Category: music

“The Last Night has never been just about the music; in fact, it’s mostly about everything but the pieces the BBC Symphony Orchestra gamely tries to play through a chorus of klaxons, whistles, and toe-curling audience participation. The first half of the Last Night is traditionally a conventional concert in miniature, a minor inconvenience tolerated by the audience in the hall before the bombastic beanfeast of the second half. It’s the rituals of that second half that have defined a sense of British – or rather, English – patriotism that often curdles into jingoism, with tub-thumping renditions of Jerusalem, Land of Hope and Glory, and Rule, Britannia.”

Accompanists spend their careers working on being complete partners. But what happens when star soloists fill in on the supporting role? Is the music better served by specialist accompanists or soloist-collaborators?

“During his tenure, the Met mounted 4 world premieres, 22 house premieres and 47 new productions, a record not seen since the tenure of Giulio Gatti-Casazza, from 1908 to 1935. The endowment tripled to about $300 million. The house installed titles. Customer care — including automated ticket sales and easier ticket exchanges — improved, he said. Labor peace was maintained, with contracts often settled ahead of schedule. The Met was widely seen as an extremely well-run house. But one thing Mr. Volpe could not achieve was halting an overall decline in ticket revenues…”

The indie band website Pitchfork has become a major force in the promotion of alternative music. “Pitchfork has achieved a sort of mythical status, like an indie-rock yogi: Readers climb the digital mountaintop to see what wisdom (and written weirdness) its team of freelance writers might dispense about this off-the-radar band or that one, and then they act accordingly…”

“New Orleans is two cities now—one inching toward renewal, the other caught in what David Winkler-Schmidt of the local Gambit Weekly called ‘the horrible unending of not knowing.’ Already Gambit’s music section lists my favorite clubs hosting my favorite bands, many of whose members travel from Atlanta or Baton Rouge for gigs. But the great body of culture that long inspired and still shapes the sound of American music—in the form of jazz musicians, Mardi Gras Indians, Social Aid and Pleasure Club second-liners, neighborhood brass bands, and up-from-the-projects MCs— remains stuck in that unending.”

“Suddenly, classical music has become sexy. In the course of a single month, one man – conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim – has achieved what generations of musicians and musicologists have strived to achieve: to find a way of talking about music that makes us see its relevance to our everyday existence.”

The Philadelphia Orchestra has announced, and music critic Peter Dobrin of the Philadelphia Inquirer has published, that St. Louis Symphony Orchestra principal horn Jennifer Montone is about to become the principal horn in Philly. Montone says she’s not comfortable with the announcement, though. ‘It’s not a done deal yet’.”

What to make of the Chicago Symphony’s decidion to appoint Bernard haitink as principal conductor? For one thing, it means Leonard Slatkin (who really wanted the job) is being passed over. “In addition to its work with Boulez and Haitink, the orchestra will make a two-week tour of Europe under the direction of Riccardo Muti in fall 2007. Muti is believed to be the top choice for music director among the musicians, but he is prohibitively expensive and unlikely to want to take on another American music directorship after his tenure in Philadelphia in the 1980s.”

The Chicago Symphony has named Bernard Haitink to the newly-created post of principal conductor, as longtime music director Daniel Barenboim prepares to depart. “Pierre Boulez, 81, the CSO’s principal guest conductor since 1995, will become conductor emeritus.”

“Pianist Jeffrey Biegel will perform the Concerto for Piano and Orchestra with the EMF faculty orchestra. Biegel had initially asked Joel to write him a concerto, but due to time constraints the pop star suggested that some of his solo piano pieces be reworked into a concerto.”