Category: music

“Could I throw a couple of glasses of cold water — not as much as a bucket, just a few handfuls, really — on all the euphoria about the new Alice Tully Hall? My problems with it aren’t major, and they’re not particularly musical: it sounds good, and the theater itself is beautiful to behold. But the reopening is being treated as if it were the arrival of another millennium, and I think people are getting carried away.”

“The Mendelssohn industry has a story to tell that is different from those of, say, Mozart or Brahms. The music of those composers has been fully explored, even if most performers usually concentrate on the top-drawer works. In Mendelssohn’s case something like a third of his music — about 270 of his 750 works — is unpublished and mostly remains unperformed.”

“Overall, the sonic flourishing of the orchestra under Levine’s baton is unmistakable. Big ensembles are not wholly transformed in five years, nor can any longstanding symphonic legacy be erected so quickly. But Levine and the BSO have grown toward each other, and this venerable ensemble whose reputation and general morale had declined under the long tenure of Seiji Ozawa, is clearly changing for the better.”

L.A. Opera’s “Das Rheingold” will run two hours and 45 minutes, no intermission. “And much of the action takes place in and around the Rhine River — well, that’s a lot of water imagery, given the circumstances. Do we need to spell it out? Applause isn’t the only thing you’ll have to hold until the end.”

“Glenn Dicterow, the concertmaster of the New York Philharmonic, has joined an illustrious club: prominent musicians who forgot their instruments in taxis. In Mr. Dicterow’s case, it was a 1727 Guarneri del Gesù violin belonging to the orchestra. But his separation anxiety lasted barely 30 minutes because of a lucky set of connections that sent the taxi driver zooming back in time for a concert curtain.”

“Spanish opera singer Placido Domingo has been awarded the first ever Birgit Nilsson prize for his ‘unrivalled contributions to the world of opera’. He receives $1 million (£697,000) – the biggest prize in classical music.”

“There were mixed feelings when Muzak Holdings LLC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection earlier this month. Most reactions ranged from surprise (does Muzak still exist?) to snobbish relief (they should have driven a stake through its canned heart long ago). But some of us felt a real pang, as memories flooded in on the wave of news about the possible disappearance of yet another pipeline to the past.”

“Los Angeles Opera’s production of The Ring represents another kind of monetary epic – a fight to come up with as much as $32 million in the midst of a recession that has severely affected donations, the lifeblood of high culture.” The company is still $8 million short of its fundraising goal for the cycle.

“It used to be that every year around this time the Grammy Awards laid a few golden eggs for the music industry, by helping the night’s winners sell lots and lots of records in the week that followed. Those jumps still happen, but the numbers aren’t what they used to be.”

“You won’t find much about this composer – who fled Vienna in 1938 and joined the ranks of important foreign musicians in Southern California – in the studies of those émigrés that have been coming out lately.” But lately they’re starting to rediscover him out in L.A.