Violinist Camilla Wicks was not being modest, but realistic. The clear, clipped voice at the other end of the phone was neither astonished nor impressed to learn that her 1952 recording of the Sibelius Violin Concerto was a collector's item that, in its original LP incarnation, sold for as much as $125. "It's not that good," she said, sounding mildly exasperated. … [Read more...] about Camilla Wicks: Towering talent found, lost, and found again
Hans Werner Henze: The Last Interview?
Months before his death, he reached back 50 years in his mind to talk about his "odd, old Elegy."
Why composers shouldn’t attack each other in public
In the end, everyone comes out looking bad. So it was when composer Matthew Aucoin, age 30, took on Pierre Boulez (1925-2016) in the Nov. 5 New York Review of Books. The young Boulez trashed his compositional contemporaries left and right; now Aucoin takes up that mantle in his review of Boulez's Music Lessons: The Collège de France Lectures. Both composers have an … [Read more...] about Why composers shouldn’t attack each other in public
Lang Lang, the Goldberg Variations and roads that were (long) not taken
We've all had some tough nights with Lang Lang. In recent years, Carnegie Hall audiences were treated to a pounded-out Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 1 and a showmanship-overdrive version of Rhapsody in Blue that left no one surprised when he had to take off more time than expected due to a hand injury. But the Goldberg Variations, which he recorded in two different … [Read more...] about Lang Lang, the Goldberg Variations and roads that were (long) not taken
Parallel musical universes? More lost continents? The early-music movement in New York explores an endless past.
Before the COVID lockdown, concert life in New York was such a breathless series of discoveries that you barely had time to digest what you were hearing. Now, one stands back and marvels how horizons have kept expanding in the music before J.S. Bach, with modern premieres of 400-year-old works by names you've barely heard of — and leave you wanting more. This … [Read more...] about Parallel musical universes? More lost continents? The early-music movement in New York explores an endless past.
‘Dover Beach’ on video: When scope is achieved with many shades of gray
Whenever someone of visibility in the music industry proclaims that the pandemic lock-down world now needs this (whatever that is), the chances are good that it’s here already. The crucial ongoing question of how to maintain the depth and scope of the opera/symphonic world without the usual trappings (like a grand opera house) is being addressed, both comically (in the … [Read more...] about ‘Dover Beach’ on video: When scope is achieved with many shades of gray