Aug 28, 2008
French & Spanish Masters
Coming Soon
Romanticism and Reaction: Rachmaninov and Prokofiev
The two Sergeis: giant men, giant pianists, and giant composers whose music has not always gotten the respect it deserves.
The two Sergeis: giant men, giant pianists, and giant composers whose music has not always gotten the respect it deserves.
American Masters
American classical music has evolved its own heterogeneous identity, characterized by energy and optimism – rom its Eurocentric beginnings, exemplified by composers such as MacDowell and Griffes, through the encounters of Americans abroad with such musicians as Boulanger and Stravinsky
American classical music has evolved its own heterogeneous identity, characterized by energy and optimism – rom its Eurocentric beginnings, exemplified by composers such as MacDowell and Griffes, through the encounters of Americans abroad with such musicians as Boulanger and Stravinsky
Lovers of French opera don’t have to study learned tomes to find out about distant or exotic locales and ancient history. We take our ease sure in the knowledge that we got it all covered simply by listening to Meyerbeer’s Le Prophete, Les Hugenots, and L’Africaine, Massanet’s Esclarmonde, Herodiade, and Thais, Lalo’s Le Roi D’Ys, Dukas’s Ariane et Barbe Bleu, and today’s subject, Albert Roussel’s Padmavati, (completed shortly after WW1).
Jun 20, 2008, 2:19am
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Conservatory Whippersnappers Shouldn't Be Allowed To Use Percussion
I’d like to retract those cracks I made in 2008 concerning Berlioz’s Harold in Italy: while the violist may as well join the section, and while the work is disconcertingly not a concerto, it is a strangely sympathetic symphony. Cynicism vies with sincerity, the satanic vies with the sublime, the self-absorbed vies with the universal, the bucolic vies with the refined, this is a work divided against itself.
Jun 8, 2008, 2:46pm
3 comment(s) on this page.
I’d like to retract those cracks I made in 2008 concerning Berlioz’s Harold in Italy: while the violist may as well join the section, and while the work is disconcertingly not a concerto, it is a strangely sympathetic symphony. Cynicism vies with sincerity, the satanic vies with the sublime, the self-absorbed vies with the universal, the bucolic vies with the refined, this is a work divided against itself.
Jun 8, 2008, 2:46pm
3 comment(s) on this page.
Thumbing through the Groves indices of Haydn’s works (massive indices; if Haydn did nothing but write quickly and constantly, without sleeping or eating or performing it would still be mind-boggling production, even not counting the dozens of spuriously attributed works) it occurred to me that my comment about the relative merits of Haydn’s and Mozart’s “functional” music might not be accurate.
May 28, 2008, 2:38pm
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A note on class planning and syllabi: I’m gonna say it flat out: Although students need to know where a class is going, broadly, and need advance guidance to books and pieces to be discussed, I believe rigid advance planning and meticulous adherence to a syllabus is a false virtue, and doesn’t even show particularly good organization. A teacher who cares about his subject is always learning, studying, and trying new things, even within a class.
May 27, 2008, 1:52pm
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