Category: music

Why is it that pop musicians are so rarely honest about the quality of their latest album? Surely they know when they didn’t do a good job. And just as assuredly, they understand we’re on to them…

“The Metropolitan Opera will offer a free concert performance of Verdi’s Requiem on Sept. 18 to honor the memory of one of its greatest stars, Luciano Pavarotti, who died last year of pancreatic cancer.”

“Dudamel is undoubtedly a bright hope for the future, but one worries about the damage potential of too much hype too soon. Luckily, he comes across as a sensible, down-to-earth young man, who might himself acknowledge that he would benefit from slowing down a bit, getting some more living under his belt, the better to probe beneath the surface of such masterworks.”

“Nico Muhly is something of an aesthetic and emotional magpie. His body of work in his mid-20s — a stint as Philip Glass’ apprentice, composing debuts at Carnegie Hall and the Royal Academy of Music in London and collaborations with avant-garde pop singers Björk and Antony Hegarty — resists classification even according to postmodern ideas about popular or classical music.”

“Solzhenitsyn was not only a beacon for free expression in the political world; he became, for some leading Soviet musicians, a symbol that they could make a public statement about, through their invitations on to the West’s stages.”

“Unlike record companies, they have adapted speedily to the realities of the web. According to figures published this month by the MCPS-PRS Alliance, a 9% drop in revenues from “physical” products, such as CDs and DVDs, has been more than offset by a 15% rise in income from internet sites and broadcasters following deals with websites such as iTunes,”

“A new piece commissioned by the BBC from Jonathan Harvey will give the power of speech to an oboe, violins, a cello, and even an entire orchestra. This new piece, entitled Speakings, has been made possible by digital technology developed at Ircam, the underground music research institute founded in Paris by Pierre Boulez more than 30 years ago.”

“According to the Recording Industry Assn., shipments of vinyl soared 36.6% from 2006 to 2007. That amounts to 1.3 million units nationwide. While the numbers are minuscule compared to CD shipments of 511 million for 2007, the news is much-welcomed by a faltering music industry.”

“Most Americans still connect John Philip Sousa’s name with the best-known and best-loved of all marches, and a fair number of us can sing the nonsense lyrics that some anonymous wag set to the tune of the trio section. In his lifetime, though, the March King was far more than a mere composer.”

The mezzo-soprano Fiona Janes has accused the company of sliding into “an abyss of mediocrity” as musical, vocal and artistic standards fall.