June 2011
3 posts
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6 tags
opus111 on Facebook! →
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May 2011
2 posts
6 tags
7 tags
Landowska - J.S. Bach's Goldbergs →
A little nod to Landowska’s first, historic recording of the Goldbergs - with a first thought on Historically Informed Performance. Enjoy!
April 2011
4 posts
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Liszt - Last Night's Encore at the Toronto... →
After a fantastic take on Liszt’s second piano concerto, Bronfman played this Paganini/Liszt number as an encore - last night at the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. He had wonderful on stage personality and presence; he and conductor Leonard Slatkin were clearly in tune with one another during the concerto. Encore? - it was all followed by this piece. And in the second half of the concert, we...
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opus111 Blog post on Berg's Piano Sonata →
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SHURA CHERKASSKY - ALBAN BERG, PIANO SONATA, Op. 1... →
I just love Alban Berg’s first and only piano sonata. If memory serves me right, Berg was about 25 years of age when it was first published. I’m not sure whose interpretation I favour most: Gould, Pollini, Uchida and Laurent-Aimard all have great renditions. I’m posting Cherkassky’s version here, since it’s great and I don’t happen to own it. Any thoughts...
March 2011
7 posts
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Liszt - Totentanz (Michelangeli, piano) →
I saw this performed last night by Jean-Yves Thibaudet and the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. My girlfriend and two other friends, none of whom is particularly into classical music, were completely excited by it. It’s no secret that this is a “show piece” - but it’s still so full of soul. Hell - why shouldn’t classical music be “fun” at times?
Anyone...
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Amsterdam Sinfonietta plays in KLM 747 →
Here’s some nifty footage of the Amsterdam Sinfonietta playing for their fellow passengers during a flight delay in Shanghai - busting out the instruments Arcade Fire style.
The Mozart / Clementi Battle →
This is a valuable discussion about the famous Mozart / Clementi piano duel. It was on this occasion that Mozart famously called Clementi a “mere mechanicus.”
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Pogorelich plays Scarlatti →
Here is Serbian pianist, Ivo Pogorelich, performing Scarlatti’s first (in terms of the Kirkpatrick number) keyboard sonata. Horowitz’s Columbia recordings of Scarlatti were the first to capture my interest; then came Pletnev, who equally brought them to new places with a fine pianist’s touch. Scherbakov on Naxos has released a volume in that label’s ongoing series of...
Dvorak's Cello Concerto - The Legendary Casals... →
This was recently chosen as the ‘Top Choice’ performance of Dvorak’s Cello Concerto in a recent Gramophone magazine survey of some 80 (!) recordings. It’s a 1937 performance: Casals, Szell and the Czech PO. Despite the limited sonics, this is simply splendid. Dig!
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Michelangeli plays Debussy's "Reflets dans l'eau" →
One of my favourite Debussy interpreters, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, plays Reflets dans l’eau - Reflections in the Water. Highly recommending his later recordings for DG.
Pollini Stravinsky - Three Movements from... →
PETRUSHKA is Russian for ‘Finger-breaking pianism.’ This is one of the great piano recordings. Enjoy.
February 2011
10 posts
Cziffra's crazy improv with Chopin Etude →
The title just about says it all.
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Messiaen - Turangalîla Symphonie - 5th Movt →
This has to be one of my fave clips - featuring the extraterrestrial Ondes Martenot (henceforth known as the musical saw from outer space) - Pierre-Laurent Aimard on piano and a YOUTH orchestra. Fun.
Sviatoslav Richter plays Liszt's First Piano... →
Andre Laplante performed this two nights ago, prior to the Stravinsky (check out the link to my write up below). Here’s the great Richter with his take on the work.
Blogthoven: Using Etiquette to Keep Classical... →
killingclassicalmusic:
The Guardian’s Tom Service was upset at the end of a recent concert and the LA Times thought it worth posting a poll to see whether or not readers agree that some concert goers should be fined for their “misbehavior.” Just the headlines for these posts get off to…
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Stravinsky's Rite of Spring - Trampled Under Foot →
Here’s a link to my most recent blog post about last night’s Stravinsky concert with the Toronto Symphony orchestra. Led Zep, Nickelback (ugh!), and Lady Gaga making cameo appearances. ;)
IF YOU COULD DECLARE WAR ON AN INSTRUMENT
IF YOU COULD DECLARE WAR ON AN INSTRUMENT WHICH WOULD IT BE? The tuba, the kazoo?
November 2010
1 post
6 tags
opus111 NEW WEBSITE →
Hi tumblr music fans! Join me on my new page - hoping you’ll join me and read what’s there. Tonnes more to come. Thanks!
July 2010
2 posts
5 tags
Classical Competition: Industry, not Artistry
The idea of formal competition has become an established part of the classical music industry. Freely, competitions give a great many musicians the opportunity to showcase their talents on the national and international stages. And there is something to be said for their role in the advancement of young players on the pathway to professional careers in music. (Exposure in music magazines,...
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The First Birth of the Cool: Beethoven’s Opus 111
Opus 111 is the publication number given to Beethoven’s last piano sonata (no. 32 in C minor). Outwardly, the sonata is unique in that it’s in two-movements: Beethoven had begun sketches for a third, concluding movement, but eventually scratched convention and left us with a searching sonata in two parts. A music professor in Thomas Mann’s Doctor Faustus suggests that this signals the end of the...
June 2010
9 posts
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Dear Wagner: More than Words
Mahler’s second symphony (the “Resurrection”) ends with a beautiful choral movement that’s based in part on a poem by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock. Mahler once wrote that it was his intention to capture the idea of a life beyond death: “The last movement of my Second Symphony really obliged me to search through the whole of world literature, including the Bible, in order to find the ...
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Prokofiev’s Piano Concertos Nos. 1 & 2: The Comedy...
While Sergei Prokofiev’s third piano concerto may be his most well-known, I want to reach still further back. I essentially see his first two explorations with the form as better gateways to his music. They are doubly worth hearing together because they present us with two entirely individual expressions of a young composer in the burgeoning stages of creativity. The years are 1912-1913, and...
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Ways of Seeing Bach's Chaconne
Nathan Milstein’s performances of Bach’s music for solo violin are of a special kind. There is a rare intensity, rare focus in his playing. You can actually hear the concentration – both in the emotive power and in the architectural design that he draws from the music. This is as true of his 1950s recordings on EMI as it is of his 1970s versions on Deutsche Grammophon, and you can take in a...
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Leif Ove Andsnes - Recasting Classical
Norwegian composer, Edvard Grieg, was born one hundred and sixty-seven years ago today. Many people will be familiar with his works, even if unknowingly. His incidental music for Peer Gynt has successfully permeated popular culture.
But I am reminded of a story that gives still more colour to the day. In 2007 Leif Ove Andsnes decided to mark the centenary of his fellow countryman’s death by...
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Bruckner's Motets
Anton Bruckner is often figured as a country bumpkin, a devout Roman Catholic peasant from the hills of northern Austria who found it difficult to make his way in the cosmopolitan world of 19th century Vienna. At other times he’s spoken of as a slave to insecurity, a composer with so little confidence in his creative abilities that he would revise his music at the sight of a fly, at the rolling...
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Liszt and Dvorak in Quebec: Ike Channels the...
Ike Quebec’s Soul Samba is a remarkable record. Jazz and bossa nova meet in the air of these sessions, and the result is an album that I don’t hesitate to recommend to friends and music lovers who might not consider themselves fans. It’s stuff to lose yourself to on summer nights, and a place to discover one great jazzman’s take on the sounds of Brazil.
Some context: Ike...
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All in the Name of Music: Remembering Schumann
Today marks the 200th anniversary of Robert Schumann’s birth. And I must say, he looks rather good for his age – not a day over 46, even… .
On this day, I ask: In what light is it best to remember Schumann? Many people remember him as one player in a bizarre love triangle (with his wife Clara and the young Brahms) that was as intrigue-riddled as an episode of Gossip Girl. The fact that...
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No Teenage Wasteland: Menuhin Plays Elgar
Edward Elgar is slighted in some classical circles as a composer of forgettable music. But I’m really drawn to a number of his works: among them, his late string quartet and piano quintet, his cello concerto, and the work I here want to highlight, the violin concerto in B minor, Op. 61. Each of these pieces is well worth discovering.
I was fortunate enough to come across a 1932...
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Beethoven's Great Fugue, Op. 133
From the Dizzying Heights of Beethoven’s Genius: Die Grosse Fuge, Op. 133
Like other works from Beethoven’s late period, the Great Fugue contains some of the most searching language in all of music. Its region, not always sweet to the ears, is one of struggle, of profound introspection. These are soundings into uncharted depths of the artistic imagination. I am here reminded of...
May 2010
1 post
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American Routes ~ Hank Williams →
I accidentally stumbled upon the online archive of American Routes radio broadcasts, and wanted to highlight this particular show on Hank Williams.
I always like to point to the soulfulness of this music. It breathes, it aches in ways that are lost to the contemporary country crowd. Williams’ are often tragic songs of life (to draw on the album title from another great country...
April 2010
6 posts
March 2010
1 post
