Category: music

“In the five weeks since mid-November, when the record labels began their biggest holiday blitz in recent memory, compact disc sales were down 12.9 percent compared to the period in 2001, according to data from Nielsen SoundScan, which tracks music sales.” This despite some high-profile releases by some of music’s biggest stars.

Anthony Tommasini is impressed by the glare and glitter of Baz Luhrmann’s Broadway Boheme. “Yet from a musical perspective, many veteran opera buffs will be dismayed, as I was, by the compromises the production has made. Newcomers to opera who think they are experiencing the real thing are not. For all the dazzle and heart of this Broadway “Bohème,” I sat through three shows (to see the three pairs of rotating leads) getting more and more glum about the future of opera. Will traditional companies that play by the rules be able to keep up as the public embraces amplified opera on Broadway?”

“There’s a growing sense in the music industry that DVD sales are surpassing those of CDs. In response, many music retailers have expanded their DVD selection, and even begun displaying hit movie titles along side the best-selling albums. In response, record companies have begun to rely on DVDs to assist their own marketing efforts — not only by developing more features for music video releases, but by using DVDs to cross-promote tours and new releases, or as sales-boosting bonuses. The effort is beginning to pay off, too.”

“Christmas, like weddings, brings out people’s worst tastes. Houses are bedizened with too many garish lights, lawns cluttered with blow-up Santas and snowmen. Mall Muzak drills “Jingle Bell Rock,” perhaps the nadir of Western music, into our protesting brains. It’s hard to know if the insult is greater to devout Christians or those of other beliefs.” But there is great Christmas music… plenty of it…

Increasingly, our time in public is being interrrupted with music. Music? I guess that’s what they call those customized ring tones that cell phones make. “The proliferation of cellular phones has put the power of automatic melody into the pockets of your friends and neighbours, and there’s no freezer on Earth big enough to hide all the cheesy sounds they can produce.”

The Dallas Opera has cancelled the North American premiere of Mark-Anthony Turnage’s ‘The Silver Tassie,’ saying that “the cancellation of the antiwar opera was due to financial considerations and political sensitivities in the wake of the September 11th attack on the World Trade Center.”

So what does “authentic” mean in music? When there are 14 manuscript versions of a Mahler score, what were the composer’s final final thoughts? “Two years of note-picking research in Vienna have exposed almost 400 errors and oversights in the published score” of Mahler’s Second Symphony. On the other hand, maybe all 14 versions are “correct” in their own way. “It’s not wrong. In all 14 of Mahler’s scores he wants it to sound that way.”

Buying a CD isn’t just a simple matter of walking into a store. In Los Angeles, “where you buy your music also to some extent reflects one’s beliefs about the nature of pop culture, who owns it, and how to live it. It’s more than a battle for identity. It’s a struggle for the control of L.A.’s entertainment culture.”

The Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra, which suspended operations two months ago in the face of overwhelming debt, is getting a bit of relief from the city government. Calgary’s city council agreed this week to kick in $250,000 to help rescue the CPO, provided it can raise the remaining $1.25 million it needs from other sources. But a number of city officials were dismayed that public money could be spent on bailing out a private nonprofit.

A fire at the Moscow Conservatory forced the evacuation of the school and threatened the historic building. “The fire started on the second or third floor of the wing that includes the conservatory’s small recital hall, library and several classrooms containing a collection of keyboard instruments, including pianos and an organ.”