Music
1939 results
Page 139
Jazz pianist Trudy Pitts: an appreciation
In sushi heaven with Trudy Pitts
What defines a musical treasure? For me, it was the pleasure that the jazz pianist and organist Trudy Pitts brought to many a weekend evening and Sunday brunch.
Khaner/Abramovic concert at Settlement
Composers propose, performers dispose
Flutist Jeffrey Khaner and pianist Charles Abramovic demonstrated what two superb musicians can do with music intended merely for gifted amateurs.
Articles
3 minute read
The Met's "Don Carlo': The high-def screen version
Little details make a big difference
What's the difference between a live opera performance and a high-definition screen transmission? Like night and day, to judge from the Met's Don Carlo. On screen, for one thing, singers can whisper. For another, you can notice whose portrait is in a jewel box.
Articles
2 minute read
Tempesta di Mare channels Couperin and Louis XIV
Music for the royal couch potato
Some people spend Sunday reading the New York Times. Louis XIV summoned Francois Couperin and his court chamber players, who keenly understood audience psychology.
Articles
4 minute read
Monteverdi Vespers by Choral Arts and Piffaro (3rd review)
Monteverdi's magnificent job application
To appreciate Monteverdi's Vespers of 1610, it helps to understand the age and the place in which it was composed. In effect this operatic pioneer was following in Michelangelo's artistic footsteps.
Articles
4 minute read
Are symphonies really dying? (A response)
Are symphonies really dying? Count them for yourself. (I did.)
BSR contributor Robert Zaller laments the demise of the symphony in our times. Out of curiosity, I conducted a census of symphonic composers from Haydn to the present. The surprising numbers and ratios I found suggest almost the opposite conclusion.
Articles
5 minute read
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La Scala's "Walkure' on the high-def big screen
La Scala and Die Walkure: Not quite ready for our close-up, Mr. DeMille
The good news: The miracle of high-definition TV saved me the hassle of a plane trip to La Scala's opening night. The bad news: This new production of Wagner's Die Walkure was the dullest in my memory, and La Scala made no concessions to the demands of large-screen cinema.
Articles
5 minute read
Monteverdi Vespers by Choral Arts and Piffaro (2nd review)
The Blessed Virgin and her friends
Choral Arts Philadelphia and the Piffaro Renaissance band combined forces to produce a richly satisfying performance of Monteverdi's great Vespers for the Blessed Virgin to mark the quadricentennial anniversary of one of the seminal works of the Western art music tradition.
Articles
3 minute read
Monteverdi Vespers by Choral Arts and Piffaro (1st review)
What did Monteverdi want?
There's no right way to perform the Monteverdi Vespers, because the composer didn't specify which instruments played which passages. But Choral Arts and Piffaro collaborated on a performance that offered all the emotional pleasures we think of when we hear Monteverdi's name.
Articles
3 minute read
Whatever happened to symphonies? (A reply)
Symphonies are dying? Maybe. But what exactly is a symphony?
My BSR colleague Robert Zaller laments that the symphony as a musical form is vanishing after more than two centuries. Perhaps. But there really never was such a thing as “the Romantic version” of the Classical symphony, and certainly not in the sense that Zaller implies.