Beethoven pure and simple
We have Toscanini's Beethoven, Furtwängler's Beethoven, Karajan's Beethoven, Kleiber's Beethoven, and, if you must, Norrington's Beethoven. But where is Beethoven's Beethoven? My nomination for...
View ArticleClassical Music Almanac from the #Classical Stream
Tuesday, January 19, 2016 You can listen to the Classical Music Almanac Podcast Daily here. Birthdays Simon Rattle Happy 61st birthday Simon Rattle! He rose to international prominence during the 1980s...
View ArticleWer älter wird, der träumt
On this day in 1909 the Richard Strauss/Hugo von Hofmannsthal opera Elektra premiered in Dresden. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WrQSvlRZjek On this day in 1817 Rossini’s La Cenerentola premiered in...
View ArticleClassical Music Almanac from the #Classical Stream
Monday, January 25, 2016 You can listen to the Classical Music Almanac Podcast Daily here. Birthdays Wilhelm Furtwängler In 1886 Wilhelm Furtwängler was born in Berlin. He is considered to be one of...
View ArticleDeath of ‘greatest’ modern flute player
Aurèle Nicolet, the Swiss flautist, died yesterday in Switzerland, a week after his 90th birthday. He was among the foremost 20th century champions of new music for the flute. Among the composers who...
View Article"Mathis der Maler", Symphony by Paul Hindemith - Analysis
The following is a scholarly paper I wrote during my graduate studies at the New York University in the Fall of 2010, a requirement for professor Justin Dello Joio’s class “Compositional Process in the...
View ArticleOut of the past
Imperfect sound is often the price of admission with historical recordings. A unique grouping of artists or particularly compelling performance from the past should make the scratches, distortion and...
View ArticleSherman Throws Gravity Waves and Curveballs
Gravity abhors straight lines Russell Sherman’s eagerly awaited annual faculty recital on April 3rd at Jordan Hall will feature works long connected with him: Schoenberg’s Pieces (3) for Piano, Op....
View ArticleÂm nhạc cổ điển: để không bị lãng quên
Đã đến lúc cần phải ngừng lại những ánh mắt ngạc nhiên, những nụ cười mỉa mai và những cái nhún vai ơ hờ dành cho nhạc cổ điển để tìm đến những người chưa từng có cơ hội trải nghiệm những loại hình...
View ArticleBefore Nadia Boulanger, There Was Josef Rheinberger
On Discoveries from the Fleisher Collection , Saturday, April 2, 5-6 p.m. George Whitefield Chadwick (1854–1931): Melpomene (1887) Horatio Parker (1863–1919): Vathek (1903) Josef Rheinberger...
View ArticleStrong medicine
There are two approaches to learning: Some prefer to take small steps and try out the simplest and easiest first; others like to dive headfirst into the deep end of the pool. When it comes to...
View ArticleLebrecht Weekly - Deutsche Grammophon: The Mono Era, 1948-57 (51-CD Box Set)
3/5 stars Slower even than one-horse EMI, Deutsche Grammophon was the last label of consequence to adopt stereo recording in the late 1950s. Its circumspection is, in retrospect, comprehensible. In...
View ArticleMozart in Morocco
My photos show players from L'Orchestre Philharmonique du Maroc performing al fresco in the medina at Essaouira, Morocco last weekend as part of the annual Printemps Musical Des Alizés festival. The...
View ArticleLebrecht Weekly - Beethoven: Symphonies 4 and 5 (Sony)
Rating: 4/5 stars In May 2015, visibly frail, the august Nikolaus Harnoncourt stood before his Concentus Musicus Wien and directed two Beethoven symphonies in a reading that followed closely what the...
View ArticleA very little night music
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of its Mostly Mozart Festival, Lincoln Center commissioned British theater artist Netia Jones to create The Illuminated Heart, a willy-nilly, thoroughly conventional...
View ArticleThe chamber music of a great conductor
From the Lebrecht Album of the Week: The most successful and elusive of Gustav Mahler’s inner circle, Bruno Walter was ranked among the best conductors of his time, respected by the jealous and...
View ArticleNew technology must not supplant old technology
A comment on my post Should we change the way classical audiences listen? by MarkAMeldon extolling the virtues of pre-stereo recordings of Bruno Walter, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Hans Knappertsbusch and...
View ArticleBarenboim/Kaufmann, an anticlimax closing the Festival
This is a sad review, for after calling the preceding concert (Barenboim/Argerich/WEDO) the event of the year, readers may expect a rather enthusiastic response to the last session of the Festival. But...
View ArticleJust in: Berlin Philharmonic mourn influential cellist
Eberhard Finke, one of the founding members of 12 cellos of the Berlin Philharmonic, has died aged 96. He joined the orchestra under Wilhelm Furtwängler in 1950 and played until 1985, when he retired....
View ArticleGeorge Steiner: Nothing frightens me more than the removal of music from the...
From a speech in the Concertgebouw by the ever-relevant philosopher, referencing Aristotle and Furtwängler: (c) Norman Lebrecht - Slipped disc All the news about classical music and opera in press and...
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