmonia will give a special concert at Royal Festival Hall, with Andrew Davis conducting and Susan Bullock singing. In Berlin, you can see The Flying…

• A Wagner Birthday Roast

  Alex Ross

  17 May 2013 | 6:17 pm

  The second in a short series of posts marking Richard Wagner’s two-hundredth birthday, which arrives tomorrow. What better way to celebrate Wagner’s bicentennial than with a Belgian-Norwegian mash-up of several of his most famous hits? Granted, there are more solemn ways of commemorating the birthday of the man whom Auguste Comte de Villiers de l’Isle-Adam once called “a genius such as appears on the earth once every thousand years.” You delve into the the occult mysteries of “Parsifal,” as Richard Brody did on this site a couple of months ago; or try to explicate a single…

• The Morningside Mysterium

  Alex Ross

  16 May 2013 | 6:02 pm

  What do the brothers Wesendonck, Guardian Life Insurance, Confucius Plaza, the Roerich Museum, Grant's Tomb, West Point, John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and the Temple of the Grail have in common? Needless to say, they are all part of "A Walking Tour of Wagner's New York."

• Nelsons to Boston

  Alex Ross

  16 May 2013 | 8:04 am

  Major news from the Boston Symphony: the impassioned young Latvian conductor Andris Nelsons has been chosen as the orchestra's fifteenth music director, succeeding James Levine. "I am deeply honored and touched that the Boston Symphony Orchestra has appointed me its next music director, as it is one of the highest achievements a conductor could hope for in his lifetime," Nelsons says in the press release. "Each time I have worked with the BSO I have been inspired by how effectively it gets to the heart of the music, always leaving its audience with a great wealth of…

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  Sequenza21/

• Harold Shapero, Dead at 93

  Jerry Bowles

  18 May 2013 | 10:48 am

  Statement from the Shapero Family regarding the passing of Harold Shapero (1920-2013) Harold Shapero, an American composer, pianist and longtime Professor of Music at Brandeis University, passed peacefully in his sleep on Friday, May 17, 2013 at the age of 93, following complications with pneumonia. Born in Lynn, Massachusetts on April 29, 1920, Shapero maintained a bold presence on the music scene in greater-Boston for the last 73 years. His friend Aaron Copland identified him with the American “Stravinsky school” of neo-classical composers that included lifelong friends and colleagues…

• Black Wagner: African-American Wagnerism and the Question of Race Revisited

  Jerry Bowles

  14 May 2013 | 10:08 am

  Alex Ross’s next book, “Wagner–Art in the Shadow of Music” is still very much a work in progress but his keynote lecture at Wagner WorldWide 2013 at the University of South Carolina (now up on YouTube) demonstrates that he is on the trail of some fascinating, and little known, aspects of his subject’s world.

• Get Schooled on New Music at OjaiU

  Jerry Bowles

  11 May 2013 | 6:43 am

  Here’s something cool to mark on your calendar.  The Ojai Music Festival is launching  a free three-week online course next Wednesday, May 15,  leading up to the 2013 Festival which runs June 6-9.   The courses are designed to help audiences “listen smarter” and enable them to gain deeper insight into the music and programming that have made Ojai–now in its 67th year–one of America’s most durable and loved summer music festivals.     (FYI, this year’s Festival focuses mainly on the music of Lou Harrison, Terry Riley, John Cage and John Luther Adams).

• Monday at Carnegie: Violin Futura

  Christian Carey

  6 May 2013 | 11:32 am

  Some news about a hot ticket tonight from one of our regular contributors, composer Lawrence Dillon. After performing his Violin Futura program a gazillion times all over the map in the last six years, Piotr Szewczyk is bringing it to NYC (Carnegie Hall.  May 6th.  8 pm). What is Violin Futura?  In the words of Santa Fe New Music, it is an “enthralling program [that] shows off the diversity and range of the contemporary violin.”  As Piotr says, “I created the Violin Futura project because I wanted to expand the contemporary violin repertoire with pieces that are exciting to play and…

• Wanted: Major WordPress Dude (or Dudette)

  Jerry Bowles

  22 Apr 2013 | 10:21 am

  We’re looking for a WordPress genius to help us update Sequenza21 by cleaning out the crawl space and attic, adding some new wiring and plumbing, attaching the garage to the main house, making the family room a more fun place to hang out and talk and to bring in a new Wolf oven and SubZero fridge.  Ok, my recent conversion to home mortageship has addled my brain a bit.  What we want to do is make S21 more social and interactive, clean out the spam and cut down the archives, combine what is now four separate WP instances (main, forum, CD reviews, and calendar) into one unified whole,…

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  Classical Performance Podcast

• George Li Plays Schumann, Haydn and Debussy

  WGBH Educational Foundation

  13 May 2013 | 10:00 pm

  Pianist George Li has been in the public eye for about a decade – which is more than half his life. Hear this incredible young pianist play works by Schumann, Haydn, and Debussy on this week’s podcast. *** Robert Schumann, arr. Franz Liszt: Widmung Franz Josef Haydn: Sonata in B minor, Hob. XVI/32 Claude Debussy: Images, Book I George Li, piano. +++ Recorded at WGBH’s Fraser Performance Studio on May 10, 2013. © 2013 WGBH Educational Foundation. http://www.classicalnewengland.org/podcasts e-mail: classical@wgbh.org

• Duo Sonidos Plays Tributes

  WGBH Educational Foundation

  6 May 2013 | 10:00 pm

  Duo Sonidos – guitarist Adam Levin and violinist William Knuth – joined together by happenstance at New England Conservatory. Seven years later, the duo performs music of tribute and homage. *** Georg Friedrich Handel: Sonata No. 4 in D Major, Op. 1, No. 13 Ricardo Llorca: Handeliana Jorge Muniz: Funk Eduardo Morales-Caso: Homanajes Duo Sonidos: Adam Levin, guitar; William Knuth, violin +++ Recorded at WGBH’s Fraser Performance Studio on April 30, 2013. © 2013 WGBH Educational Foundation. http://www.classicalnewengland.org/podcasts e-mail: classical@wgbh.org

• Sean Chen Plays Chopin and Scriabin

  WGBH Educational Foundation

  29 Apr 2013 | 10:00 pm

  Fresh off of his win at the American Pianists’ Association competition, Sean Chen visits Fraser to play some Chopin and Scriabin. *** Alexander Scriabin: Piano Sonata No. 5 Fryderyk Chopin: Mazurka, Op. 59, No. 1 Sean Chen, piano. +++ Recorded at WGBH’s Fraser Performance Studio on April 26, 2013. © 2013 WGBH Educational Foundation. http://www.classicalnewengland.org/podcasts e-mail: classical@wgbh.org

• Discovery Ensemble Plays Haydn

  WGBH Educational Foundation

  22 Apr 2013 | 10:00 pm

  Boston is a special place – few cities in the country are home to so many superbly talented young musicians that the city has more than one chamber orchestra whose members are all under 35. Here is one of those orchestras: Discovery Ensemble, conducted by Courtney Lewis. *** Franz Josef Haydn: Symphony No. 92, “Oxford” Discovery Ensemble; Courtney Lewis, cond. +++ Recorded at WGBH’s Fraser Performance Studio on February 4, 2013. © 2013 WGBH Educational Foundation. http://www.classicalnewengland.org/podcasts e-mail: classical@wgbh.org

• Xiang Yu and Vivian Hornik Weilerstein Play Dvorak

  WGBH Educational Foundation

  16 Apr 2013 | 10:00 pm

  Xiang Yu and Vivian Hornik Weilerstein play a Dvorak Sonatine in a preview of a “Music for Food” concert. *** Antonin Dvorak: Sonatine for Violin and Piano Xiang Yu, violin; Vivian Hornik Weilerstein, piano. +++ Recorded at WGBH’s Fraser Performance Studio on April 12, 2013. © 2013 WGBH Educational Foundation. http://www.classicalnewengland.org/podcasts e-mail: classical@wgbh.org

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  PlaybillArts.com

• A Chat With: Virginia Arts Festival Conductor JoAnn Faletta

  14 May 2013 | 12:00 pm

  The Virginia Symphony and Richmond Ballet will present “The Rite of Spring” on May 29th as part of the Virginia Arts Festival - a festival of extraordinary arts experiences that lasts through June. The performance will take place at Chrysler Hall in Norfolk, Virginia.

• Live the Dream

  10 May 2013 | 2:00 pm

  Join ballet star Sara Mearns as she steps into a fantasy world created by Stravinsky, the Philharmonic, and Giants Are Small. Mindy Aloff explores the aesthetics behind this genre-bending production.

• The Killer Ballet that Changed Broadway: Reviving "Slaughter on Tenth Avenue"

  7 Feb 2013 | 2:00 pm

  In 1936, George Balanchine was a young Russian choreographer who had been in the United States for three years. He had launched a ballet school and was trying to establish a permanent company; Broadway musicals were hardly familiar terrain.

• A Chat With: Organist Christopher Houlihan

  2 May 2012 | 3:00 pm

  An interview with the organist Christopher Houlihan, who performs at Christ and St Luke's Episcopal Church in Norfolk on May 3 at 8:00 pm. The concert is co-presented by Virginia Arts Festival and the Tidewater Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. Mr. Houlihan will perform music by JS Bach, Louis Vierne, Camille Saint-Saens and Franz Liszt.

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  JDCMB

• Kaufmann. Winterreise.

  18 May 2013 | 6:15 am

  Look what's popped up on Youtube: complete audio of Jonas Kaufmann's Winterreise recital at the Konzerthaus, Vienna, 6 April 2013. Helmut Deutsch is at the piano. Apparently JK was not feeling on best form just then - he was recovering from the lurgy that knocked him out of two Vienna Parsifals. It's remarkable nonetheless.Prepare to listen by getting yourself a cuppa, a box of hankies and a DO NOT DISTURB sign.(UPDATE, 5.40pm: An appreciative reader has just tweeted to remark that this is good alternative listening for anyone trying to avoid the Eurovision Song Contest tonight...)

• A tale in tartan?

  18 May 2013 | 1:42 am

  A starry cast is set to make waves in La Donna del Lago at Covent Garden. I had a brief chat with the director, John Fulljames, about why he thinks Rossini's rarity is - well, rare.He thinks it's all to do with the difficulty of the vocal writing; as for the story, it's at the heart of that weird 19th-century idea that Scotland is the most romantic place on earth - a form of cultural nationalism that was invented, as he explained, by Sir Walter Scott. Might it yet prove to be a favourite opera for the Scottish National Party? We'll see... anyway, one hopes they can't go far wrong with Joyce…

• Friday Historical: Some amazing tales from Glyndebourne

  17 May 2013 | 12:45 am

  Here's my piece from yesterday's Independent about what happened to Glyndebourne during World War II. It was transformed into a centre for children evacuated from London's east end - and that history has now inspired a new staging of Strauss's Ariadne auf Naxos, which opens tomorrow. I talked to its young director, Katharina Thoma, whose first UK production this is.Meanwhile, we hear that the cats are back in Falstaff...there are calls for the cat manipulator to take a bow, but naturally the truth is that the ginger one is Solti, who sneaks to Sussex and back by private cat-jet when we aren't…

• PLEASE COME TO OUR 'HUNGARIAN DANCES' CONCERTS!

  16 May 2013 | 1:09 am

  HUNGARIAN DANCES: THE CONCERT OF THE NOVEL DAVID LE PAGE (VIOLIN), ANTHONY HEWITT (PIANO), JESSICA DUCHEN (NARRATOR) Tuesday 11 June, 8pmSt James Theatre Studio, 12 Palace Street, London SW1 (a short walk from Victoria Station) Tickets: £15. Book here: http://www.stjamestheatre.co.uk/events/hungarian-dances/  Saturday 8 June, 11amUlverston International Music Festival, Cumbriahttp://www.ulverstonmusicfestival.co.uk/main-events/17-summer-festivals/101-hungarian-dances-the-story-of-a-gypsy-violinist.html?layout=event ‘A saga whose passion for music, Hungary and history sings out on…

• Happy 200th to the RPS

  15 May 2013 | 1:55 am

  It's not often that you find yourself choking up with emotion in the middle of the Dorchester Ballroom. But yesterday, the annual Royal Philharmonic Society Awards evening saw many of us doing just that as the organisation - currently celebrating its 200th birthday - awarded five honorary memberships to movers and shakers who have been bringing the power of music to bear in the direction of societal transformation in some of the most deprived and dangerous places in the world.From Kinshasa to Kabul, Soweto to the Sphinx organisation in the US, and a former Leeds Piano Competition winner who's…

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  Classical Music Features from Minnesota Public Radio

• Bobby McFerrin: Spirituals As Sung Prayers

  18 May 2013 | 6:58 am

  The one time Creative Chair with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, McFerrin is influenced by his father, Robert McFerrin Sr., a renowned operatic baritone on his new record of spirituals 'Spirityouall.'

• Flicks in Five: The Longest Day

  17 May 2013 | 1:57 pm

  A very young Paul Anka, who had a part in the big-budget movie, wrote the theme song.

• Wagner at 200: Listen to the Complete Ring Cycle

  16 May 2013 | 11:00 am

  Immerse yourself in over 14 hours of Richard Wagner's masterpiece, Der Ring des Nibelungen, courtesy of Allegro Music. Find out more about Wagner, the operas and enter our giveaway to win the complete Ring Cycle box set.

• Regional Spotlight: Brasil Guitar Duo

  16 May 2013 | 10:00 am

  Their performances are golden as they play as one, and with rhythmic drive and a sensuous sound the Brasil Guitar Duo always have fans saying, "Wow!"

• Music with Minnesotans: Jim Waldo

  15 May 2013 | 8:30 am

  Jim Waldo is a part time musician but it takes up much of his life. A founding member of the Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra and regular singer with Dale Warland, he'll share his deep, rich radio voice and also his deep love of music.

• 

  Ionarts

• In Brief: Almost Wagner's Birthday Edition

  Charles T. Downey

  19 May 2013 | 10:05 am

  Here is your regular Sunday selection of links to online audio, online video, and other good things in Blogville and Beyond. (After clicking to an audio or video stream, press the "Play" button to start the broadcast.) From the Musikverein in Vienna (video embedded at right), Daniele Gatti leads a performance of Rossini's Petite Messe Solenelle with the Orchestre National de France

• It's Raining Cats and Cash

  Mark Barry

  19 May 2013 | 8:46 am

  There's a cool rain falling in New York City, at the Museum of Modern Art. The Rain Room, by Random International, is a field of falling water that pauses wherever a human body is detected: there may be no need to carry an umbrella again. Think of yourself as Moses. I don't know how many sensors it takes to run this project, but it's quite interesting and fun. The faster you walk, the more you

• Dip Your Ears, No. 138 (Mendelssohn Organ Works)

  jfl

  18 May 2013 | 7:30 am

  F.Mendelssohn-B., Organ Works Yuval Rabin (Braun/Mathis organ of St.Marzellus, CH) MDG Felix Mendelssohn B. was fond of organs and organ music and wrote idiomatically for the instrument. You just can’t hear it in his other compositions (think Bruckner, for contrast), and since you just about never hear Mendelssohn’s organ music in recital or concert either, that part of his output—limited

• Summer Music Festivals: U.S.

  Charles T. Downey

  17 May 2013 | 10:23 am

  Soprano Angela Meade What would Ionarts be covering this summer if we had an unlimited travel budget? Here are our picks for the best performances of opera and classical music being presented by American summer festivals. CINCINNATI OPERA This may be the summer for my first visit to Cincinnati Opera, primarily because Angela Meade will be the Donna Anna in their production of Don Giovanni (

• Classical Music Agenda (June 2013)

  Charles T. Downey

  16 May 2013 | 7:26 am

  Summer is at hand, meaning that the pickings get slimmer in the monthly concert agenda for local events. On the other hand, we will also have a summer festival preview coming up, with some of the performances outside of Washington we most want to hear. Composer James MacMillan ORCHESTRAS: Happily the National Symphony Orchestra is extending its season at the Kennedy Center through June, until

• 

  The Rambler

• I’m writing a book

  Tim Rutherford-Johnson

  14 May 2013 | 4:36 am

  OK, it’s time to come clean. I’m writing a book. Quite an ambitious one: a history of composition since 1989. New music in the long 21st century. Modern Music After Modern Music And After. The Rest of The Rest is Noise.* I’ve been thinking about this thing for a few years now, and nurturing the … Continue reading →

• Reviews resurrected: EXAUDI at the Warehouse, October 2009

  Tim Rutherford-Johnson

  30 Apr 2013 | 4:30 am

  Resurrected because it features my first encounter with a couple of pieces on EXAUDI’s forthcoming disc for HCR – Stephen Chase’s Jandl Songs, and Claudia Molitor’s lorem ipsum. Not sure why I didn’t mention the pieces by either Gwyn Pritchard or Linda Catlin Smith at the time, and now of course I can’t remember anything about them. … Continue reading →

• Secret Music: May

  Tim Rutherford-Johnson

  29 Apr 2013 | 4:33 am

  (Click for the background to the Secret Music listings.) Friday 3 May: Roca London Gallery: Distractfold Ensemble, 7.15 | Free In the Zaha Hadid-designed Roca Gallery in, London Manchester’s Distractfold Ensemble, with guest harpist Martino Panizza, present an exciting new programme: Iannis Xenakis – Mikka S John Croft – mit schwarzem Glanz Martin Iddon – Danaë Charles-Antoine … Continue reading →

• Choose your own …

  Tim Rutherford-Johnson

  26 Apr 2013 | 1:38 pm

  I’ve said this a couple of times now, to people who haven’t heard Peter Ablinger’s music before, but who are interested: He’s sort of (sort of) like our John Cage. Which is one of those handy shortcuts you sometimes have to take in conversation. And yeah, it’s a little hyperbolic, but it gets the idea … Continue reading →

• With EXAUDI, exposed

  Tim Rutherford-Johnson

  22 Apr 2013 | 2:17 am

  I’m chuffed to be hosting a couple of composer conversations at EXAUDI‘s next concert, on 4 May at the Only Connect Theatre, Cubitt Street, King’s Cross. Before the music starts I’ll be on stage talking with Matthew Shlomowitz and EXAUDI’s director James Weeks, and about midway through I’ll be hosting a roundtable discussion with Shlomowitz, Weeks, Aaron … Continue reading →

• 

  Soho the Dog

• Sync all devices

  14 May 2013 | 1:23 pm

  Reviewing the Boston Chamber Music Society.Boston Globe, May 14, 2013.Hopefully it's fixed by the time you click the link, but, if not, yes, Schubert's String Quintet is D. 956, not K. 956. At least I didn't give it a Hoboken number.

• Every bright description of the promised land

  13 May 2013 | 1:27 pm

  Reviewing the Cantata Singers and Ensemble.Boston Globe, May 13, 2013.

• How It's Made

  23 Apr 2013 | 7:30 am

  Reviewing Evgeny Kissin.Boston Globe, April 23, 2013.

• We've taken to you so strong

  15 Apr 2013 | 12:15 pm

  Reviewing the Boston Modern Orchestra Project.Boston Globe, April 15, 2013.

• The very model

  8 Apr 2013 | 8:40 am

  Reviewing Stile Antico.Boston Globe, April 8, 2013.

• 

  Opera Chic

• Mel Brooks on Puccini, Lenny and, Well, Being Awesome

  opera chic

  19 May 2013 | 6:21 am

  Mel Brooks, an icon of the great American experience, the Jewish immigrant raised in Williamsburg, branded in the Catskills, who...

• Epic Rap Battles: Beethoven & Mozart Snap on Bieber & Skrillex

  opera chic

  18 May 2013 | 8:50 am

  Epic Rap Battles serves up tasty rhymes while pitting classical music's legends against modern pop icons. Bieber vs. Beethoven and...

• Rossini Rarity at the ROH: Donna del Lago

  opera chic

  18 May 2013 | 5:23 am

  Fresh from last night's John Fulljames new production premiere of Donna del Lago at the Royal Opera House comes Rupert...

• Andris Nelsons is the BSO's Next MD

  opera chic

  16 May 2013 | 9:03 am

  (credit: Stu Rosner) Boston Symphony Orchestra appoints Andris Nelsons as its next Music Director, following in the footsteps of Nikisch,...

• Behind Liberace

  opera chic

  16 May 2013 | 5:30 am

  We're crushing on this intimate portrait of Michael Douglas penned by Lynn Hirschberg for New York Magazine. On the cusp...

• 

  Opera Today

• Paris Opera Awards 2013

  gary@operatoday.com

  17 May 2013 | 10:05 am

  http://www.paris-opera-awards.fr/parisoperraawards-9480.html

• Michele Mariotti conducts La donna del lago

  gary@operatoday.com

  17 May 2013 | 5:09 am

  Rossini’s La donna del Lago at the Royal Opera House boasts a superstar cast. Joyce DiDonato and Juan Diego Flórez are perhaps the best in these roles in the business at this time. Yet the conductor Michele Mariotti is also hot news.

• Lohengrin, Bayreuth 2011 Live

  gary@operatoday.com

  16 May 2013 | 12:13 pm

  Opera in three acts. Words and music by Richard Wagner.

• Wagner — 200 Years Later

  gary@operatoday.com

  16 May 2013 | 10:47 am

  The current theme celebrates Richard Wagner's birth 200 years ago. Over the course of the next several weeks, recordings of each of works will be presented, including recordings of live performances when available. Parsifal, Bayreuth 2012 Live Lohengrin, Bayreuth 2011...

• Parsifal, Bayreuth 2012 Live

  gary@operatoday.com

  16 May 2013 | 10:01 am

  Parsifal. Bühnenweihfestspiel (“stage dedication play”) in three acts.

• 

  Opera Today News Headlines

• Paris Opera Awards 2013

  Gary

  17 May 2013 | 10:05 am

  Mary-Jean O'Doherty is the 1st Prize Winner--Paris Opera Awards 2013. The jury included Sherrill Milnes, Martina Arroyo and Daniel Lipton.

• London: Music under the shadow of Handel

  Gary

  19 Apr 2013 | 11:28 am

  This is a part of the series of lectures and concerts, European Capitals of Music. Famous musical capitals provide the framework for this series of lectures with live music.

• Sir Colin Davis Dead at 85

  Gary

  15 Apr 2013 | 12:51 pm

  [The Telegraph, 15 April 2013] Sir Colin Davis, who has died aged 85, was one of the grand and cerebral orchestral conductors of the English tradition. He inherited his baton directly from Sir Thomas Beecham and, regardless of fashion or popularity, stuck resolutely to understated elegance both on and off the concert platform.

• “Culture: the cement that binds Europe together”

  Gary

  7 Apr 2013 | 1:48 pm

  Opera Europa - RESEO Spring Conference/Vienna [4 April 2013] A strong statement for the support of culture was delivered by European Commission President José Manuel Barroso at the Opera Europa - RESEO Spring Conference at the Vienna State Opera. In a speech opening the conference, he declared that “Culture is the cement that binds Europe together.” He spoke of his particular affection for opera: “Opera is the illustration par excellence of the long dialogue between European cultures across national boundaries, across centuries. Opera is Verdi, whose bicentenary we…

• Welcome to awards night at the opera

  Gary

  15 Feb 2013 | 10:40 am

  By Louise Jury [The Evening Standard, 13 February 2013] A celebration of opera which aims to bring its biggest stars to a wider audience is announced today.

• 

  aworks :: "new" american classical music

• aworks listening log :: the day the music stood still

  rgable

  16 May 2013 | 5:42 pm

  The Day the Earth Stood Still Philip Glass Ensemble. Music in Twelve Parts (Orange Mountain Music) Adele Anthony. GLASS, P.: Violin Concerto / Company / Prelude from Akhnaten (Naxos) Bernard Herrmann. The Day the Earth Stood Still (Classic Records) William Grant Nabore. American Piano Music of the 20th Century (Doron Music) Chris Smith. Cabin Fever (Emperor Jones) Disco Operating System. Ultrasonic Bath (Lotta Continua) Bruce Brubaker. Glass Cage - Music for Piano by Philip Glass and John Cage (Arabesque Recordings) Brad Lubman. Glassworks - Signal Live At (Le) Poisson Rouge (Orange…

• Rubhitbangklanghear Rubhitbangklangear (2010). Charlemagne Palestine + Z'ev

  rgable

  12 May 2013 | 10:48 am

  Palestine: "i met z'ev in amsterdam!! i'd known him for 20 years before he suggested one day that we perform together, which we did at lem barcelona in 2007!! later after seeing and hearing the carillon at my studio in brussels he suggested that we perform and record together there, which we did in 2010!!" Long and either unique or commonplace, not sure yet:

• aworks sentences :: day three, now with italics

  rgable

  10 May 2013 | 7:26 pm

  Ocean's Eleven (Wikipedia) "The party will begin with an announcement that our beloved Dave Skidmore, of Third Coast Percussion, has been (fake) murdered and it is up to the attendees to solve the mystery of his death."Arlene & Larry Dunn "But from the orchestra's point of view, however, it's Sheherazade that's the delicate work." Daniel Wolf "It’s a tribute to that wonderful Hollywood blockbuster Ocean’s Eleven (2001)." Sally Whitwell " It seems reasonable, though, given the limits of human activity, that for every one of those plays there must be hundreds and thousands that have…

• aworks sentences :: day two

  rgable

  9 May 2013 | 6:22 pm

  "In total, there are 53 channels now courting for cash, with very limited music content (for now)." Paul Resnikoff "Musicians will now be able to collect gold plaques for songs that log 500,000 or more streams, platinum for those that top the 1 million mark and a multi-platinum honor for any that hit the 2 million figure." Randy Lewis "Rdio New Releases by Genre 2013-05-06 · 360 genres." Glenn McDonald "So I spent years just doing like picking exercises with a metronome just trying to get that hand up to speed because it was weaker." Mary Halvorson via Rodger Coleman "Thick electronic…

• aworks sentences ::

  rgable

  8 May 2013 | 7:03 pm

  Ferruccio Busoni 'As the British critic Edward Dent wrote, “Busoni sits at the pianoforte, listens, comments, decorates, and dreams.”' Alex Ross "That is to say that Strandberg often creates complex landscapes of rhythmically bracing music." Grego Applegate Edwards “The world-class status of the Minnesota Orchestra is in serious jeopardy." Graydon Royce "The crux of his corrective hinged on the proliferation of campiness as a default mode in current pop culture, ushered in by the near-simultaneous death of irony and the homogenization of the homo set and evident in the rise of various…

• 

  Sounds & Fury

• Poor Richard

  A.C. Douglas

  19 May 2013 | 10:44 am

  This coming Wednesday, 22 May, is THE bicentennial day of celebration of the birth of Richard Wagner and we don't know of a single on-the-boards...

• Michael Mayer's Staging Of the Met's New Rigoletto

  A.C. Douglas

  18 May 2013 | 6:20 am

  We just finished watching our DVRed copy of PBS's Friday night telecast of the Met's HD film of its new production of Michael Mayer's Regietheater...

• Ghost Tracks Of Wagner In New York

  A.C. Douglas

  16 May 2013 | 11:08 am

  Alex Ross, classical music critic of The New Yorker and author of the best-selling book The Rest is Noise , has written a fascinating piece...

• Of Rotten Eggs And Eurotrash

  A.C. Douglas

  9 May 2013 | 3:05 am

  Howls of indignation could be heard emanating from the champions of and cheerleaders for Eurotrash (i.e., Konzept) Regietheater at the decision by Deutsche Oper am...

• An Inexplicable Error Of Judgment

  A.C. Douglas

  4 May 2013 | 2:16 am

  [NOTE: This entry has been updated (1) as of 10:19 AM Eastern on 4 May. See below.] We yesterday viewed for the first time in...

• 

  grecchinois

• Last One

  nick

  19 May 2013 | 8:57 am

  Last night we closed Falstaff at the Portland Opera. :-(Many thanks to my colleagues and friends in Portland for a magical month and some change - it's been an incredible time.Portlandia - I will see you in about five proverbial minutes. :-)

• Floating House

  nick

  17 May 2013 | 12:46 pm

  Henry, who filmed the preview featurette for Still Falls the Rain last year, has recently posted a short about some friends who built a house boat out in San Francisco.  The video tells the story of the moment they found out if their house would float or sink. There are some amazing shots of their house (which was recently profiled in the New York Times) floating across the San Francisco Bay. ARCHIMEDES' PRINCIPLE –– short-doc from CLUBSODA on Vimeo.Check it out - it's a little fun for your friday. 

• Some Science About Music and Us

  nick

  16 May 2013 | 9:09 am

  Coming from a scientific family with a great interest in music (and being a musician who is rather obsessed with music, myself), I found this little clip a rather fascinating moment while sipping today's morning coffee.

• The Internet and Our Brains

  nick

  13 May 2013 | 10:59 am

  The irony of posting this video here is not lost on me...

• Falstaff Opens

  nick

  10 May 2013 | 10:55 am

  Falstaff opens tonight at the Portland Opera.  If you want to catch a glimpse of what we've been up to these past few weeks - watch this little preview below:

• 

  Bass Blog

• Oh Doctor!

  2 May 2013 | 5:21 pm

  My vacation took me far away from the first couple weeks of the latest installment of music director mania. The third week had some underplayed gems on the program - Mendelssohn Calm Sea and Prosperous Voyage, Beethoven Consecration of the House, Schumann Rhenish. (Mozart, Piano Concerto no. 21 with Pollini rounded out the show.)  Legitimately a masterpiece, the Schumann is also the least underplayed of the of the three. Nevertheless, I would gladly trade in a few extraneous repetitions of Bruckner 4, Beethoven 3, (and while in the key of E flat, throw in Ein Heldenleben) for a couple…

• Potemkin Village

  7 Apr 2013 | 7:44 am

   The orchestral musician needs to know which things are bad and which are good. This usually applies to conductors and repertoire, but it easily spreads to soloists, critics, administrators, and a myriad of other things as well. A quick and easy aid to forming an opinion is to have a default setting, let's say any new thing is bad until it passes a litmus test to qualify for goodness. The reverse is of course true, albeit rare, as nobody wants to play the fool. Much lively debate goes on backstage as players take sides or work towards formulating opinions about the good and the bad. Some…

• In Praise of Purgatory

  22 Mar 2013 | 9:35 pm

  Last week we played, among other things, the Adagio from Mahler's unfinished 10th symphony. For health reasons Pierre Boulez had to withdraw from two weeks of conducting, passing the baton onto Cristain Macelaru and Asher Fisch. Another notable piece on offer was the Bartók Divertimento for String Orchestra, which has had a notable history in our orchestra, particularly for the bass section, but about which I can write absolutely nothing.Although my fondness for Mahler's music has gone up and down over the years, the 10th symphony has always been a favorite. As a youngster in the early…

• B.B.B.B.B.B.B

  8 Mar 2013 | 9:15 am

  Bass Blog Back Better than Before!Homer: ...the extra 'B' is for BYOBB.Bart: What's that extra B for?Homer: It's a typo.Sorry for the long sabbatical. In truth, I've been waiting for three people to ask in person about the blog before resuming. It only took six months...There are certain professions where having an eighty-two-year-old fill in for a seventy-one-year-old doesn't raise a bushy eyebrow. The United States Senate comes to mind, along with the chairman's seat at some exclusive private clubs, the College of Cardinals, and if something which happens once every 600 years or so makes…

• Ravinia Week 5

  10 Aug 2012 | 2:51 pm

  Stop the Planets - I Want to Get OffThe comedian Jerry Seinfeld once did a bit where he wondered what aliens landing on earth would make of dogs and their owners. Seeing members of one species following those of another, picking up their poop and carrying it around in a little bag, which would the aliens consider to be the masters?The thought crossed my mind the other day while playing The Planets with a click track syncing the live orchestra to a film. While both dog and owner are at least living creatures, the subservience of something alive to something not alive is problematic, at least…

• 

  parterre box

• Lady for a décolleté

  La Cieca

  18 May 2013 | 9:43 pm

  La Cieca invites the cher public to open up and discuss any off-topic or general interests they might want to get off their chest.

• Zurück vom “Ring!”

  La Cieca

  17 May 2013 | 5:57 pm

  Peter Gelb says the Ring will definitely not return, as originally planned, in 2017, and where has La Cieca heard that before? [New York Times]

• Encore! Encore!

  La Cieca

  17 May 2013 | 9:06 am

  For tomorrow afternoon’s chat at La Casa della Cieca, your doyenne offers an unusual double blast from the past. The suggested listening for this chat will be an on-demand rebroadcast of a series of episodes of “Unnatural Acts of Opera” dedicated to the December 7, 1975 performance of Verdi’s Macbeth from La Scala, featuring the following personnel: Macbeth – Piero Cappuccilli; Lady Macbeth – Shirley Verrett; Banco – Nicolai Ghiaurov; Macduff – Franco Tagliavini; Malcolm – Nicola Martinucci.Orchestra e Coro del Teatro alla Scala. Conductor: Claudio Abbado.

• Meeting Mrs. Haines socially

  La Cieca

  16 May 2013 | 10:43 am

  The Wiener Staatsoper should be a source of some interesting backstage gossip next September as the company presents on alternating nights Angela Gheorghiu as Tosca and Aleksandra Kurzak as Violetta. (La Cieca doesn’t know if she said ermine or sable coat, but…)

• Racing with the moon

  DeCaffarrelli

  16 May 2013 | 9:23 am

  For better or worse, Decca’s new Norma recording will ultimately be embraced—or dismissed—by those reacting directly to Cecilia Bartoli’s controversial portrayal. After all, few operatic roles prove as irresistible yet as fraught with obstacles to the modern diva as Bellini’s Norma. In recent decades such bel canto specialists as Gwyneth Jones (with Jane Henschel as Adalgisa and a young Jonas Kaufmann as Flavio), Anna Tomowa-Sintow (with Denyce Graves as her Adalgisa), Maria Guleghina, and Carol Neblett have tackled the Druid priestess with decidedly mixed results. However this…

• 

  The Wagnerian

• Happy Birthday RW: The Wagner Scrapbook

  19 May 2013 | 8:30 am

  We spent a surprising amount of time trying to think what we could do for this week. It seemed that every idea that came to us had already been developed or done in a similar way. But then by chance, we  went back to the origins of the Wagnerian. How, we thought,  would we have produced something like this during Wagner's first centenary? Without electronic media it seemed impossible. But then, an idea came to us. A very, very basic way of reproducing some of the media here could, at a stretch, be done with a very old fashioned scrapbook. And so The Wagnerian Scrapbook: The First…

• Daniel Barenboim In Conversation: Wagner & Ideology

  18 May 2013 | 2:00 pm

  We could not recommend this enough - if for nothing else than for Barenboim's discussion about conducting Wagner.  The following is an edited conversation about Wagner that took place between Edward Saïd, and Daniel Barenboim at Columbia University, where Mr. Saïd is Professor of Comparative Literature and English. The conversation appeared in full in the Spring 1998 issue of Raritan, a quarterly publication of Rutgers University and at Barenboim's website here. ES: Wagner is a composer who, unlike almost any other composer, lends himself to conferences and discussions. And, of course,…

• Wagner Bicentenary - One-Man Opera. Rhodes University SA

  18 May 2013 | 1:22 pm

  Readers will we are sure, recall Dr Jamie McGregor's Wagner/Tolkien paper "Two Rings To Rule Them All" which we reprinted here some time ago. Dr McGregor, who really is an impassioned wagnerite,  is now presenting a very unusual and special event on the 22 May: a one man presentation of the Dutchman - just as Wagner himself famously once did for his friends. Should you be in Grahamstown on the 22nd, we think it would be plainly silly to miss this unique event. Event: Wagner Bicentenary - One-Man OperaVenue: Beethoven Room, Rhodes Department of Music & MusicologyDate: Wednesday 22 May…

• Audio Discussion: The Düsseldorf Tannhauser.

  17 May 2013 | 12:00 am

  Recorded earlier today as part of WQXR's "Conducting Business" series. Chaired by Naomi Lewin,  a panel consisting of:  ENO's John Berry, Parterre Box's James Jorden,  and  the Washington Post's Anne Midgette  discuss Deutsche Oper am Rhein's "controversial" Tannhauser and a certain form of Regietheater in general. For clarification, the term "Eurotrash" is being used extensively in some debates (although oddly, few seem to be debating the impact any of this might have on  the living members, and their ancestors, of those many groups that suffered the sort of…

• Wagner In New York

  16 May 2013 | 11:47 pm

  At "The New Yorker", Alex Ross imagines  "what if" Wagner had acted on his thoughts of moving to the USA. Highly recommended.A WALKING TOUR OF WAGNER’S NEW YORKBY ALEX ROSS The first in a short series of posts commemorating Wagner’s two-hundredth birthday, which falls on May 22nd. Above is the title page of Wagner’s “Grosser Festmarsch,” also known as the “American Centennial March,” commissioned for the celebrations of 1876.In his last years, Richard Wagner often spoke of immigrating to America. The composer had enthusiastically greeted the founding of the German Empire in…

• 

  Kenneth Woods- conductor

• CD Review- MusicWeb International on Bobby and Hans, vol 3

  Kenneth Woods

  8 May 2013 | 9:24 am

  A new review from critic Dan Morgan at MusicWeb. Read the whole thing here.  A short sample follows Just Released- Volume Three of the Complete Symphonies of Hans Gal and Robert Schumann The Second Symphony opens with a most unsettling string theme that blossoms into a mellifluous, pulsing tune whose mood and manner might well suggest pared-down Bruckner. Structurally it’s more tightly drawn – no dancing mountains here – and in that sense Gál’s musical language tends to look backwards more than it does forward. That’s not a criticism, merely a marker, for it’s clear this music…

• Explore the Score- Beethoven: Piano Concerto no. 1 in C major

  Kenneth Woods

  8 May 2013 | 6:50 am

  “It has always been known that the greatest pianoforte players were also the greatest composers; but how did they play? Not like the pianists of today who prance up and down the keyboard with passages in which they have exercised themselves—what does that mean? Nothing.” Ludwig van Beethoven in conversation 1814   A perusal of Beethoven’s early works reveals a number of pieces crafted to make a big impression. Of all of these youthful “calling card” pieces, perhaps the Piano Concerto in C major is the most audacious. Although we know it as his Concerto no. 1, it was his third…

• Ken’s Scotia Festival schedule

  Kenneth Woods

  7 May 2013 | 1:58 pm

  I attended my first Scotia Festival as a student in 1993- Peter Lieberson was the composer-of-the-year, Pierre-Laurent Aimard was the pianist-in-the-house. How could I not want to keep coming back? Over the following years I got to meet and work with composers like Oliver Knussen  and Joan Tower, instrumentalists like Marc-Andre Hamelin, and I got to share a stand with Desmond Hoebig and Fred Sherry. I also cut my conducting teeth there, and had all kinds of memorable chamber music experiences/ It broke my heart to realize I was getting too old to keep coming back as a student at some point.

• Concert Review- Tempo Magazine on “The Trumpet Shall Sound”

  Kenneth Woods

  7 May 2013 | 11:44 am

  A review appeared in Tempo Magazine from January 2013 of the Orchestra of the Swan’s “Trumpet Shall Sound” concert. A short excerpt follows Composer John McCabe   Although John McCabe’s Rainforest II, of 1987, is in effect a chamber concerto for trumpet and 11 strings, his extensive body of concertante works has lacked an official trumpet concerto. La Primavera, which had its première on 15 June 2012, now happily fills that gap. The subtitle derives from McCabe’s consideration of two aspects of the approach of Spring: the vitality of burgeoning growth and…

• Avie Release Volume 3 of KW Schumann/Gal cycle

  Kenneth Woods

  3 May 2013 | 1:20 pm

  KENNETH WOODS RELEASES HANS GÁL’S SYMPHONY NO. 2 AND SCHUMANN’S SYMPHONY NO. 4 WITH ORCHESTRA OF THE SWAN ON AVIE   THIRD OF FOUR-DISC SERIES Kenneth Woods, Principal Guest Conductor of Stratford-upon-Avon based Orchestra of the Swan, has made international headlines for his ongoing cycle of world-premiere recordings of the Symphonies of Hans Gál, paired with those of Robert Schumann on the AVIE label. This month brings the third of the four-disc series with  Gáls Second and Schumann’s Fourth (AV 2232). Gál’s Symphony No. 2, written in 1942-43 during the…

• 

  Iron Tongue of Midnight

• Harold Shapero

  18 May 2013 | 1:04 pm

  Photo: Gordon Parks for LifeI logged on to Twitter a while ago to tell Alex Ross that we won't have much Wagner in SF on the 22nd either, but before I could get that tweet off, I saw Alex's For Harold Shapero link, and knew what had happened. The composer died last night in his sleep, peacefully, from complications of pneumonia, at 93.Harold Shapero was one of my professors at Brandeis in the 1970s. (If you didn't already know my approximate age, you do know.) When I started, he was some years into what we thought was a major-league composer's block. Over at Sequenza 21, where there's a…

• Defending the Indefensible

  18 May 2013 | 9:46 am

  The Times has a puff piece on the dismantling of The Machine, that nasty unit set used for the Met's current Ring production, which is going into storage for the nonce. Ho hum, except for the quotations from Peter Gelb, who inserts his foot farther into his digestive system with every comment:Mr. Gelb suggested that the machine had become a scapegoat. “One of the reasons the ‘Ring’ has been criticized so much is people disagree with his approach, not the machine,” he said, referring to Mr. Lepage. “The machine is a victim, not entirely innocent because of its creakiness,…

• On the Air

  18 May 2013 | 9:40 am

  James Levine's return to the podium is tomorrow, and the concert will be broadcast on the web. Details from the Met press release:The Sirius XM Radio broadcast of this Sunday afternoon’s MET Orchestra at Carnegie Hall concert—Met Music Director James Levine’s first public performance in more than two years—will be simulcast on the Met’s Web site.  The broadcast can be heard live on Metropolitan Opera Radio on SIRIUS XM Channel 74 and streamed live at www.metopera.org/stream.aspx beginning at 2:55 p.m. on Sunday. The concert begins at 3 p.m.

• What is the Right Order for Listening to These Performances?

  17 May 2013 | 10:49 am

  Chronologically? By conductor? By orchestra? By edition?By quality? 

• Curious Flights Celebrates Britten

  16 May 2013 | 4:38 pm

  Direct from clarinetist Brenden Guy comes an update on the upcoming Curious Flights concert. It is a fabulous program of little-heard works by Benjamin Britten:A Britten CelebrationTuesday, June 4, 2013 at 8 p.m.San Francisco Conservatory of Music Concert Hall, 50 Oak Street, San FranciscoBritten – Wind…

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  Musical Assumptions

• Tamara Volskaya Plays Mozart's Rondo alla Turca

  17 May 2013 | 7:00 am

  What a thrill it is to hear Tamara Volskaya (and the rest of the Abaca String Band) play this piece! Before today I only knew her as a brilliant woman of mystery from somewhere in Russia, in black and white. Now, a generation later and in full color (I think it's appropriate that she wears red), she continues to be a real inspiration. Here are some more treats:

• Der Fluyten Lust (and amore) hof

  16 May 2013 | 5:56 pm

  In 1980 I came across a reprint of a volume of Jacob van Eyck's Der Fluyten Lust-hof in the Joseph Patelson Music House in New York. I was preparing to leave town (and country) with my modern flute and piccolo, and had really no idea where I was going after the six weeks I was planning to spend in an orchestra in Graz, Austria and an international flute competition I was attending in Budapest. I had only recently been introduced to the idea of jazz improvisation, and I thought that this little book might be a good way to learn to improvise in an idiom other than the Jazz idiom (which seemed…

• The Rite of Spring 100 Years Later: The Ultimate Sacrifice

  8 May 2013 | 1:02 pm

  In some ways I wish I didn't enjoy this animation of the Rite of Spring by Stephen Malinowski so much. The music is all synthetically generated using sounds from the Vienna Symphonic Library. All the rhythms, dynamics, and pitches are almost perfect (in the comments an astute trombone player noted a mistake). There is even a believable violin glissando. There are only a few places where the lack of human imperfection sabotages the excitement (particularly eight minutes into the second part, where all of a sudden everything sounds robotic). The animation, however, is remarkable. Watching the…

• Martin Perry Plays Ives and Binkerd: Ramble After a Recording

  8 May 2013 | 10:15 am

  There is really no way that I can write an unbiased review of Martin Perry's brand new recording on Bridge of the Charles Ives "Concord" Sonata and three of Gordon Binkerd's Essays for the Piano (the first recordings of these pieces), so I will let my biases fly and ramble. The Ives "Concord" Sonata is a work of time and place for me. I spent a good part of my last year in high school listening to John Kirkpatrick's recording, and reading Essays Before A Sonata. It was at Martin Perry's apartment in New York in the early 1980s (he now lives in Maine) that I first met a live person who…

• 44 Bartok Violin Duos played by Sándor Végh and Alberto Lysy (1974)

  5 May 2013 | 10:03 am

  There is French narration for about a minute and a half into the first segment, but then it's just pure Bartok. Part one Part two Part three Part four Part five Part six

• 

  mostly opera

• don giovanni in dull zambello staging

  1 May 2013 | 11:21 am

  Don Giovanni, DVD. Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, 2008. Production: Francesca Zambello. Conductor: Charles Mackerras. Cast: Simon Keenlyside (Don Giovanni), Kyle Ketelsen (Leporello), Joyce DiDonato (Donna Elvira), Ramon Vargas (Don Ottavio), Marina Poplavskaya (Donna Anna), Miah Persson (Zerlina), Robert Gleadow (Masetto), Eric Halfvarson (Commendatore). I have never really

• Calixto Bieito

  27 Apr 2013 | 1:44 pm

  CALIXTO BIEITO Born 1962 is Mirande de Ebro, Spain. Refers to himself as Catalán.  Education: History of art and philology at the University in Barcelona. Afte he worked as an apprentice with ao. Pete Brooks, Old Vic Theatre School (Bristol). Biographical details here. Extensive biography in Spanish here. Directorial approach: Very contemporary, often describing characters living

• Katharina Wagners Meistersinger: A winner on DVD

  25 Apr 2013 | 11:27 am

  Meistersinger. DVD. Bayreuth Festival 2008. Production: Katharina Wagner. Conductor: Sebastian Weigle. Dast: Franz Hawlata (Hans Sachs), Michael Volle (Sixtus Beckmesser), Michaela Kaune (Eva), Klaus Florian Vogt (Walther Von Stolzing), Norbert Ernst (David), Carola Guber (Magdalene), Artur Korn (Veit Pogner), Markus Eiche (Fritz Kothner), Friedemann Röhlig (Ein Nachtwächter). I remember

• Disappointing Meistersinger from Zürich

  23 Apr 2013 | 8:45 am

  Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Zurich Opera 2003. Production: Nikolaus Lehnhoff. Conductor: Franz Welser-Möst. Cast: José Van Dam (Sachs), Peter Seiffer (Walther), Petra-Maria Schnitzer (Eva), Matti Salminen (Pogner), Michael Volle (Beckmesser), Brigitte Pinter (Magdalene), Christoph Strehl (David), Gunther Groissböck (Nightwatchman). It is not the first time, that otherwise quite inventive

• pique dame barcelona dvd

  21 Apr 2013 | 5:34 am

  Pique Dame. DVD. 2010 Liceu Barcelona. Production: Gilbert Deflo. Conductor: Michael Boder. Cast: Misha Didyk (Hermann), Emily Magee (Lisa), Lado Ataneli (Tomsky), Ludovic Tezier (Yeletski), Elena Zaremba (Pauline), Ewa Podles (Countess). Tchaikovsky´s opera about the gambling addictive Hermann, who loves Lisa, but kills her grandmother the Countess in order to gain three secret winning

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  The Well Tempered Blog

• Roli's Seaboard - Very Cool

  28 Apr 2013 | 7:01 pm

  This looks like it would great fun to play. The inventor says, "As a keyboard player, I love the piano and think it's the most logical instrument. But I was always interested in extending its power. I'd play gigs and be slightly envious of the musicians who could bend the pitch and volume and timbre of the notes -- guitar players can be very expressive with just a few notes. You can't do that with a piano." So three years ago, he set out to create one that could"Read more about it Here

• Tune Up

  28 Apr 2013 | 9:34 am

  Just needs a tune up.- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

• Luis Fernando Perez: "Galante" by Granados

  24 Apr 2013 | 10:59 am

  This a wonderful performance of Granados Op5 no. 1 "Galante"... The piece is a real gem and one difficult to pull off well. The score can be found in the March/April issue of International Piano and online here at the  IMSL Archive

• Welt-piano Konzertist

  16 Apr 2013 | 4:54 pm

  "A 1920s-vintage Hugo Popper 'Happy Jazzband' Orchestrion Welt-Piano Konzertist, made in Leipzig, Germany. They were created by adding a 'jazz band percussion effect' top cabinet to a Welt coin piano model. The instrument plays music from 88 note or 88 hole rolls, of an identical size to Arburo rolls, and in addition to the piano, has percussion and trap effects such as muted cymbal, snare drum, triangle and wood block."Check it out:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=453dO6axjp8&sns

• Fazil Say: Suspended Sentence

  15 Apr 2013 | 3:07 pm

  One hardly knows where to start with news of this sort:"Acclaimed Turkish concert pianist Fazil Say was given a suspended jail sentence in Istanbul on Monday for insulting Islam on social-media website Twitter, in a court decision that supporters say protects Islamic values but critics maintain curbs free speech."Read the rest here:Link- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

• 

  an unamplified voice

• The week in NY opera (May 6-12)

  JSU

  6 May 2013 | 1:36 pm

  The end... for a while anyway. As usual (or not), it more or less ends in fire and flood. Metropolitan Opera Valkyrie (M), Giulio Cesare (T/F), Siegfried (W), Dialogues (Th/SE), Twilight (SM) Actually, this 2012-13 Met season ends with the guillotine on Saturday night. Before then, though, is most of Ring Cycle 3.

• The week in NY opera (April 29-May 5)

  JSU

  30 Apr 2013 | 1:36 pm

  This week brings, among other things, the most interesting Fleming program I can remember. Metropolitan Opera Giulio Cesare (T/F), Rigoletto (W), Twilight (Th), Dialogues (SM), Rheingold (SE) The second-to-last week of the season brings the final Rigoletto and the first Dialogues of the Carmelites -- which always revives well, but has sold much better this season than I recall from the past. Ring Cycle 3 starts Saturday night with Greer Grimsley as Wotan; Deborah Voigt and debuting tenor Lars Cleveman will join him in later installments next week. Carnegie Hall Collegiate Chorale Song of…

• The birth of... tragedy

  JSU

  30 Apr 2013 | 4:00 am

  Die Walküre - Metropolitan Opera, 4/26/2013 Dalayman, Serafin, O'Neill, Delavan, Blythe, König / Luisi The plot of Wagner's Ring cycle begins, of course, with Rheingold, but story doesn't enter the picture until the first act of this opera. Perhaps Wagner saw it clearly himself in calling Rheingold the preliminary night, for though he recalled better than most that story first came with divine protagonists, he seemingly found it impossible -- as, in his telling, do they themselves -- to assign his gods and spirits much of the terrible transformative revelation that is story. Instead they…

• The week in NY opera (April 22-28)

  JSU

  22 Apr 2013 | 9:34 am

  Somehow it's Sweden week... Metropolitan Opera Giulio Cesare (M/SM), Twilight (T), Rigoletto (W/SE), Rheingold (Th), Valkyrie (F) Ring Cycle 1 closes Tuesday with its only non-matinee performance before Cycle 2 (the one with Katarina Dalayman) has its first two installments. City Center NYCO La Périchole (T/Th/SE) City Opera-in-exile wraps its Offenbach run and its season. Carnegie Hall Nathan Gunn recital (M) Oratorio Society of NY War Requiem (M) Misoon Ghim recital (M) NY Philharmonic concert (F) Monday: Gunn's recital at Zankel, postponed from February, is all in English. Meanwhile…

• In darkest Vegas

  JSU

  19 Apr 2013 | 2:58 pm

  Rigoletto - Metropolitan Opera, 4/13/2013 Gagnidze, Oropesa, Grigolo, Iori, Herrera / Armiliato Ever seen someone get lost on stage on the way to his curtain call? I hadn't, but tenor Vittorio Grigolo took a wrong turn Saturday evening and ended up trapped behind the car, house left. He backtracked and made it to the front, but then, after the bow, instead of going to his designated lineup spot house right he ran all the way right off the stage. This made for an amusing "wasn't he supposed to be there?" moment for soprano Lisette Oropesa after her bow... Through this hilarity, Grigolo's…

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  On An Overgrown Path

• Classical music can learn a lot from our feline friends

  16 May 2013 | 8:41 am

  This cat lives in the house in Assas that was the home of the legendary harpsichordist Scott Ross from 1984 until he died of an Aids related illness five years later. I took the photos a few days ago on the front porch of the little house in Languedoc, and they may be more than just charming images as Scott Ross’ biographer Michel Proulx tells us that the harpsichord master adopted a black and white female cat while living at Assas. So we could be looking at a hitherto unknown member of a great music lineage?The sleeve notes of Scott Ross’ first LP identified him as a cat lover; in later…

• Noise on the beach

  14 May 2013 | 8:13 am

  Someone is listening to the twentieth century in this tabac on the beach at Argelès-sur-Mer. Which is understandable as twentieth century culture ebbed and flowed in this part of Catalonia - peace activist, Trappist monk and advocate of inter-religious dialogue Thomas Merton was born in Prades, and that town’s most famous resident Pau Casals worked to relieve the hardship of Spanish Republican refugees in the notorious Argelès internment camp shortly before Alma Mahler passed through as she fled from the Nazis, while the life journey of the less fortunate Walter Benjamin ended here. Many…

• Walking the walk with Alma Mahler

  1 May 2013 | 1:18 am

  Today it is different. The steady war of propaganda avalanches loosed by press, radio and film makes it impossible for the thought to hear itself. It wavers, weakens and ends up in resignation. And the worst of it is that the evil is not confined to the "totalitarian" parts of Europe, but that it is spreading and infecting the intellectual life of all nations with a strange anarchy mixed of doubt, discontent and confusion.That extract is from a lecture given in Paris by the the Czech writer Franz Werfel in 1937. The evil that Werfel spoke of forced him, together with his wife Alma - seen…

• Slipping off the harness for a while

  30 Apr 2013 | 5:28 am

  The cowardly belief that a person must stay in one place is too reminiscent of the unquestioning resignation of animals, beasts of burden stupefied by servitude and yet always willing to accept the slipping on of the harness. There are limits to every domain, and laws to govern every organized power. But the vagrant owns the whole vast earth that ends only at the non-existent horizon, and her empire is an intangible one, for her domination and enjoyment of it are things of the spirit.That quote is from the young, gifted and finally trending Isabelle Eberhardt and I am about to slip off the…

• What price Tippett conducting Tippett?

  29 Apr 2013 | 11:29 am

  Tucked away on the BBC Radio 3 blog among the usual thoughts of Chairman Roger is a valuable reminiscence by the BBC Symphony Orchestra's sub-principal viola Phil Hall. In his blog post Phil Hall recalls how in March 1993 the BBCSO recorded Michael Tippet's Second and Fourth Symphonies for broadcast with the 88 year old composer conducting. What the post does not go on to explain is that the symphonies were also issued as the free cover mount CD seen above with BBC Music Magazine in 1995, but, to my knowledge - see correction in comments - have never been released as commercial discs.As I…

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  Naxos New Releases

• GHEDINI, G.F.: Violin and Piano Music (Complete) (Bernecoli, Bianchi) (8.572828)

  30 Apr 2013 | 5:00 pm

  Although Giorgio Federico Ghedini’s proud independence and lack of adherence to any particular school brought him into confl ict with the avant-garde, he is now increasingly recognised as one of the fi nest Italian composers of the 20th century. Marking the 50th anniversary of Ghedini’s death, this recording reveals an aspect of his repertoire yet to be fully appreciated and is a signifi cant addition to the repertoire. Contemporary with those of Respighi, Pizzetti and Alfano, the Violin Sonatas display a real sense of creative freedom and are notable for their structural…

• BRIAN, H.: Symphonies Nos. 22, 23, 24 / English Suite No. 1 (New Russia State Symphony, A. Walker) (8.572833)

  30 Apr 2013 | 5:00 pm

  During the remarkable and prolific period between his 72nd and 92nd birthdays, Havergal Brian wrote no fewer than 27 symphonies. Some seem to fall into groups, such as Nos 22–24, all written within a nine-month period between 1964 and 1965. They all share a concern for march-rhythms, changeable moods and developing variation. No 22 is Brian’s shortest symphony and exemplifies his art in its most compressed, nocturnal form, whereas No 23 offers a more extrovertly scored and expansive scale. No 24 provides the triumphant rejoicing that ends the trilogy. Influenced by Tchaikovsky,…

• MOZART, W.A.: Symphonies (Complete) (11-CD Box-Set) (8.501109)

  30 Apr 2013 | 5:00 pm

  One of the supreme musical geniuses and most loved composers of all time, Mozart wrote prolifically and excelled in every genre to which he turned his hand. His symphonies are among his greatest achievements, a consummate blend of dazzling invention and tender lyricism. This collection spans his entire compositional career from symphonies written at the age of eight to those written in Vienna during the last three years of his life.

• CHILCOTT, B.: Everyone Sang / A Little Jazz Mass / I Share Creation / Aesop's Fables (Wellensian Consort, Beeson, Finch) (8.573158)

  30 Apr 2013 | 5:00 pm

  Described by The Observer as “a contemporary hero of British Choral Music”, Bob Chilcott is one of today’s most widely performed composers of choral music. This programme includes première recordings of favourites such as A Little Jazz Mass, songs and carols on a variety of texts, and the wit, wisdom and drama of Aesop’s Fables in which Chilcott makes musical references to Brahms and Schubert. Winner of the coveted BBC Choir of the Year award in 2010, the Wellensian Consort is one of the United Kingdom’s leading chamber choirs.

• Guitar Recital: Mamedkuliev, Rovshan - ALBENIZ, I. / TURINA, J. / AMIROV, F. / LLOBET SOLES, M. / CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO, M. / TARREGA, F. (8.573179)

  30 Apr 2013 | 5:00 pm

  Rovshan Mamedkuliev was first prize-winner at the prestigious Guitar Foundation of America Competition in 2012, and now stands as one of the world’s most exciting young instrumentalists. He has constructed a programme with several themes. Iberian music is represented by Falla, Albéniz and Turina, and by two of the titans of guitar playing, Miguel Llobet and Francisco Tárrega. He also includes music by his Azerbaijani compatriot, Fikret Amirov, whose folkloricinfluenced music is another thematic link. The kaleidoscopic Just How Funky Are You by Andrew York and Leo…

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  The Naxos Blog

• May, the force, be with you

  Naxos

  17 May 2013 | 1:06 am

  Spring is in the air, or at least that’s what the calendar tells us; there are plenty of people in the northern hemisphere who have been looking at mercury levels that don’t corroborate the fact that winter is supposed to be over. The turning of the seasons has given many composers a handy framework for new compositions. Vivaldi’s set of four violin concertos needs no introduction (Naxos 8.550056). They set the trend for others to follow: the formula can be found, for example, in Glazunov’s ballet music (Marco Polo 8.223136), Tchaikovsky’s suite for piano (Naxos 8.550233), Haydn’s…

• From Florence to Bayreuth

  Naxos

  9 May 2013 | 4:42 pm

  While it’s relatively easy to raise a smile with music that accompanies an amusing song or a comic dance, pieces that have no visual or literary add-ons rarely succeed in getting the giggles going. The finale of Haydn’s Joke string quartet (Naxos 8.550788) can raise a smile, at least on first hearing; similarly, those quirky moments in the scherzo from Beethoven’s Piano Sonata Op. 106, Hammerklavier (Idil Biret Archive 8.571269). After that, my list of examples thins out pretty quickly, having never been a fan of Leopold’s Mozart’s Toy Symphony. A number of people on…

• Podcast: Shostakovich Symphony No 7 ‘Leningrad’

  Naxos-FC

  2 May 2013 | 8:24 pm

  Vasily Petrenko’s Award-winning survey of the Shostakovich symphonies with the RLPO, now reaches the eighth instalment with the release of the epic ‘Leningrad’ Symphony. Here he talks to Edward Seckerson about the work. Album details… Catalogue No.: 8.573057  

• Troubles, brewing

  Naxos

  2 May 2013 | 9:00 am

  This month sees the much awaited release of the next installment in the cycle of Shostakovich symphonies recorded by Vasily Petrenko and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (Naxos 8.573057). The historical baggage carried by the Seventh Symphony, Leningrad, is well documented; the atmosphere of Stalinist repression and the horror of Russia’s war against Hitler ride the music in an array of emotions. The work was an inspiration to those who were trapped in the appalling conditions of the German siege against Leningrad that ran from 1941 to 1944. That spirit of defiance has now made…

• Heard it all before?

  Naxos

  26 Apr 2013 | 2:18 am

  April 26 is World Intellectual Property Day, a good moment to reflect on the issue of people pinching musical ideas from other composers. Whilst imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, plagiarism isn’t. On the whole, however, classical musicians seem to have been rather well behaved on the subject. Rosemary Brown was an English medium and near-novice musician who famously claimed to have communicated with the spirits of composers such as Liszt, Brahms and Chopin in the 1960s. She was suspected by some of pilfering and recycling their extant ideas when she produced a stream of…

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  Classical CD Reviews

• Brahms Symphony No.1 Celibidache

  Gavin Dixon

  1 May 2013 | 3:26 am

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• Denisov: Au plus haut des cieux, Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain

  Gavin Dixon

  15 Apr 2013 | 5:13 am

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• Bruckner Symphony No. 7 Runnicles BBC SSO

  Gavin Dixon

  29 Mar 2013 | 7:34 am

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• Gál Symphony No.2 Schumann Symphony No.4 Kenneth Woods

  Gavin Dixon

  21 Mar 2013 | 9:18 am

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• Sandra Mogensen: Grieg Piano Music Vol. 3

  Gavin Dixon

  18 Mar 2013 | 3:49 am

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  Classical CD Reviews

• Brahms Symphony No.1 Celibidache

  1 May 2013 | 3:26 am

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• Denisov: Au plus haut des cieux, Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain

  15 Apr 2013 | 5:13 am

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• Bruckner Symphony No. 7 Runnicles BBC SSO

  29 Mar 2013 | 7:34 am

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• Gál Symphony No.2 Schumann Symphony No.4 Kenneth Woods

  21 Mar 2013 | 9:18 am

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• Sandra Mogensen: Grieg Piano Music Vol. 3

  18 Mar 2013 | 3:49 am

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  The Classical Beat

• Weekend roundup: so many premieres, so little time.

  Anne Midgette

  23 Apr 2013 | 8:47 pm

  As so often happens these days in Washington, this weekend saw a veritable cornucopia of performances — including no fewer than three world premieres, and one piece presented the day after its world premiere. The world premieres were John Tavener’s “Three Hymns of George Herbert” from the City Choir of Washington and Shenandoah Conservatory Choir; Donald Crockett’s “Dawn Dance” from the 21st Century Consort, and Urban Arias’s presentation of the opera “Paul’s Case,” by Gregory Spears. And “Gabriel’s Guide to the 48 States,” which Gabriel Kahane wrote for the…

• Of revivals and rebirths: Tavener in DC, Aspern Papers in Dallas

  Anne Midgette

  19 Apr 2013 | 12:42 pm

  A few years ago, Sir John Tavener, the eminent choral composer, was so sick he thought he might never write again. And Robert Shafer, the choral conductor, was fired from his job and thought his conducting career might be over. On Sunday, Shafer and his City Choir of Washington, a new arrival in a city with plenty of choruses, will present a Tavener world premiere at Washington National Cathedral-- in the presence of the composer. And it all happened thanks to a public-policy think tank. Only in Washington. Read the full story here — tickets are still available. Read full article…

• Of Pollini and Pulitzers.

  Anne Midgette

  16 Apr 2013 | 8:32 am

  There were two big concerts for Washington on Sunday. At Strathmore Maurizio Pollini, one of the great pianists, was a little hard-edged in Chopin but gave Debussy room to blossom, according to critic Stephen Brookes. And at the National Presbyterian Church, Scott Tucker made his official debut as Norman Scribner’s successor as the artistic director of the Choral Arts Society; in her review, Cecelia Porter called him an “ardent, driven champion.” Read full article >>    

• Sir Colin Davis, 1927-2013.

  Anne Midgette

  16 Apr 2013 | 8:06 am

  RIP, Sir Colin Davis. He was too urbane to be widely considered a maverick, but his unorthodoxy is precisely what led to his particular interests and particular strengths, and to his championing some composers who occupy their own slightly offbeat niches in the mainstream classical music canon: Berlioz, Sibelius, Tippett. But he was also a consummate Mozartean. My obituary for the Washington Post is here, but of necessity does not include personal reminiscences of the concerts I heard him lead with the Bavarian Radio Orchestra during the years I lived in in Munich. Nor did I mention the…

• WPAS, Vocal Arts DC announce 2013-14

  Anne Midgette

  15 Apr 2013 | 9:41 am

  The last season announcements are coming in. The Washington Performing Arts Society has laid out a younger, fresher, perhaps slightly leaner but also slightly more diverse season for 2013-14 — a season much of which was effectively planned in the interim period between the departure of the group’s former president and CEO, Neale Perl, and the arrival of his successor, Jenny Bilfield. Read full article >>    

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  Rosebrook Classical

• New Rosebrook Classical Video – Sean Hickey Concertos

  Rosebrook Classical

  17 May 2013 | 1:21 pm

  We’ve got an all-new video creation for Delos Productions featuring their latest release, Sean Hickey Concertos. With such fun and ...continue

• Our New Online Digs

  Rosebrook Classical

  15 May 2013 | 1:01 pm

  Since we have an all-new look to our site, we thought we’d give you a look into some of the ...continue

• Digital Music News Reports Shazam Accounts for 7.2 Percent of Downloads

  Rosebrook Classical

  10 May 2013 | 10:09 am

  Wayyyyy back in the Fall of 2011, we started talking about the Shazam app. Well Today, Digital Music News is ...continue

• Toccata New Release a Record of the Month

  Rosebrook Classical

  9 May 2013 | 1:17 pm

  New Rosebrook Classical record label client Toccata Classics recently released a premiere recording of the original score of incidental music ...continue

• We’ve got a new look!

  Rosebrook Classical

  9 May 2013 | 10:33 am

  If you’ve been to our site in the past year or two, you’ll notice that things are looking a little ...continue

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  I CARE IF YOU LISTEN

• 5 questions to Donnacha Dennehy (composer, artistic director of Crash Ensemble)

  Rob Wendt

  16 May 2013 | 10:00 am

  Until I heard Alarm Will Sound perform scenes from The Hunger, your work-in-progress about the Great Irish Famine of 1845-1852, my idea of traditional Irish music was the Clancy Brothers! The sean-nós (“old style”) recordings you incorporate are at once uplifting and haunting, but Rachel Calloway’s rendition of Annals of the Famine had me a little choked up. How did you go about setting such an unusual and emotion-laden source of text?The Hunger will ultimately be an evening-length piece concerning itself with the topic of the Great Famine in Ireland in the 19th century. I’m not…

• Corigliano Stimulates the Mind in Fulcrum Point’s “Altered States”

  Sam Zelitch

  16 May 2013 | 4:30 am

  Movie composer John Williams turned 81 in February, and no orchestra stepped up to celebrate the passing of his perfect nine square birthday. Perhaps they were all exhausted by the  Tanglewood celebration of his 80th last year. Williams may be America’s most successful movie composer; his music revels in the film’s narrative, loudly commenting on it, and telling the audience how to feel. But he hardly gives any deference to the thinking mind. At the other end of the genre, where artists come from outside of Hollywood and work within stifling budgets, a more challenging creative…

• Dan Visconti: Lonesome Roads on Bridge Records

  Andrew Lee

  15 May 2013 | 4:30 am

  My first encounter with Dan Visconti’s music was courtesy of the Aeolus Quartet and their debut album, Many-Sided Music. Visconti’s Black Bend,which opens that CD, is a fantastic piece, at once evocative, virtuosic, and charming. Since my initial introduction a year ago, Visconti’s name seems to have become increasingly prevalent, and his latest award, the 2013-14 Samuel Barber Rome Prize, will only accelerate that trend. I was most excited, then, to receive the first full-length disc of his music, Lonesome Roads, from Bridge Records, and I am happy to report that it does…

• Eve Egoyan Celebrates Ann Southam at Glenn Gould Studio

  Justin Rito

  14 May 2013 | 4:30 am

  To celebrate the release of 5, a new album of posthumously discovered works by Ann Southam, the acclaimed pianist Eve Egoyan performed a solo recital at the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto, Ontario, on Friday, April 19, 2013. The concert featured one work from the new album, Returnings II, as well as works by Taylan Susam, Piers Hellawell, Michael Finnissy, and Claude Vivier.Pianist Eve Egoyan (photo credit: David Rokeby)The repertory Egoyan chose is a testament to her confidence as a performer. Susam’s three Nocturnes were extremely similar in character and language: each featured a single…

• This week: concerts in New York (May 13 – May 19, 2013)

  Sam Reising

  13 May 2013 | 4:30 am

  New York Festival of Song (NYFOS) 25th Anniversary CelebrationThe program will feature South American songs (“Odeon” by Nazareth, “Pra que discutir com Madame” by Haroldo Barbosa, “Carinhoso” by Pixinguinha); American popular song (“I’m Going to Make You Beautiful” by Maltby and Shire, “Just Like a Man” by Vernon Duke); and vocal music by Spanish, Russian, and German composers, ranging from Montsalvatge to Kurt Weill.Monday, May 13 at 7:30 PM Tickets: $25 DiMenna Center for Classical Music 450 West 37th Street between 9th and…

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  Alberti Publishing

• Corciolli Sheet Music Available for Download

  adam

  29 Apr 2013 | 11:18 pm

  Brazilian composer, producer, and keyboardist Corciolli’s piano sheet music is available on Alberti Publishing’s new store.  Click here to see free samples.   Now available are individual piano solos from his sheet music book, Corciolli Piano Solos.  The entire album is also available for download. Corciolli Piano Album >>

• Cash is Good. Always Good.

  adam

  7 Apr 2013 | 11:02 pm

  Alberti Publishing is looking for affiliates.  Commissions start at 20%.  Ads and links may be found at Wigify, an affiliate store. For those unfamiliar with the web lingo of the day, affiliates are blog users, Facebook addicts, and web site owners who advertise a product and are compensated in return. Here’s how it works: affiliates post an ad or link to a particular web site. When customers click on the ad and ultimately make a purchase, sophisticated tracking software keeps track of dollars spent. Affiliates receive a commission on those sales, often obtaining payment via check or…

• Songs for Spring

  adam

  29 Mar 2013 | 1:30 pm

• Thank you, Thomas Edison

  adam

  25 Oct 2012 | 7:03 pm

  Edison's hand-crank phonograph; this one an 1879 model “Thomas Edison, the father of today’s Classical Music.”  Sounds funny, but considering he built the first-ever classical recording device, it suddenly sounds plausible.  1878 was the year, and a recording was made on Edison’s phonograph maker.  Fox News reports, “The recording opens with a 23-second cornet solo of an unidentified song, followed by a man’s voice reciting ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ and ‘Old Mother Hubbard.’ The man laughs at two spots during the recording,…

• Music Educator’s Marketplace carries The Right Notes

  adam

  31 Jul 2012 | 5:58 pm

  Music Educator’s Marketplace (MEM) has just signed a deal with Alberti Publishing to carry The Right Notes music history assignment book by Adam and Anna Bendorf.  MEM has carved a niche in the music education market by selling unique, high-quality music products through their online store and other sales channels. Starting in 1998 as a cooperative venture of six music teachers, the store now boasts nearly 40 marketers with over 200 products.  The Right Notes will be featured in MEM’s catalog and will be included in its Store-in-a-Box service.  MEM will also make the book…

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  Artiden

• How to Practice Less and Get More Done

  Grace Miles

  10 May 2013 | 9:57 am

  Ever feel like there’s just so much music to practice? Or do your students not practice piano? We’re so hung up on practicing that we forget WHY we practice sometimes– to improve. That’s why most practicing is a waste of time. No joke. I remember when I’d sit at the piano, “practicing” for hours. At one point, my teacher told me that I need to put in at least 5 hours of practice each day. I was a highschool student and I liked staying near the top of my class. Needless to say, life was stressful and blurry. Until I found out that most of what I did at the piano…

• Want a Creative Marketing Makeover While You Relax?

  Grace Miles

  2 May 2013 | 6:35 pm

  Feel like there’s so much to do with so little time? Want to look professional without spending tons of time and effort? Read on and you can win something that’ll help you out tons. I’ll Makeover Your Designs… Interested? Instead of asking for a million presents, I’d like to thank y’all for supporting me and being part of my world… I want to give you a professional makeover! (I’m not touching your hair– I’m talking professional.) The Professional Makeover includes: A professional, custom-designed logo that suits you (and your vibe) A new post…

• Why We Don’t Choose Wisely (Or, Why the UFO Never Came)

  Grace Miles

  29 Apr 2013 | 7:18 pm

  This is about a UFO, magical animals, and why we don’t choose wisely. Remember the Chronicles of Narnia? Narnia is a place with magical, talking creatures. We get to Narnia through a wardrobe. In one part, four kids find Narnia. The kids bring their Uncle Andrew to Narnia, but he can’t hear the animals talk… He convinced himself that they don’t talk. Aslan explains it with something like: “People believe what they want to believe.” And it’s one of the most profound things ever (double awesome coming from a lion– Aslan is a really big lion) because it describes how…

• When People Find Out What I “Do”

  Grace Miles

  24 Apr 2013 | 6:40 pm

  Oh, joy! I’ve got a story to tell you. It’s about something that always happens. This is dedicated to everyone who teaches. So this is me: Yes, I got a haircut! In fact, I’ve had three different hairstyles in the past year. One of my best friends didn’t recognize me when we were meeting up. I look the same to me; I didn’t dye my hair or go crazy with anything. But to be fair, we were in a crowded, rainy place, and I was holding an umbrella. This is Emma: Emma is my new friend. We met at an event in town. She’s really nice; we started chatting and it was all…

• What to Do When Your Fingers Won’t Listen

  Grace Miles

  5 Apr 2013 | 11:27 am

  Sometimes, my fingers follow the notes but don’t seem to end up at the right places–they cross over and jump around all over the place and it just doesn’t feel right. How do I find the correct fingering so playing is easier (and I play the right way)? - Vivianne Hey Vivianne– sounds like your fingers are out of control! This is common; we just need to roll it around a little, so hang on tight. It’s great that you’re stepping up and admitting that this is something you’re struggling with. Most people would just stumble over the same thing over and…

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  A place for instrumental minimalism

• Steve Reich: Phases, Patterns and Tapes

  Javier Lopez

  19 May 2013 | 9:10 am

  Steve Reich was born in New York on October 1936 and is one of the pioneering composers of American minimalist music along with La Monte Young, Terry Riley and Philip Glass. His work has influenced many composers, artists and music producers. His music often features a steady pulse and the repetition of a relatively small amount of melodic material. Some of his works have been remixed by electronic musicians.After having studied music and composition, Reich worked with the San Francisco Tape Music Center, a group founded in 1962 to study and perform with tape music, with Terry Riley and…

• The introspective sound of Ludovico Einaudi

  Javier Lopez

  3 Feb 2013 | 8:53 am

  Pianist and composer Ludovico Einaudi was born on 1955 in Turin, Italy. His music is mainly contemporary classical, with elements derived from popular music, and has been described as minimalist, ambient, introspective and meditative. He has released several albums and has composed music for ballet, opera and films.The album Le onde (1996) was his first real work as a soloist, where Einaudi performed a cycle of ballades on piano, inspired by Virginia Woolf's novel The Waves. Some pieces from this album were included in the movie Aprile (1998) by Nanni Moretti.In Eden Roc (1999) Einaudi…

• The spiritual minimalism of Terry Riley

  Javier Lopez

  18 Nov 2012 | 12:44 pm

  Terry Riley was born in California on June 1935 and was a pioneer of the American minimalist music movement in the 1960s. He was influenced by the music of John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen, and also by jazz musicians like John Coltrane and Miles Davis, but his most influential teacher was the Indian vocal master Pandit Pran Nath, who also taught La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela.Riley was involved in the experimental San Francisco Tape Music Center, a group founded in 1962 to study and perform with tape music, working with Steve Reich among others. The Gift (1963) was an early tape loop…

• La Monte Young, the first minimalist composer

  Javier Lopez

  16 Sep 2012 | 2:17 pm

  La Monte Thornton Young was born on October 1935 in the state of Idaho, and is generally recognized as the first minimalist composer. Along with Steve Reich, Terry Riley and Philip Glass, he was a major contributor to the emergence of American minimalist music, and is especially known for his development of drone music and his lengthy works conceived as "having no beginning and no end", existing before and after any particular performance.In his childhood Young was fascinated by continuous environmental sounds, particularly those of motors, power plants and telephone poles. The dream chord…

• Stockhausen, pioneer of electronic music

  Javier Lopez

  27 Aug 2012 | 12:08 pm

  German composer Karlheinz Stockhausen was born on August 1928 and has been acknowledged as one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music. He is known for his pioneering work in electronic music and his use of spatiality and aleatory (controlled chance) in serial composition. His extensive work includes electronic music, solo instruments pieces, chamber music, choral and orchestral music and opera. In this article I will only mention a few of his most notable works.Stockhausen started writing his series of nineteen Klavierstücke (Piano Pieces) in 1952 as a set of four small pieces, and…

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  Pierre-Arnaud Dablemont, pianist

• Practice more efficiently and avoid pain

  Pierre-Arnaud

  15 May 2013 | 4:00 am

  As a musician, you always try to improve your practice routines and become more efficient. In fact, we are actually lazy to a point that we constantly try to find ways to practice less and do more. When I was teaching I used to say to my students they have to picture pianists as the laziest people in the world: we try to spend as less time as possible practicing and one of our basic goal is to reduce our energy consumption while playing and do as less gestures as possible. I have to say that I’ve been very creative in this laziness for many years! A couple of weeks back, someone (I’m so…

• Introducing Pierre-Arnaud Dablemont available in music stores

  Pierre-Arnaud

  30 Apr 2013 | 2:52 am

  Initially released in July 2012, Introducing Pierre-Arnaud Dablemont, the pianist’s debut album, has been available for free for 8 months. The first CD of the pianist immediately met with popular and critical acclaim: Between July 15, 2012 and April 15, 2013, the album has been streamed more than 3500 times through http://introducing.pierre-arnaud-dablemont.com and downloaded more than a thousand times in FLAC or MP3. Introducing Pierre-Arnaud Dablemont will not be available for free anymore from April 30, 2013, but will be available in all major online music stores like iTunes, Amazon MP3,…

• Top 10 ways to help musicians without spending a dime

  Pierre-Arnaud

  24 Apr 2013 | 4:00 am

  Lately I saw a lot of people who seem to forget they can help musicians without putting money on the table. Of course we need money to realize our projects but if you don’t have cash it does’t mean you can’t help us tremendously. Never assume we get plenty of help: most of the time we get none and end up doing everything by ourselves, running in every direction and forced to drop lots of stunning projects because of a cruel lack of time. But, with a little help from you, we could easily gain a lot of time. Here are 10 ideas how to help a musician, even if you’re completely…

• The Radiohead complex

  Pierre-Arnaud

  10 Apr 2013 | 4:00 am

  You probably know that I am writing a lot these days. The cool thing with long writings is that you have to tidy up your thoughts and make them (at least look) coherent. It involves digging into my past and understanding whatever positions I could have taken in the last 15 years to properly connect the dots between my ideas. And this is the point where I am supposed to give you the lecture about me changing over the years and being a better person and artist. Guess what? I’m not going to give you this lecture at all. Let’s start from the beginning. I’ve always loved Radiohead. I…

• Music can’t be free

  Pierre-Arnaud

  2 Apr 2013 | 4:00 am

  When I released Introducing Pierre-Arnaud Dablemont for free in July last year, I already knew a free strategy wouldn’t last forever, even if I secretly hoped people would be generous enough to allow me to make the second album free too. Although everyone praised the release, my secret dream didn’t happen, so back to the plan A. The free strategy had a primary goal: gaining traction in a complicated market. But recording an album, as romantic as it seems, always ends up in the same way: paying the bills. The free strategy was a huge financial effort for me: although a small…