Two composers, two works, separated by four centuries, and the way Ralph Vaughan Williams managed to blend the two sensibilities is amazing. And here I am, listening today, and it takes me on a journey, not just to 1910 when the "Fantasia" was composed, but back to the time of Tudor England when Thomas Tallis [...]
My biggest beef about atonal music is that my brain craves a story. It needs a story. That’s what holds my interest. What I hadn’t anticipated when I first saw "Erwartung" was the way a singer presenting a libretto became the “story” in itself, twofold. I’ve never attended the symphony before with the sense that I might [...]
Oh, the many moods and stories Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg conjures in my mind, my heart. There’s the transcendent “Morning Mood” from his Peer Gynt Suite, the haunting yet hopeful “Last Spring.” I’ve sat in my car and wept to the wintry longing in his “Nocturne.” There’s the “March of the Dwarves” that evokes a [...]
Composed in a matter of weeks in 1853, the Violin Concerto was Robert Schumann's last major work before the madness set in. The program at the San Francisco Symphony was billed as “Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 3 in A minor, with guest conductor Roberto Abbado.” Great, enjoyable stuff. But one glance at my playbill once I was seated gave [...]
I didn’t know Brahms had written a serenade, much less two dazzling ones, when he was a younger composer. This is the Brahms that fascinates me right now: the winsome, delicate-looking, blue-eyed, golden-haired young adult, who left behind family to hit the road to tour musically and meet his destiny head-on. You know the phenomenon: [...]
The fun thing about really getting to know the violin concerto repertoire is that there are always more treasures to discover. The violin concerto repertoire is so rich and satisfying, I’m embarrassed to admit that, prior to becoming an adult beginner on the violin in 2005, I was only familiar with a few of them. This, [...]
So here I am, offering you this Valentine’s Day gift, and if you scoff at the notion of celebrating the day, for “Hallmark invented it and that’s that,” consider giving these songs a listen anyway. They are delicious, uplifting, sensuous. And they won’t give you a hangover. Valentine’s Day is a funny sort of holiday. Some [...]
“O Holy Night” is a carol with a purity, beauty and a timeless message I dearly love. What I’ve always thought of as a humble yet glorious, affecting Christmas carol, turns out to have a vaguely spicy story behind it. Confession: I stopped writing this essay on “O Holy Night,” soured by something I couldn’t [...]
Tchaikovsky's First Symphony is a delight: fresh, assured and just plain fun to listen to. The violins introduce the first movement with a shimmering, sweet tremolo, giving it a dreamy, gossamer texture, that perfectly illustrates the movement’s subtitle, “Daydreams of a Winter Journey." While a longtime fan of Tchaikovsky, I must confess that, up to a [...]
Last week, I went to see the great American conductor, Michael Tilson Thomas, who is battling an aggressive form of brain cancer, conduct Beethoven's 9th Symphony. I adore MTT not just because he’s a rock star in the classical music and a delightful and compelling orator, but because he has essentially been the host of [...]
I return to the Grieg concerto annually; it seems to be a late summer thing. The music taps into a deep spring that flows eternal, and my feelings, in the twenty years I’ve listened to this, haven’t changed. Which makes me so deeply grateful that art like this exists, to remind me of all that [...]
So you’re acquainted with Antonin Dvořák’s buoyant, instantly accessible “New World Symphony,” are you? And you loved it? Yay, you are part of an enormous fan club that has a spectacularly broad base of listeners. So, what other compositions by Dvořák do you like? {{Silence}} Ah. I get it. I was there too, once. But [...]
Shut your eyes as you listen to “Scheherazade,” and the mind fills with vivid images: a turbulent ocean, eighteenth-century clipper ships with billowing sails, sailors and dashing sea captains saving the day. Musical colors and textures alert you, seduce you: the booming, ominous tones from the brass section (a tyrannizing Sultan) and the sweetest, most delicate violin [...]
Oh, the emotional images Schubert stirs within me. A whiff of my childhood, dusk on a wintery Sunday, when the younger, chilled me has gone inside and Mom’s got a roast cooking in the oven, filling the air with an intoxicating aroma and a sense of security. Tell me if this has ever happened to [...]