Category: music

A mini-ice age that gripped Europe from the 15th to the 19th century may just hold the secret to the spectacular sound of the Stradivarius violin. According to a theory being advanced by two American researchers, the cold weather yielded an unusually dense grade of spruce, which serves as a near-perfect sounding board for the instruments crafted by Italian master Antonio Stradivari.

Cell Phones off. Pagers, ditto. But what about those whistling hearing aids? “This is a delicate matter. Users of hearing aids at performances have an unfortunate impairment and are still, to their credit, trying to enjoy live music. Moreover, a person wearing a hearing aid often cannot hear the whistling that his device sometimes produces. It is a pesky sound to track down for others in the hall. Those high-pitched sustained tones throw you off. You could be sitting just seats away from a malfunctioning hearing aid and think that the whistling is coming from somewhere up in the balcony.”

“Taking familiar pieces, both classical and popular, Robert Kapilow uses compositional theories and vigorous storytelling to deconstruct melodies, harmonies, themes and motifs into the essence of a work’s appeal. Lectures, enlivened by audience participation and generally raucous encouragement from Mr. Kapilow, end with a performance by a soloist or orchestra of the complete work analyzed.”

In pop music “stars are manufactured by TV companies in programmes such as Pop Idol and Fame Academy. But, increasingly, there’s an element of it too in classical music. Not so much from the “talent show” angle – the epitome of which, at least where raw young talent is concerned, is probably the BBC’s serious-minded and professionally engineered Young Musician of the Year competition – as the scurrying efforts by struggling record companies to mould and flog the latest classical superstar.”

Charles Rosen laments in his new book about the lack of appreciation for 20th Century music. Denis Dutton argues that Rosen is wrong to blame audiences, and might better look to the music itself.

Could competitive new music downloading stores end up expanding the kinds of music available? “As music labels and retailers compete more aggressively online, they will offer more obscure titles and recordings of live performances that could find a paying audience through downloads but make no financial sense to distribute on CD’s.”

If regular CD’s aren’t selling so well now, how about super enhanced sound CD’s? “Introduced four years ago, SACD boasts superior fidelity and surround-sound capability when played on an SACD player. Though the format is not widely established, a renewed interest in rock classics and a considerable uptick in SACD sales have given its supporters reason to be optimistic.”

Nelson Mandela was host to a five-hour pop concert in Cape Town in a benefit to fight AIDS. “Mr Mandela, 85, who watched the show alongside his wife Graca Machel and US TV presenter Oprah Winfrey, has said Aids is a bigger challenge than apartheid. In South Africa there are more people living with HIV/Aids than anywhere else in the world, and globally the number of those infected is now more than 42 million.”

Fans record concerts. How to make them quit? Offer better instant recodings and sell them. “Those enthralled by a performance will seek mementos and there are few more appealing than a recording of the event, an audible aide de memoire. The way to persuade them to leave their Minidiscs at home and to shun those who peddle noisy, distorted, unbalanced piracies is to offer them that memento as they leave — under terms which reward not only the audience but the artists and the company.”

After years of delay La Fenice, the famous Venetian opera house destroyed by fire in 1996, reopens next month after a seven-year multi-million-euro restoration.