After decades of cogitating, a few false starts, two renamings, and a $100 million starter gift, Lincoln Center and the New York Philharmonic have given the job of gut-renovating David Geffen Hall—formerly Avery Fisher Hall, and Philharmonic Hall before that—to the professional visionaries at Heatherwick Studio and the auditorium experts at Diamond Schmitt Architects. Since the night in 1962 when Leonard Bernstein opened the room with Aaron Copland’s 12-tone Connotations, musicians, critics, and audiences have been griping about its sound and its chilly atmosphere. Acousticians tinkered fruitlessly. “Tear the place down and start over again; the place is an insult to music,” the conductor George Szell recommended after one attempt. Still, the interventions continued: a gut renovation of the auditorium in 1976, and more fiddling in 1992. A decade after that, the Philharmonic’s board chairman grew so despairing that he tried to drag the orchestra back to Carnegie Hall. Along...
- 12/10/2015
- by Justin Davidson
- Vulture
A major glossy magazine that used to be devoted largely to music -- but long ago fell under the spell of Hollywood celebrity -- still continues to cover music, specializing in listicles that seem designed mainly to provoke ire in those who care more about music than does said magazine (named after a classic blues song, in case you can't guess without a hint). This summer it unleashed a list of songs that, with that aging publication's ironically weak sense of history, managed to overlook the vast majority of the history of song. To put it bluntly, if you're claiming to discuss the best songs ever written and you don't even mention Franz Schubert, you're an ignoramus. My ire over this blinkered attitude towards music history festered for months, so I finally decided to do something about it by writing about some of the timeless songs omitted in the aforementioned myopic listicle.
- 10/25/2015
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Hungarian-born conductor George Szell (1897-1970) never intended to settle in the United States, but when World War II started in 1939, that's where he was, and he stayed. After well-received guest appearances with the NBC Symphony Orchestra, the Metropolitan Opera, and the New York Philharmonic, in 1946 he became a U.S. citizen and became the Music Director of the Cleveland Orchestra, which he proceeded to raise it from mid-level regional status to one of the Big Five U.S. orchestras.
By the time of these 1958-60 recordings, not only had he spent twelve years refining the Clevelanders into one of the greatest orchestras not just in the U.S but in the world, he'd had them playing Schumann nearly every season, so by the time they went into the studio to record this cycle for Epic, they could produce through their unsurpassed precision exactly the sort of clarity that Schumann's thick orchestration needs.
By the time of these 1958-60 recordings, not only had he spent twelve years refining the Clevelanders into one of the greatest orchestras not just in the U.S but in the world, he'd had them playing Schumann nearly every season, so by the time they went into the studio to record this cycle for Epic, they could produce through their unsurpassed precision exactly the sort of clarity that Schumann's thick orchestration needs.
- 10/24/2015
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Having given the history of the "New World" in Part I, it seems wise to preface Part II with some words about how the symphony is constructed. The movements are:
I. Adagio; Allegro molto II. Largo III. Scherzo: Molto vivace IV. Allegro con fuoco
Unusually, every movement starts with an introduction. The first movement's is the most famous: starts with a striking slow introduction that establishes the current of nostalgia for, or homesickness for, the composer's native Bohemia. Another reminder of this comes with the famotus flute solo -- or does it? Some have remarked on its similarity to "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," but this is not so much a quote as a paraphrase, so to speak; small bits of "Chariot" are elided into something new that mingles many flavors: African-America spiritual, yes, but also Native American music and Bohemian folk music, which share a pentatonic flavor.
Note that the...
I. Adagio; Allegro molto II. Largo III. Scherzo: Molto vivace IV. Allegro con fuoco
Unusually, every movement starts with an introduction. The first movement's is the most famous: starts with a striking slow introduction that establishes the current of nostalgia for, or homesickness for, the composer's native Bohemia. Another reminder of this comes with the famotus flute solo -- or does it? Some have remarked on its similarity to "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," but this is not so much a quote as a paraphrase, so to speak; small bits of "Chariot" are elided into something new that mingles many flavors: African-America spiritual, yes, but also Native American music and Bohemian folk music, which share a pentatonic flavor.
Note that the...
- 12/7/2014
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Dvořák (1841-1904), from Bohemia (at the time, part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, and later in Czechoslovakia) peppered his colorful, amiable music with folk rhythms. The Ninth, subtitled "From the New World" and inspired by and written during his time in the United States, is Dvořák’s most beloved symphony and contains both Bohemian and American influences. Prompted by the current exhibit of the work's original manuscript in New York City at the Bohemian National Hall, I have followed up my review of Jiří Bĕlohlávek's new Dvořák symphony cycle box set on Decca and his concert with the Czech Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall with a trawl through my collection of "New World" recordings, selectively augmented by streaming recordings available on Rdio.com.
There is much debate concerning the materials of the Ninth. The composer himself said that its middle movements were intended to depict scenes from Longfellow's narrative poem The Song of Hiawatha,...
There is much debate concerning the materials of the Ninth. The composer himself said that its middle movements were intended to depict scenes from Longfellow's narrative poem The Song of Hiawatha,...
- 11/21/2014
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Leon Fleisher/Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra/Andre Cluytens/Georg Ludwig Jochum Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 1/Mozart: Piano Concerto No. 12 (Ica Classics)
An American-born pianist, Fleisher was a child prodigy who studied with Artur Schnabel. In 1950 he moved to Europe to pursue his career, which paid off when he won the Queen Elisabeth Piano Competition of Belgium in 1952. In this time, there was an abundance of radio orchestras, and the young Fleisher was a popular guest soloist. Released earlier this year -- I've been meaning to review them for months -- the recordings here are examples.
The participants' credentials in the Beethoven, recorded in 1960, are excellent. Fleisher studied with Schnabel, who studied with Theodor Leschetizky, who studied with Carl Czerny, who studied with Beethoven; Cluytens recorded all the Beethoven Symphonies with the Berlin Philharmonic starting in 1957, that organization's first recorded Beethoven cycle -- consider how much respect this implies for...
An American-born pianist, Fleisher was a child prodigy who studied with Artur Schnabel. In 1950 he moved to Europe to pursue his career, which paid off when he won the Queen Elisabeth Piano Competition of Belgium in 1952. In this time, there was an abundance of radio orchestras, and the young Fleisher was a popular guest soloist. Released earlier this year -- I've been meaning to review them for months -- the recordings here are examples.
The participants' credentials in the Beethoven, recorded in 1960, are excellent. Fleisher studied with Schnabel, who studied with Theodor Leschetizky, who studied with Carl Czerny, who studied with Beethoven; Cluytens recorded all the Beethoven Symphonies with the Berlin Philharmonic starting in 1957, that organization's first recorded Beethoven cycle -- consider how much respect this implies for...
- 10/24/2014
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
A classicist using Romantic harmonies, Johannes Brahms (1833-97) was hailed at age 20 by Robert Schumann in a famous article entitled "New Paths." Yet by the time Brahms wrote his mature works, his music was thought of as a conservative compared to the daring harmonies and revolutionary dramatic theories of Richard Wagner. But in the next century, Arnold Schoenberg's 1947 essay titled "Brahms the Progressive" praised Brahms's bold modulations (as daring as Wagner's most tonally ambiguous chords), asymmetrical forms, and mastery of imaginative variation and development of thematic material.
The son of a bassist in the Hamburg Philharmonic Society, Brahms was an excellent pianist who was supporting himself by his mid-teens. His first two published works were his Piano Sonatas Nos. 1 and 2, and throughout his career he penned much fine music for that instrument, not only solo (including the later Piano Sonata No. 3) and duo but also his landmark Piano Concertos Nos.
The son of a bassist in the Hamburg Philharmonic Society, Brahms was an excellent pianist who was supporting himself by his mid-teens. His first two published works were his Piano Sonatas Nos. 1 and 2, and throughout his career he penned much fine music for that instrument, not only solo (including the later Piano Sonata No. 3) and duo but also his landmark Piano Concertos Nos.
- 5/8/2014
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
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