The spiky, hormonal whiff of adolescence clings to Hector Berlioz’s “Symphonie fantastique” Op. 14. A classical music gateway drug, it stands for sophistication as clove cigarettes, Smirnoff Ice Green Apple, or the stems at the bottom of the baggie stand for sophistication, that is to say: not at all. All dark premonitions, opium, orgies, beheadings, […]
Category: Columns
Posted inPages Turned
For the Most Part
“As I have said on many occasions,” the composer Alexander Goehr begins the fourth chapter of his book with Jack Van Zandt, “I believe that, for the most part, the period of time when a teacher or mentor has an influential relationship with a young composer is short and typically compressed into a time span […]
Posted inI Know, But
I Know, But: “Má Vlast”
Listen, none of us made good decisions in our 20s. Among the more anodyne of my offenses was that, for about a year or so at the start of that decade, my soundtrack of choice for amorous congress was “Má vlast.” I was clinging to the last Romantic edges of my late-teenage years, and in […]
Posted inStuff I’ve Been Hearing
Recordings for the End of Time
Are we still meant to be listening to music? This is something I’ve been struggling with over the last two-and-a-half months, even when I am, by virtue of my profession, actually meant to be listening to music. Either the political ramifications of a work start to become too foregrounded (try listening to Maria Callas in […]
Posted inStuff I’ve Been Hearing
Just Like Holy Mary
“Vespro” & “Vespro della Beata Vergine” It’s rare that a new recording of a repertoire staple becomes a catalyst for a real-life version of the math lady meme, but Raphaël Pichon is exactly the sort of conductor you’d willingly follow down a rabbit hole. Given the relative recency of the Monteverdi revival, it’s also surprising […]
Posted inPages Turned
Through the Rubble
There’s a decent case for Felix Mendelssohn being the most important figure in the history of Western classical music, though primarily for the music he programmed, rather than for the music he wrote. Answering the impassioned cry of Bach’s biographer Johann Nikolaus Forkel for an increased visibility of masterpieces if music wished to be taken […]
Posted inStuff I’ve Been Hearing
In These Times
“Beethoven” It’s always fun when an album nearly slips past your radar until it becomes the catalyst for controversy. This isn’t a slight to Alice Sara Ott, whose early recordings of Chopin’s complete waltzes and Beethoven’s “Waldstein” Sonata are among my favorite interpretations. More likely, her Beethoven compendium—including a live performance of the First Piano […]
Posted inPages Turned
Confrontations
“It’s a bit of a shame that there is no confrontation anymore,” Nuria Schoenberg Nono reflected in an interview with Wolfgang Schaufler, a publisher at Vienna’s Universal Edition. “Everything is in order today; [audiences] only have enthusiasm for the great interpreters, and that is right—but the music itself often has little or nothing to do […]
Posted inStuff I’ve Been Hearing
Where Past and Future Are Gathered
“The Beginning and the End” Earlier this summer, I was in Athens with Joyce DiDonato and the orchestra Il Pomo d’Oro as part of their EDEN tour—an ambitious multi-year program that will see the musicians perform on six continents and offer a host of workshops for local children’s choirs. While DiDonato and I shared a […]
Posted inStuff I’ve Been Hearing
Mediums and Messages
As the landscape of Twitter continues to become more gnarled and Mad Maxian, are those who remain becoming more revanchistly retrograde? At this point, between the algorithm and the audacity, you’d think no tweet could still be so remarkable as to invoke a pile-on. Especially now that the app is limiting the amount of tweets […]