The Classical Music Guide Forums

Modernistfan

Right now, after losing two games to Miami, the Dodgers now have exactly the same record as the purportedly tanking Marlins. One problem with the watchability of these games is the overreliance on stat geeks in the front office to make player personnel decisions. For some reason, the stat geeks do n...

Modernistfan

Finally, an audio recording of Doctor Atomic by John Adams will be released on Nonesuch on June 29. This was recorded in England with Adams himself conducting, with Gerald Finley and Julia Bullock as the leads.

Modernistfan

Glenn Branca, one of the most significant figures of the New York "downtown" avant-garde scene, has passed away at age 69. I have a number of recordings of his symphonies for massed electric guitars and percussion, and, although I cannot figure out quite what is going on, I find them strangely inter...

Modernistfan

Yes, Lindor and Ramirez are very good players, but it is something of a stretch to call them stars by the standards that formerly applied. They will have to produce at that level or higher for a substantially longer period of time to rate that appellation. There are a lot of guys who have one or two...

Modernistfan

I respectfully disagree that the quality of baseball since the end of the steroid era (if it ever really ended) has never been higher. In April, there were more strikeouts than hits for what was probably the first time ever for a month. The games are virtually unwatchable--who wants to sit through a...

Modernistfan

I can't stand Boras' whining. Why should teams pay megabucks for declining performance? Remember the Angels a few years ago with Vernon Wells--he was making something like $18 million per year and he barely was hitting his weight. As far as the Cincinnati Reds go, they just finished sweeping the Dod...

Modernistfan

I have a lot of respect for Ms. Borda and think that she did a great job in Los Angeles. She has her work really cut out for her in New York, especially with the stodgy, snoozeworthy programming apparently favored by van Zweden. She had better get Esa-Pekka Salonen seriously involved with the orches...

Modernistfan

Bronfman conducted by Salonen with the Los Angeles Philharmonic (Sony).

Modernistfan

Well, here is the result from the Top 100 Countdown this year: 1. Beethoven: Symphony #9 2. Beethoven: Symphony #5 3. Beethoven: Symphony #7 4. Tchaikovsky: Violin Concerto 5. Beethoven: Symphony #6 “Pastoral” 6. Dvorak: Symphony #9 “From the New World” 7. Rachmaninoff: Piano Concerto #2 8. Gershw...

Modernistfan

Sorry, I can't buy it. The statement by the Pulitzer Prize jury that Lamar's work reflected the "complexity of African-American life" sounds to me like a slightly more upscale version of the condescending, patronizing attitude expressed on the campaign trail toward the African-American community by ...

Modernistfan

Very good points. I myself am a scientist by training (in biochemistry and molecular biology, the same field as Mr. Hoffman's insecure friend) with a subsequent law degree. I have never played an instrument and can barely read music. Still, I have tried to learn. I would be unlikely to spot the "chr...

Modernistfan

Sorry, I still can't accept this. Does this work have any lasting value? I doubt it (and yes, much "non-classical" music does have such lasting value--think of Duke Ellington, just to name one such creator of such music). That should be the criterion, regardless of the purported "genre" of the work ...

Modernistfan

The awarding of the Pulitzer to Kendrick Lamar, in fact, is the flip side of American racism--the side that holds African-Americans to lower standards. I would have loved, for example, to see Anthony Braxton get the award. That being said, however, I agree with the above posters that the Pulitzer is...

Modernistfan

Unfortunately, this is not an April Fools joke. The 2018 Pulitzer Prize for music has gone to rapper Kendrick Lamar for his album "Damn." How in the world could the Pulitzer Prize jury have honored such garbage? Prominent African-American composers of real music such as William Grant Still and the r...

Modernistfan

The most prominent (at least the most notorious) Republican candidate for this seat at this point is Paul Nehlen, an alt-right Holocaust denier and anti-Semite . Nehlen ran against Ryan in the primary in 2016, losing something like 6-1. The Republicans are definitely trying to get another respectabl...

Modernistfan

They are not out of business at all. They are still issuing new recordings and are distributed by Naxos in North America.

Modernistfan

Boy, I really do miss Tower Records, notwithstanding the ease and convenience of being able to buy CDs online. Many were the days that I would go to the Tower on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles or the one on Ventura Boulevard in Van Nuys and walk out with $100.00, $150.00, or even more of CDs. When ...

Modernistfan

They are doing the Top 100 again. If you are disgusted with KUSC's wimpy, boring, anodyne programming, please write in the following works for the Top 100: Henze: Symphony #6; Stockhausen: Gruppen; and Boulez: Le Marteau Sans Maitre. Let's try to get at least one of those works in the Top 100 and se...

Modernistfan

I now have a more updated listing of the contents of this box set from the jpc website. This is auf deutsch , but is much more easily interpretable by us dumb English-speakers in Amurrica. Bruckner: Symphonien Nr. 5, 7, 9 +Schumann: Symphonie Nr. 4 +Moeschinger: Symphonie Nr. 4 op. 80 +Schubert: Sy...

Modernistfan

I am definitely a Hindemith fan and I definitely love the Symphony in E Flat, especially the Bernstein recording. I do not understand why it is not more frequently played.

Modernistfan

I finally got some information as to the contents of this set with (rough) translation from the Japanese HMV site (apologies for the quality of the translation: Disc1 -Bruckner: Symphony No. 7 in e-flat major Volkmar Andreae (conductor) Recorded: 1942 , 12 August, Zurich, Tonhalle (mono) Disc2 -Sch...

Modernistfan

Does anyone have any information as to the contents of a box set to be issued in March 2018 by Sony Classical entitled: "Celebrating 150 Years of Tonhalle Orchester--Zürich." This is a 14-CD box set and a number of conductors are listed including Lorin Maazel, Rudolf Kempe, Bernard Haitink, Davi...

Modernistfan

Remember, at the time of the adoption of the Second Amendment, the standard weapon available to civilians was a muzzle-loading smoothbore musket. In order to fire such a weapon, one had to pour a charge of powder (old-time black powder, not the later-developed smokeless powder) into the muzzle from ...

Modernistfan

This reminds me of the Stradivarius violin stolen from Roman Totenberg's office after a 1980 concert. It was stolen by a former student of Totenberg, Philip S. Johnson, who had a lot of potential, but was personally erratic and difficult and never had much of a career. He did play the Strad in some ...

Modernistfan

The idea of "race" is really a sociopolitical construct with essentially no biological reality. When I was an instructor at Tulane University in 1977, Ernest Morial was running for the mayor of New Orleans, and the press was talking about the possibility of "New Orleans's first black mayor." When I ...

Modernistfan

I agree that exposure is everything, but you do not necessarily have to be born to it or even exposed to it early in your education. I grew up with it and still remember my father playing Beethoven symphonies (the Toscanini recordings), the Sibelius Second Symphony, and other works, on 78's. My wife...

Modernistfan

Having seen the results from the Grammys last night, where happy-clappy-crappy overcommercialized garbage such as the music of Bruno Mars dominated the proceedings, there might be a new opportunity for the music industry to begin marketing classical music (and possibly other genres such as real jazz...

Modernistfan

Well, four players were just elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame: Chipper Jones, Jim Thome, Vladimir Guerrero, and Trevor Hoffman. If I had a ballot, only Jones would have been on it. Thome was a very good player who just, barely, fell short. About Guerrero, despite very strong numbers, there was j...

Modernistfan

Not for me, thanks. I have no desire to listen to Beethoven, Brahms, or Bruckner in cruddy mono sound (no matter how much improved) played by orchestras, mostly the Berlin Philharmonic or the Vienna Philharmonic, decimated by war and also by the pre-war expulsion of their Jewish players (mostly, but...

Modernistfan

It is nearly a year after the inauguration, and the Democrats still absolutely do not get it. The reality is that no one outside the Beltway actually gives a fig about the Russia investigation. Unless the Democrats start coming up with a smart and aggressive economic plan, start telling the truth ab...

Modernistfan

No thanks, not for me. I do not miss the cruddy mid-1970's pressings that sounded as though they were pressed on used kitty litter. I also do not miss the scratches, ticks, and pops that would occur no matter how carefully you handled the LP's. This is some sort of a trendoid fad that I do not need....

Modernistfan

There is nothing wrong with 18th-century music, a century which includes Bach, Handel, Telemann, Vivaldi, Mozart, and nearly all of Haydn. However, when you cannot be bothered to play a complete Bach orchestral suite (and we are not talking about something of the length of the Mahler Second Symphony...

Modernistfan

KUSC just announced that Brenda Barnes would be retiring after 20 years of wrecking what had been one of the greatest classical stations in America. She has reduced the station to a monstrosity dominated by chatty, personality-driven announcers who babble endlessly and playing mostly excerpts and si...

Modernistfan

Well, Heyward actually got an extraordinarily positive review in the Los Angeles Times , in the Monday edition: Will the Los Angeles Philharmonic be Jonathon Heyward's good luck charm? Heyward, a 25-year-old American who had been part of the L.A. Phil's prestigious Dudamel Fellowship Program for co...

Modernistfan

Well, Heyward, who is now a Dudamel Conducting Fellow in Los Angeles, will get a shot this weekend when the originally scheduled conductor, Miguel Harth-Bedoya (this is also a correction, not "Pablo Heras-Casado"), came up ill. The program is no cakewalk--the Glinka "Ruslan and Ludmila" overture, Be...

Modernistfan

Well, this is to appear on Decca next month along with "The Rite of Spring." Riccardo Chailly is conducting the Lucerne Festival Orchestra. I shall definitely have to get this CD.

Modernistfan

This motivated me to find the now out-of-print recording of Alcyone made by Marc Minkowski about 25 years ago. (Believe it or not, one of my interests is French baroque opera.) I finally got it on Amazon; definitely worth listening to if you can find it (I bought the only reasonably priced copy on A...

Modernistfan

This voter fraud commission is itself fraudulent. Of course, it is impossible to have an election in which more than 100 million people voted and in which there would be no votes that were cast by people not authorized to vote. However, every study that has been performed indicates, as stated in the...

Modernistfan

I probably should not have included Hasty Pudding. Although it has some of the characteristics of a final club, it is co-educational, in contrast to the other final clubs, which still do not admit women. Yes, it does put on those theatrical productions.

Modernistfan

It's about time. As a graduate student at Harvard, I had no interest in and no contact with Hasty Pudding, Fly, Porcellian, Spee, and the other final clubs. I guarantee that the alumni, particularly the older alumni, will raise a huge stink. These clubs are part of an older Harvard that is not reall...

Modernistfan

Ah, but I'll bet that this box still does not include Fluffy's performances of "Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles," and the "Horst-Wessel Lied." Needless to say, I definitely will not be buying this box. I would buy a set of Liberace or David Helfgott playing the Stockhausen Klavierstücke before...

Modernistfan

As usual, the Trump opponents, including virtually all Democrats, just do not get it. Yes, those comments seem outrageously crass, and they are, but he knows exactly what he is doing, and his base of supporters, mostly white working-class men with no more than a high-school education, are cheering l...

Modernistfan

Regardless of your opinion of Gilbert's conducting, they are in a position where they cannot afford not to take risks. They are in the position of a football team trailing, 26-20, with 2:30 to go in the fourth quarter and with the ball on their own 30-yard line. You are not going to get it done runn...

Modernistfan

You can call them whatever you like, even "covfefe," but it is clear that repertoire played a major role in getting Gilbert out. That audience is very conservative; even Carl Nielsen, a favorite composer of Gilbert's, is too scarily radical for much of it. I hope that Ms. Borda, who seems to have a ...

Modernistfan

The New York Times today ran a major article on why Alan Gilbert decided to leave the New York Philharmonic music directorship with no other significant job lined up. Unfortunately, my suspicions, posted earlier, have been largely confirmed. "Philosophical differences," indeed! Alan Gilbert Wanted...

Modernistfan

Well, all the votes are in and (supposedly) counted and the Top 100 have been posted. Here they are: 100. Williams: Theme from “Raiders of the Lost Ark” 99. Beethoven: Piano Sonata #8 “Pathetique” 98. Rossini: William Tell: Overture 97. Ravel: Pavane for a Dead Princess 96. Rodrigo: Concierto de Ar...

Modernistfan

This is ridiculous. In the area of music, one of the most powerful Holocaust memorial pieces is Dmitri Shostakovich's Thirteenth Symphony ("Babi Yar"), written by a non-Jewish Russian composer setting the poetry of a non-Jewish Russian writer, Yevgeny Yevtushenko. No one would or should call that wo...

Modernistfan

What, exactly, did Bach write for the mandolin? I know that he wrote for the lute, but I am not aware that Bach ever wrote anything for the mandolin. (Yes, I know that Vivaldi did write mandolin concertos, as did some other Italian baroque composers.)

Modernistfan

Another crossover effort from Yo-Yo. Now it's Bach trio sonatas arranged for cello, double bass, and mandolin. The double bassist, of course, is Edgar Meyer, and the mandolinist is Chris Thile, who has no classical experience whatsoever. This fiasco is not on Sony, but on Nonesuch. One might as well...

Modernistfan

This scam is well known. The scammers are typically trying to get payments via prepaid debt cards. The IRS will first contact taxpayers by certified mail if there is a problem such as a penalty or an underpayment. Believe it or not, people have paid millions of dollars to the scammers. For more info...

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