Classical Music

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 06:13pm

Tags: Music, Recordings (CD, DVD, Video)

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 05:55pm

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 11:46am

November 27-29ADDINSELL Prelude from Blithe Spirit'ARNOLD Excerpts from The Bridge on the River Kwai'JARRE Excerpts from A Passage to IndiaBAX Three Pieces from Oliver TwistJARRE Excerpts from Dr. ZhivagoJARRE Excerpts from Lawrence of Arabia----INTERMISSION----WILLIAMS The Magic of Harry PotterHolland Taylor, NarratorWILLIAMS Flying Theme from E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (encore)WILLIAM[...]

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 11:21am

A.C. Douglas set forth a mini rant after listening to a maximal amount of minimalism on WQXR Q2. Too much of anything (especially repetition) can get on anyone's nerves. Staying in the same key for too long can make a few minutes seem like an eternity. Minimalism is a good tool for messing with our sense of time, kind of like repetitive patterns used in decorating can mess with our sense o[...]

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 06:42am

The Russian Rumbler recently sang in Krasnoyarsk and wasn't afraid to get sartorially frisky.

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 06:30am

I had a fascinating conversation with a colleague the other week that started off when she asked the following question: Which social media services should [our organization] jump into first? Although answering a question with a question is a bit cagey, my response was Why start with more than one? Following the latest Orchestra Website Review, it was hard not to notice that a number of orchestras[...]

Tags: Featured, New Media, twitter

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 05:08am

I was at the QEH last night for the London première of Richard Barrett’s Mesopotamia; I may have more to say on this in the next day or two. In the meantime, my article on the piece has just this morning been published in INTO, the magazine of Sound and Music: In March 2003, as a US-led coalition embarked on the invasion of Iraq, Richard Barrett was beginning work on a new orchest[...]

Tags: Music, Richard Barrett

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 04:10am

The sad stuff involves my two pieces in the Indy this week - a look at Chopin's thoroughly nasty side out today, and a review of the worst piano recital I've heard this year, out yesterday. The cheering stuff involves two great concerts coming up tomorrow in London and Leeds, and a wonderful Friday Historical video showing Cziffra playing Liszt's Gnomenreigen. Personally I'm of[...]

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 02:35am

Our own Gualtier told tales and named names, in great detail, after Monday’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann dress rehearsal. Squirrel was at the premiere, and had a grand old time. Bartlett Sher’s production lovingly displays the many dimensions of Offenbach’s inspired and charming opera.  With perfect comedic timing, clarity of action, and real d[...]

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 02:35am

Our own Gualtier told tales and named names, in great detail, after Monday’s Les Contes d’Hoffmann dress rehearsal. Squirrel was at the premiere, and had a grand old time. Bartlett Sher’s production lovingly displays the many dimensions of Offenbach’s inspired and charming opera.  With perfect comedic timing, clarity of action, and real d[...]

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 12:53am

I had a nice chat with long-time Madison music and arts critic and reporter Jakob Stockinger today, which has been posted on his excellent blog, The Well Tempered Ear. Jake’s blog is a fantastic musical resource for the city, and Madison is very lucky to have someone with such vast professional experience writing it at a time when papers are offering less and less coverage of the arts. Here&[...]

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 12:42am

In this corner, we've got A.C. Douglas making the entirely arbitrary claim that a work must have a "coherent, sustained musical narrative" in order to be music.Note: what he means is, he has to be able to perceive and understand the musical narrative. The composers he dismisses out of hand this week are Cage, Babbitt, Stockhausen, Glass, Reich, and Reilly, a fascinating assortment o[...]

Friday, December 4th, 2009 at 12:39am

Interestingly, what we know as the “Ruckert Lieder” by Mahler were conceived as individual songs, rather than as a cycle like the Kindertotenlieder or the Lieder Eines Fahrenden Gesellen. Mahler orchestrated four out of the five songs, which he conducted once on a concert with a chamber orchestra in Vienna- Liebst du um Schoenheit was orchestrated in 1911 by Max Puttman. As a result, w[...]

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 10:55pm

Several days after posting our mini-rant, "Manifesto (A Mini-Rant)", trashing the "music" of composers Steve Reich and Terry Riley (and, glancingly, the non-opera music of...

Tags: Cultural Commentary, Music, Books, Writing, Opera (General)

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 10:35pm

A new site with embeddable movie clips. Here's Vertigo:

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 09:19pm

Roger Vignoles' accomp-er-collaborative pianist version of the Victor Herbert classic:

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 08:41pm

Photos of Teatro alla Scala's Carmen, which opens the 2009-10 season on December 7 in a new production by Emma...

Tags: Teatro alla Scala, Carmen

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 07:01pm

The board of Opera di Roma met today in Rome to appoint the new Music Director of the theater: it's...

Tags: Riccardo Muti

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 07:00pm

Here’s the place for all your chatting needs, cher public, during tonight’s broadcast of Les Contes d’Hoffmann from the Met. The official chat begins at 7:45 pm for an 8:00 curtain, and La Cieca invites Twitters and whatever other technological frontrunners to contribute their opinions and dish. Sirius/XM RealNetworks from metopera.org Following this performance w[...]

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 05:41pm

(Photo Credit: © Steve Cohn/ Steve Cohn Photography) The California-based organization, Hispanics for Los Angeles Opera, celebrated their Twelfth Annual...

Tags: Juan Diego Fl&oacute, rez, Pl&aacute, cido Domingo, Joyce DiDonato, Nathan Gunn

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 04:35pm

To be posted this week(end): reviews of some Mozart performances and that premiere tonight.Not to be posted this week, or perhaps ever: review of Dorothea Röschmann's Carnegie Hall recital, which has been postponed to April 12. Yes, that's the night of the Armida premiere at the Met -- a poor rescheduling choice for a vocal event. I'll see which I end up attending in the sp[...]

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 04:30pm

Recital (Brahms, Wolf, Hahn, Mahler) -- Alice Tully Hall, 11/29/09Kirchschlager / JonesPerhaps it was Warren Jones (for Malcolm Martineau), perhaps the greater notice that it was to be a solo recital, perhaps something else, but Austrian mezzo-soprano Angelika Kirchschlager's performance yesterday was quite the opposite of the uncomfortable forced march she led through Romantic song three yea[...]

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 04:07pm

Maria Callas was born 86 years ago today in New York City.

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 03:39pm

Just a reminder, cher public, that parterre.com will be the venue for a chat tonight during the Sirius/RealNetworks broadcast of Les Contes d’Hoffmann. Check back here after 7:30 for details.

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 03:13pm

via denverpost.slideshowpro.com Afghan police destroy bottles of alcohol in a field on the edge of Kabul, on Wednesday, Feb 21, 2007. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder) Posted via web from lichtconlon's posterous

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 02:02pm

La Cieca hears that the opening performance of Elektra at the Met (December 10) will be dedicated to the memory of Hildegard Behrens, who originated this production in 1992.

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 11:58am

What’s opening at the Met tonight may turn out to be a mere bagatelle next to a version of Les Contes d’Hoffmann “filmed in 3D and HD video, featuring 1000 extras, 150 musicians and chorus members from the Paris Opera, 50 dancers and 20 of the world’s greatest singers,” according to the blog By George. Among the participants mentioned in connection wit[...]

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 10:23am

Which A-list Dirigent is currently unwinding in a private facility, singing duets with himself? Which opera company’s usually jovial antegenerale audience erupted into a lion’s den of booing when the maestro took his bow? (By the way, the tenor bought it too.)

Thursday, December 3rd, 2009 at 10:10am

Enikő Magyar, viola Timothy End, piano Delius – Violin Sonata no.3 (arr. L. Tertis) Patterson – Tides of Mananan Bridge – Short Pieces Wilson – Mürrische Erde, wp Bliss – Sonata St John’s, Smith Square, 2 December 2009 The tone of the viola, fuller and darker than the violin’s, is an obvious draw for composers, but perhaps it is its range, matching m[...]

Tags: Reviews, Concerts, Ian Wilson, Arthur Bliss, Paul Patterson, Frank Bridge

Tuesday, December 1st, 2009 at 02:59pm

Previously: outline of my book riff 1: The rebirth of classical music riff 2: Why is the rebirth happening? riff 3:  Resistance to change: the value of classical music And now, riff four: Resistance to change: reasons for resistance. (Feel free, if you like, to copy and paste all of this and keep it for reference, or send it to anyone you like. Just don't violate [...]