This essay is for my friend Grace. It is the visit I can’t give her. Once she’s weakened further, I hope music can take over as a conduit for her, to all that is beautiful in life. And since we both connect with, and through, classical music, this is my parting gift to her: Ten [...]
Back in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries, a superstition developed in the classical music world that prophesied the Ninth would be a composer’s last symphony. Arnold Schoenberg summed it up in an eloquent fashion, stating that “he who wants to go beyond it must pass away. It seems as if something might be imparted to us [...]
Erich Wolfgang Korngold was a phenomenal composer, and his gifts for fully fleshed-out musical ideas that created cinematic moods were extraordinary. The second movement (“Romance”) of his Violin Concerto makes me think of a darkening summer evening. You know, the kind where the sun set earlier but still lends a glow to the western sky [...]
Léo Delibes’ “Flower Duet” is utterly transporting. It’s so pure, the only thing you can compare it to is the finest of champagnes, the way the first sip makes you feel. What is so irresistible about Delibes’ music is his ability to apply colorful orchestration, harmonic dexterity, delicious rhythms, in a fully fleshed-out symphonic sound [...]
With its lyrical violin solo voice—at once soaring and nostalgic—"The Lark Ascending” offers a response to the angst in the world, an evocation of the English countryside, a harking back to a simpler, bucolic time that, with the rise of industrialization, seemed to be disappearing before Ralph Vaughan Williams’ very eyes. It is the most [...]
Claude Debussy’s “The Girl with the Flaxen Hair” ranks right up there alongside his “Clair de Lune,” “Beau Soir,” and “Afternoon of a Faun” on my “favorite short classical pieces” list. In spite of their brevity, all of them immediately transport you, taking you to a vivid, sensual, evocative place that, once you’ve returned to the [...]
César Franck’s beautiful short piece, “Panis Angelicus,” seems to epitomize all that is good about December, while serving as good therapy against those manic bouts of mandated (and teeth-gritting) good cheer. You hear the opening notes and your shoulders unclench; your thoughts slow. Your ears prick up in order to catch every beautiful note. I [...]
It’s October, Halloween is approaching and I am obsessed with Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique. Blame it on the title and mood of the symphony’s fifth movement: “Dream of a Witches’ Sabbath.” Could any title be more deliciously spooky? It’s this movement, and this symphony, that make classical music people nod in recognition at the sound of Hector Berlioz’s [...]
In Arvo Pärt’s “Fratres” there seem to be all sorts of emotions simmering just below the surface. Dense, big, life-and-death emotions. Ancient spirituality. All of it affects you at such a gut level. It’s majestic. It’s minimalist. Mr. Pärt’s spirituality, his philosophy, is there, tucked invisibly into the music. There is something about going to [...]
Falling in love with French composer Gabriel Fauré’s Nocturne No. 4 wasn’t one of those thunderclap experiences. It crept up on me, gradually. I’d been listening to this Fauré Nocturne CD for almost a decade, mostly as I drove, and enjoying the music’s understated elegance and beauty. Then, this past year, something clicked with No. [...]
If you’re a moviegoer who follows the Oscars, you might have seen Green Book, a 2018 movie about an Italian-American bouncer who chauffeurs an African-American pianist on a performing tour through the deep South in the 1960s. It stars actors Mahershala Ali and Viggo Mortensen, and I can’t say enough good things about it. What drew me, of [...]
It’s Halloween, and you’re looking for that perfect, spooky Halloween music that’s a little more sophisticated than “The Monster Mash” and “Thriller” and “Werewolves of London.” Look no further, friends. I’ve done my own hopping around to see what others consider to be their Top 10 classical spooky favorites. My list is a little different; [...]
Maurice Ravel I suppose it’s not all that curious. If you are a concert pianist and your right arm is a casualty in World War I, afterwards you have two options. One: give up your music career and calling, do something inferior and cry into your soup for the rest of your life. Two: [...]
With its driving rhythms, distinct flavors, accessibility, and charm, Aram Khachaturian's piano concerto was an instant success in 1936. Have no doubt, it’s a sizzler. It’s decisive, flamboyant, and arrives and departs in a pyrotechnic dazzle... Aram Khachaturian Nothing in the classical music repertoire says “summertime” more to me than Aram Khachaturian’s Piano Concerto. I [...]