Category: music

The goals for recording music have evolved over time. ‘For much of the 1900s, the goal of recording technology was to make a listener experience being in a room as music was made, said Giles Martin, who went into the family business. In the 1960s and beyond with the constant introduction of new technology, that changed.”

Andrew Bulbrook of the Calder Quartet explains why he likes page 107 best (and also how he and his colleagues prepare to perform a six-hour piece). (includes sound clips)

“Those who thought the whole thing an unnecessary extravagance, a vanity project dreamed up by Rattle and Nicholas Kenyon, director of the Barbican Centre, at a time when arts organisations across the country were struggling to fund performances in the spaces that already existed, were drowned out by those determined to give the returning hero Rattle whatever he wanted.”

“Even though Lyric CFO Roberta Lane is calling it a break-even year, the grim numbers on the auditor’s statement of activities indicate otherwise.” And the company’s answers to a reporter don’t exactly clarify things.

Copland’s Fanfare is an American anthem. “It was written for the heartland, specifically Cincinnati. But it was also for America. In the end, it was not written for a general or a president, but for the “Common Man,” those“doing all the dirty work” in wartime – in Copland’s words. For those who voted and paid taxes. For those who rationed sugar and gasoline. For a nation united against a common foe. For those who waited for their young men and women to come home.”

And he has lots to say in addition to his performances: “This is not an easy time for classical music here. I do only get asked this on this side of the pond. In Europe, with all the troubles, it’s alive and well and kicking. Orchestras are doing amazing things here as well, but it’s more of a struggle. One of the reasons orchestras in Europe went so gangbusters in education was that they saw that there wasn’t much music education here, and they said, ‘We’re frightened what will happen along the road when people haven’t grown up with this.’”

Anthony Costanzo has been in demand for decades – but only to sing very old or very modern roles. That is the curse and blessing of the countertenor.

A former culture minister offered more than £5 million, of which more than a fourth has been spent … and now the government has simply decided that the rest has to be returned to them because the proposed Centre for Music “doesn’t offer value for the taxpayer.”

“Why is no one discussing this? Whatever your own aesthetics, much like the idea that biodiversity equals ecosystem resilience, you should not want to see this branch of creative activity, from composers young and old, squeezed out of existence the way it has seemed to be lately.”