Category: music

“After modernism, minimalism, postmodernism and postminimalism, a school of music is emerging that might be called wowism,” writes Justin Davidson. And who is a leading exponent? Jennifer Higdon.

Andrew Porter “is about to direct his own first production of Mozart’s opera, doubtless to the surprise of many of his admirers. Porter has not built his international reputation as a director but as a music critic, arguably the most widely respected of his generation. To those from whom he has drawn blood, it might seem the Canadian Opera Company has invited the fox into the chicken coop.”

“Simon Rattle — or ‘Sir Simon,’ as the Germans love to call him — is revolutionizing Berlin, both the Philharmonic and the city’s musical life. The brass may gleam as brightly as ever, the winds glisten and the strings shine. But after three Rattle seasons, the Berlin Philharmonic is a different band than it has ever been, with a less defined sound, a much broader repertory, a new relationship to its community and a new spring to its step. Not everyone is happy.”

“I’m not saying that a visit to the opera in Italy is a visit to a world of lost content in which opera is woven into the whole fabric of Italian vernacular life. It isn’t. I love the true story of Verdi and a visitor driving a horse and carriage along a lane near Busseto one afternoon and encountering a party of farm workers who doff their caps and spontaneously break into a chorus from I Lombardi. But it’s not like that now. Modern Italy, like Bertolucci’s Novecento, starts with the death of Verdi. We must stop ourselves sentimentalising about it. And yet you can’t be in Milan for long on the opening day of the Scala season without realising something peculiar to Italy is occurring.”

“The feud pits the cellist, violist and second violinist against the first violinist, whom they ousted from the quartet in early 2000. He sued and won a $611,000 judgment, sending the other three to bankruptcy court. Now, after nearly six years of legal battling, what may be the last chapter is playing out in a Virginia courthouse. A bankruptcy trustee is seeking to liquidate the assets of the violist and the cellist, a married couple.”

The BBC is organizing musicians to come into people’s houses an play music for them. “Musicians from the BBC’s five orchestras, as well as others including Northern Sinfonia and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, will be setting up in front rooms. Radio 3 listeners were invited to nominate friends or family members for their own personalised performance, given by anything from a solo performer to a quartet.”

Today’s biggest pop music draws, those capable of filling stadiums and charging big ticket prices are getting on in years. Younger artists of their stature aren’t coming along, and presenters are worried. “I don’t know what the Social Security plan is for those of us in the concert industry who will be waiting for the Stones and McCartney to still be touring in 10 to 15 years. But we need to worry about how to fill those arena, amphitheater and stadium dates with an artist-driven or event-driven tour.”

“The idea is taking root that contemporary music really ought to come out of its shell and tell the world it exists. ‘We need a Turner Prize for Music’ is the cry often heard. Which isn’t to say that the composing world lacks prizes. Some of them, such as the Grawemeyer Award, awarded by the University of Louisville, have far larger prizes than the Turner. But they’re invisible. There’s no awards ceremony, no party, no TV cameras. The annual Royal Philharmonic Society Awards is a glitzy affair, but composers are only one category among many.”

“The operatic potential of The Jerry Springer Show seems blindingly obvious, at least in hindsight. Like characters in an opera, Springer’s guests come on stage and immediately reveal their innermost secrets, then pitch into emotional exchanges with their wives, boyfriends or boyfriends’ girlfriends. Love, hate, sex, power: All the big operatic themes are there, minus the singing. There’s even a built-in chorus: the studio audience, with its volatile sympathies and free-floating hostility.”

Last February, Washington DC public radio station WETA ditched its classical music format and went news. Did the switch backfire? “After two ratings books, two fund drives and nine months of the new programming — a mix of news and talk shows from National Public Radio, the BBC and other outside sources, much of it oriented to foreign affairs — WETA’s audience is smaller, no more generous than the classical audience was, and no more reflective of the demographics of the Washington area.”