No one in any medium identifies and expresses the glories and dangerous contradictions of Western culture better than Mahler.
Mostly tonal, mostly formal
No one in any medium identifies and expresses the glories and dangerous contradictions of Western culture better than Mahler.
Igor Stravinsky was born this day in 1882. Imagine a world where one of the greatest practitioners of an abstract art was also a major, popular, public figure. I know, right… Everyone’s dropping Le Sacre today, but I’m going to go with his most astonishing pure composition, Agon. And if you ever wonder what to …
America in the 21st Century: everyday is headed toward being a memorial day.
Let me begin with a disclaimer: I can’t take any more of the live streaming music. I wrote about this in the May issue of the Brooklyn Rail and the Red Hook Star-Revue. In short, it’s like watching practice, there’s no connection between player and listener nor across the group of listeners. It may be …
The Metropolitan Opera is not coming back.
Live-streaming music was only supposed to be a stopgap—it seems musicians were eager to jump into it, thinking it was only temporary. Well, now it’s the new normal, and its unsustainable. There are so many factors that make live streaming jejune, at best, and aggravation is the normal effect. The poor sound quality of most …
Opera Philadelphia will be streaming five productions, starting Friday, May 1, and running through May 29, on their YouTube page and at operaphila.org. Like other streaming opera presenters, there’s a schedule for when each of the performances will be available: Denis & Katya (Philip Venables) , premiering May 1, 8pm, available through May 8, 7pm …
Tonight, April 29. 7:30—Timo Andres will live stream a recital he was schedule to give at Carnegie Hall, same Bat-Time, same Bat-Channel. I was planning on reviewing this, so was feeling the loss, and now some gain. Tune in at his YouTube channel above or via this link. Here’s the program, it’s the good stuff: …
