Category: music

Norman Lebrecht, Confessor Of The Music World

[The gossip] is the human comedy, that’s what I like. I came into music because nobody was writing about it in a way that interested me. Musicologists were writing arcane and abstruse things which had no relation to who the composer was, where he or she was at that particular time in her life. They weren’t answering the questions of, “Why is this piece meaningful to me, why is this phrase meaningful to me?” In the way that you’d ask in every other human transaction from the restaurant to the bedroom. And so I started asking those questions.

Buying The Coliseum For English National Opera Was A Big Mistake, Says UK Culture Minister Who Arranged It

“David Mellor said that while he thought begging the prime minister to buy the Coliseum for the ENO had been ‘a major contribution to the cultural life of the country’, he now thought it was an ‘act of stupidity’. His intervention has been sparked in part by the decision of the ENO management to lease out the Coliseum in London for almost half the year [to producers of commercial musicals].”

A Farewell Essay From Chicago Tribune Classical Critic John Von Rhein

“My central aim was to give the reading public an informed yardstick of opinion by which they could measure their own reactions to a given performance. … Contrary to what many assume of critics, I took no delight in panning performers. I always tried for balance in my reviews. I appreciated the power of the pen but was often reminded of the limitations of language when it comes to evoking arguably the most word-proof of the arts.”

Time To Retire Beethoven’s Ninth?

“We have the 19th-century ideal of strength in unity — expressed in the “Ode to Joy” — scraping up uneasily against a 21st-century ideal of strength in diversity. The change in perspective makes some people afraid and angry. It makes others hopeful and optimistic. Until we see whether we can achieve a paradigm shift or whether we fall back into something like the genocidal chaos of the mid-20th century, I think we should press pause on Beethoven’s Ninth. I, personally, would be satisfied to never hear it again.”

A Purge At Tanglewood Festival Chorus, The Boston Symphony’s Choir

“For decades, the Tanglewood Festival Chorus, the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s all-volunteer group of singers, dazzled audiences with its performances, delivering masterful renditions of intricate scores in German, Czech, Latin, and French — almost always from memory. But discordant notes are being struck after the chorus’s new conductor, James Burton, has unceremoniously decimated its ranks, forcing out a large swath of singers, including many of the group’s most senior members.”

Closure Of Celebrated Rio Music Nightclub Becomes Symbol Of Brazil’s Crises

“It was Rio’s equivalent of the Blue Note or Ronnie Scott’s, a legendary downtown samba club famed for its caipirinha-fuelled jam sessions and for spawning some of the best young musicians in town. Today, though, Bar Semente lies abandoned, a graffiti-covered symbol of the city’s post-mega-event slump. An epitaph has been sprayed on its facade: ‘The Olympics, for who?'”

What It’s Like To Play Violin In Simon Rattle’s Amateur Orchestra

“Simon Rattle is looking straight at me, eyes flaring, fist shaking. I am straining with every fibre of my being to give him what he wants. I would die for this man right now. I’m desperate to shape the phrase just as he’s showing, sustaining the long note and getting louder over the arpeggio. But I over-push the sound, my notes crack, I lose my focus and have to break eye contact to look at the music, ashamed of myself. I’m reminded why I decided not to become a professional musician.”

Riccardo Muti Halts Chicago Symphony Concert Because He Just Couldn’t Stand The Coughing Anymore

“Maestro Muti stopped a performance of Chant sur la Mort de Joseph Haydn, Luigi Cherubini’s funeral cantata for the Austrian composer, dead in its tracks, and one audience member told the Tribune they thought he said ‘it’s impossible’ while another said they thought he uttered an expletive. A CSO spokeswoman would not comment on what he said.”