Monthly Archives: June 2012

City living is apt to impose a host of minor ills upon us, the death of a thousand cuts as one petty annoyance follows another. Since we all have our peeves, buttons, and sore spots, ruffled pinfeathers is the price … Continue reading →

Henry T. Finck, ace music critic for the New York Evening Post, had this to say about a 1923 performance of Schoenberg's Pierrot lunaire: "Arnold Schoenberg is one of the most learned of Austrian professors, a musician of profound attainments. … Continue reading →

In 1964 the Cold War was throbbing along, racial strife was tearing at the fabric of American society, and academic serialist composers held a dismaying number of trump cards in the career game. Young composers, particularly in America, were faced … Continue reading →

Part of my summer has been devoted to settling in with stacks of recordings of several American orchestras in their earlier incarnations, in particular the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra back in the 'fifties and 'sixties, when Antàl Dorati and Stanislaw Skrowaczewski … Continue reading →

As a bonafide orchestra wonk, I spend significant chunks of my day listening to the end products of guys wielding a stick in front of an assembly of fine musicians. Over time I've established relationships with conductors, forged in a … Continue reading →

In the early days a single Telefunken U-47 microphone was entrusted to capturing the lavish sound of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Just one little ol' microphone, suspended about 25 feet above the podium in Orchestra Hall. No fussing, no twiddling, … Continue reading →

We all know about comfort food, those special dishes that we reserve for those times when we require soothing, calming, or reassuring. They vary with the individual but typically they are uncomplicated and homely fare, stuff that may lack aristocracy … Continue reading →

Creativity wears many hats. None of us have any problem recognizing a novelist, playwright, composer, painter, or sculptor as a creative artist. I'm none of those. Yet I consider myself a creative artist, although some might limit my membership to … Continue reading →

Somewhere there sits a timer that goes off periodically and indicates that it's time for yet another mainstream media article decrying the convoluted ritual of attending a symphony orchestra concert. Said timer went ding this past week and this article … Continue reading →