Author Archives: Scott Foglesong

Rachmaninoff’s awe-inspiring Symphony No. 2 in E Minor, Op. 27 is one of Western music’s innocent bystanders, a casualty of 20th century priggishness that is finally coming into its long-overdue own, a century after its birth. What happened was this: … Continue reading →

Recently, on a whim, I took an online personality test, one of those puppies based on the standard Briggs-Meyers questionnaire and using the terminology developed by David West Keirsey to put a friendly and metaphoric face on a bunch of … Continue reading →

Giuseppe Giuliano de la Terra de la Castelluccia kneels humbly at the feet of Their Most Illustrious Lordships and begs them to be kind enough to admit him a student of the Royal Conservatoire of Santa Maria di Loreto, being … Continue reading →

You may think you know Vivaldi. After all, who doesn’t recognize that chipper tra-la-la-la-LA that opens the "Spring" movement of The Seasons? Ah, Vivaldi: he of the umpty-million concertos, for violin and bassoon and flute and just about everything except … Continue reading →

As I research a program note on selections from Handel’s Giulio Cesare in Egitto, I’m giving some thought to the sea-change in our perception of opera over the years. Consider a modern audience at the Met or the SF Opera … Continue reading →

Ever since stringed keyboard instruments started becoming household fixtures, folks have been trying to figure out ways to make them less invasive, less space-filling, and less annoying to the neighbors. Only the few can afford, or have the room for, … Continue reading →

Vampires come and they go, but there is only one Dracula. By now, he’s such a part of the popular culture that he needs no introduction. We all know what he does, what he doesn’t do, and how he goes … Continue reading →

I took in the latest restoration of Fritz Lang’s 1927 Metropolis last night on its short run at the Castro Theater. Here we have the most complete Metropolis yet, assembled from a combination of the 2001 restoration—which came closer than … Continue reading →

The student in my Harmony class was dismissive and condescending. That’s totally unbelievable, it’s stupid. You say that different keys bring up colors for you? Nonsense! Impossible. Is this some kind of joke? The notion of tonal synaesthesia sounded like … Continue reading →

The academic year looms and with it a sputter of tsk-tsk-ing amongst the commentarial classes regarding academic dishonesty. Again we in the professorial biz feel compelled to remind our charges that copy & paste is not research, that sharing papers … Continue reading →