Category: music

Britain has produced a couple of generations of excellent cellists. Why? Some attribute it to Jacqueline du Pre, whose charismatic presence inspired many to take up the instrument.  “That’s how it works – there were masses of people who took up the flute when James Galway sprang to fame. You may find that there will be young violinists who took up the violin when Nigel Kennedy’s “Four Seasons” came out.” – The Guardian (UK)

A former usher at La Scala is investigated. Why? The man amassed a £3 million fortune that he says he earned through shrewd investments. Others say he had a thriving bribe business going, finding seats for people even for performances that were sold out; also that he worked a loan sharking operation out of the opera house. – BBC Music Magazine

Some of the more complicated scores of the 20th Century are difficult to understand by just hearing them. Now an attempt to add multi-media to untangle the aurals. “When you look at a string quartet score you can see what each instrument is playing. That allows you to look at the structure of the piece in more detail. We’re trying to create a modern score, a score that can communicate very quickly to people what’s happening in the piece.” – New York Times

Roger McGuinn has made 25 recordings in his career as a musician. But aside from modest advances, he told a US Senate committee holding hearings on the digital recording business, he’s never made money off his albums. ”They [the recording companies] are not the poor victim in all this; they’ve made a killing. For years, the labels had all the power, and the artists were pawns. The artists were cattle.” – Boston Globe

• “We were both heavy users of cassettes, the Napster of their day, and it turned us, not into habitual music thieves, but into devoted collectors of hundreds of LPs and then CDs. He [my brother] would have gladly paid a reasonable fee – $1, say – to download a song like ‘Summer Breeze,’ but he would never spend $15 on a full Seals & Crofts CD. And having Napster would not stop him from buying a CD by an artist he was more passionate about.” – Chicago Tribune

• No matter what he has done in the rest of his career as a musician, Robert Craft will always be known as the man who was Igor Stravinsky’s assistant. Is that okay with him? Absolutely. “He [Stravinsky] started composing the music he did, with the techniques he was using, because I was able to teach him these things.” – The Telegraph (UK)

Some of the more complicated scores of the 20th Century are difficult to understand by just hearing them. Now an attempt to add multi-media to untangle the aurals. “When you look at a string quartet score you can see what each instrument is playing. That allows you to look at the structure of the piece in more detail. We’re trying to create a modern score, a score that can communicate very quickly to people what’s happening in the piece.” – New York Times

Britain has produced a couple of generations of excellent cellists. Why? Some attribute it to Jacqueline du Pre, whose charismatic presence inspired many to take up the instrument.  “That’s how it works – there were masses of people who took up the flute when James Galway sprang to fame. You may find that there will be young violinists who took up the violin when Nigel Kennedy’s “Four Seasons” came out.” – The Guardian

A former usher at La Scala is investigated. Why? The man amassed a £3 million fortune that he says he earned through shrewd investments. Others say he had a thriving bribe business going, finding seats for people even for performances that were sold out; also that he worked a loan sharking operation out of the opera house. – BBC Music Magazine

A French orchestra conductor has been charged with allegedly indoctrinating members of a doomsday cult, many of whom died in a bizarre group killing five years ago. – New Jersey Online (AP)