Author Archive
On Beethoven’s Birthday
Happy Beethovenmas Sony readers! Today we celebrate the maestro’s 239th with, of course some Bach.
Ok, hear me out. Really.
Bach, though probably not as known to Beethoven as he was to the later romantics (it took Mendelssohn to officially “rediscover” the great baroque master), it is the kind of thing he would [...]
Memories
Music, like perfume, can be a straight shunt into the
nervous system, a slamming retour of things past, a quick connecting point to
otherwise lost time. On music, one can
alight on one’s past in the most general and yet most specifically atavistic
way.
In pondering what to write: trying to hear, in my minds ear,
some pieces within the vast [...]
Anniversary Fever
The erudite and comprehensive liner notes for the Masterworks Broadway 50th Anniversary Edition of The Sound of Music open with the arresting quote: “Audrey Hepburn as Maria von Trapp?” Hooked me, that’s for sure. The notes detail how the composition of the show proceeded, from Paramount Pictures seeking to make a feature film [...]
Nine is Quite Literally in Vogue
Maury Yeston is a real composer, equally invested in writing for the Broadway Stage and his own version of the concert hall, as anyone who has ever heard his complex, haunting song cycle December Songs can attest. He wrote the musicals Titanic (nothing to do with the movie), Grand Hotel (everything to do with [...]
Daniel Taylor, Absolutely Brilliant
t is raining. It is cold. I am woefully behind on everything I have to do because the cleaning of the office slotted to take just under three hours (in my febrile mind) took most of the weekend (though honestly, you should see it in here…). I’m tired, worn down, not looking [...]
More on Beethoven (with Help from Murray Perahia)
So I’ve been really obsessed with listening to Rudolf Serkin’s Essential (like I said blogs ago, I never really went in for best-of’s, being something of a snob, but now I’m convinced they are not only useful and instructive but actually small works of beauty on their own when done properly, giving an overview on [...]
Serkin in the “Moonlight”
Is it me, or does Rudolf Serkin’s recording of the first movement of the Opus 27 “Moonlight Sonata” (which I’ve got on The Essential Rudolf Serkin) really really slow down to the end, like a watch winding down, in a way out Mahler-ing Mahler? I listened to it several times and even tried to [...]
You Never Forget your First Tchaikovsky.
Or at least, I probably won’t. It was, of course, The Nutcracker, that sinister, imaginative, and like completely, totally weird piece which seems not so much composed as etched on the consciousness of the Western World. One of those pieces, like Beethoven’s Fifth or Eine Kleine Nachtmusik that belongs to the prefecture of [...]
I Heart Michael Nyman
Yes, I was thrilled to listen to Saxophonist Amy Dickson’s record because it included not only her arrangement of both Phillip Glass’ Violin Concerto and John Taverner’s The Protecting Veil (originally for cello) but especially Michael Nyman’s Where the Bee Dances, a single movement concerto for soprano saxophone and orchestra. Now I have to [...]
Joshua Bell At Home With Friends
Yes, it’s finally out, superstar violinist Josh Bell’s new record, At Home With Friends which includes “duets” with some of his pals—and when you are a major world-over music star, your friends are some heavy hitters. Apparently Bell is known for having “musicales” in his Manhattan living room, and this record is the result. [...]