Category: music

“Whether up on the podium, at the Steinway or among the orchestral ranks, the winds of change are blowing through the wardrobes. Conductors are just the latest to branch out from the snowy bow tie. When Daniele Gatti, the Royal Philharmonic’s principal conductor since 1996, turned out in a black, round-collared Mao suit to conduct their Prom last week, it was a sign of the times. Why now? Well, classical musicians are as aware as anyone of society’s obsession with image.”

“For years now, the nation’s various opera companies have been making strenuous efforts to attract a more diverse audience – with modern interpretations, cheap tickets, outdoorshows, cinematic screenings, “simulcasts” from the New York Met, club nights, cult artists, Damon Albarn’s Monkey, a presence on Facebook and YouTube, and even ticket offers in the Sun. It does seem to be working.” Really?

The Hollywood (Florida) Philharmonic played a July Fourth concert, but four months later, the musicians complain they haven’t been paid, even though the city paid the orchestra for the concerts…

So says George Steel, Dallas Opera’s new director. “There was a time when such a statement would not have sounded as audacious as it does now. During its golden era, the Dallas Opera was a home away from home for Maria Callas, one of the most famous opera singers to ever step foot onstage. Placido Domingo had his North American debut here, and Franco Zeffirelli, who would go on to become a famous film director, served as a stage designer on a number of productions for the opera.”

“Music, Daniel J. Levitin argues, is not just something to help pass the time on road trips anda swell facilitator for meeting girls: it is, he writes,’the soundtrack of civilization’ — a force that shaped us as a species and prepared us for the higher-order task of sharing complex communications with one another.”

“A growing number of record companies are trying to steer clear of Apple Inc.’s behemoth music store because they say selling single songs on iTunes in some cases is crimping overall music sales.”

“Are professional music critics still relevant? As consumers become more attuned to the wisdom of the masses, a once-elite cadre of professional music writers is facing a new reality: They aren’t as influential as they once were.”

Pages three and four, containing the last measures of the opening choral movement and all of the following bass aria, cover the front and back of a music sheet presumed lost. Until now.

“In music, so the argument goes, you cannot express yourself without listening to others and respecting their voice. Legato denotes boundaries. Tempo, the speed of a process. Dynamics, the volume at which your voice may or may not overpower another. The symphony orchestra, Barenboim deduces, is therefore an alternative ‘template for democracy’; and his particular orchestra — comprised as it is of 120 young Israelis, Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, Jordanians, Egyptians and Iranians — perhaps the unlikely archetype.”

The 88-year-old blinked back tears as the annual music festival, founded by his grandfather – composer Richard Wagner, came to a close on Thursday.