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Modernistfan

I just pulled out my recording of "The Devils of Loudun" and listened to the whole thing. I must say that it may not appeal to those for whom opera is bounded by "Carmen" and "La Boheme."

Modernistfan

This is a great loss to classical music. His "missing" Sixth Symphony, subtitled "Chinese Songs," just turned up on CD Accord, and I intend to order it promptly. There are a huge number of recordings of his music (EMI had a number of early recordings with Polish forces, reissued fairly recently), an...

Modernistfan

You might also try the Krenek Second Symphony, which may have been an influence on the Shostakovich Fourth. In Leningrad in the 1920s, when the apparatchiks had not yet begun to restrict the range of expression available to composers, both Berg and Krenek were heard quite frequently. The Krenek Seco...

Modernistfan

I definitely like all of these works. Stravinsky, of course, was in his neoclassical period at that point. He didn't take up serialism until something more than a decade later. The funny thing is that, though, whether Stravinsky was in his early period of The Firebird, Petrushka, or The Rite of Spri...

Modernistfan

This is a serious loss for American music. He was always one of my favorite composers, and we need new recordings of much of his orchestral music and his operas. His compositions were dense, incident-packed, but somehow always fun to listen to. He described himself as a serialist, but he could not h...

Modernistfan

The Cleveland Orchestra has now joined the own-label brigade with a three-CD set of orchestral music conducted by their music director Franz Welser-Möst. I do not have full details as of yet, but the composers are Beethoven, Edgard Varèse, Bernd Richard Deutsch, Prokofiev, Strauss (I presume Richard...

Modernistfan

Sony Classical is releasing a 10-CD box set of recordings entitled "Twentieth Century Composer Series" in April. The recordings were originally released in the late 1950's to the early 1960's and were sponsored by the Fromm Foundation. (At least some of these were originally released on the Columbia...

Modernistfan

It has been reported that Marin Alsop will resign as the music director of the Baltimore Symphony as of September 2021. She shall become Music Director Laureate. The survival of that orchestra remains very much in question. The Maryland Governor has repeatedly refused to release earmarked funds to s...

Modernistfan

In what seems a senseless decision, the public radio broadcaster in New Zealand, Radio New Zealand, has decided to end all live programming and FM broadcasting of classical music, and to replace it with playout of recordings on a fully automated playlist broadcast on an AM channel in mono and on a d...

Modernistfan

Peter Serkin also appeared on two recordings for Naxos with works by Alexander Goehr and Charles Wuorinen, and several on Bridge with works by Wuorinen and others. He also was the soloist in Boulez's recording of Schoenberg's piano concerto on Erato (reissued several times). He will be sorely missed...

Modernistfan

All right, I've been punked. The Los Angeles Times finally made up for its oversight, to a limited extent, on Wednesday, mentioning the Grammy for Andrew Norman's work, but still did not mention the other classical winners.

Modernistfan

All right, to be fair, I didn't watch it, simply because the classical awards, in recent years, have been given out before the live telecast and never shown live at all, and I was not going to sit through an interminable program with awards like "Best Song in Bolivian Hip-Hop" or stuff like that. (N...

Modernistfan

Los Angeles has changed drastically over the last 50 years or so. Yes, you always had the entertainment industry, but there were a lot of European emigres who brought their high culture with them and did not abandon it even though they may have worked in the industry. (Andre Previn is as good an exa...

Modernistfan

Just to show how the commercial, lowest-common-denominator entertainment industry overshadows everything else in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Times today did not even mention the classical Grammy awards last night, even though the Los Angeles Philharmonic, conducted by Gustavo Dudamel, won the Gramm...

Modernistfan

I saw on the web that Naxos is supposed to release a recording of orchestral music by Esteban Benzecry shortly. I do not know the contents, the release date, or the orchestra (it might be Sao Paolo, which has been recording for Naxos). I shall keep you posted when I get any further information.

Modernistfan

I, too, have had my differences with Dudamel in the past. However, I generally trust Tommasini, and this sounds encouraging. I really would like to see him record some of Benzecry's work, virtually none of which is available (he did some with the Los Angeles Philharmonic).

Modernistfan

It's really good to see that the Boston Symphony is recording again (even on Naxos; see my earlier post). I am still holding off on Nelsons' Shostakovich cycle, but may consider it when it is completed if a box set is issued.

Modernistfan

The premiere recordings of the Piano Concerto and Totentanz by Thomas Adès are to be released shortly on Deutsche Grammophon. The soloist in the Piano Concerto is Kirill Gerstein. There are vocal soloists in Totentanz , Mark Stone (baritone) and Christianne Stotijn (mezzo-soprano) (Yes, I know that ...

Modernistfan

The originally Russian pianist Igor Levit, now based in Germany, played a concert in a town in southern Germany (the town was not named in the reports), under police guard after receiving an anti-Semitic death threat. Levit, who is Jewish, has spoken out against increasing racism and anti-Semitism. ...

Modernistfan

I have a number of recordings of Neuwirth's music, mostly on the Kairos label. I would love to see this, but it sure won't happen in San Diego!! (The opera here won't even put on Salome, Elektra, Wozzeck, Lulu, or Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.) Hopefully, a recording will come out on Kairos, and I shall ...

Modernistfan

It is true that Furtwängler was never a Nazi Party member, and it is unquestioned that he did attempt to assist some Jews, including his concertmaster, the Polish-Jewish violinist Szymon Goldberg. However, I am still having a difficult time understanding why he did not leave Germany, as did Erich Kl...

Modernistfan

Not me! I am not going to spend money on recordings of standard repertoire played in a mediocre fashion by orchestras all but destroyed by the consequences of Nazism and the Second World War and recorded in mediocre monophonic sound. I have never understood the Furtwängler cult and I still don't und...

Modernistfan

The Boston Symphony audience was always notoriously conservative. Around 1900, when Symphony Hall was being built, one local critic suggested that the signs over the emergency exits should read" "Exit in case of Brahms." (Brahms!!!--not Bruckner, Mahler, or Richard Strauss) If you want the kind of e...

Modernistfan

I have the Columbia recording, and I cannot believe that the Met would not use supertitles for an opera where about 75% of the dialog is in ancient Egyptian, about 20% in Akkadian (a form of Babylonian), and about 5% in Hebrew. Maybe some of the audience (a small minority at that) might be able to p...

Modernistfan

Ms. Mälkki should have gotten the music directorship in New York, but after pushing Alan Gilbert aside because of his "radical" repertoire choices (although other reasons may also have been involved), they certainly were not going to give the job to someone who also tends to specialize in contempora...

Modernistfan

This definitely needs to be recorded. Fortunately, the Cincinnati Symphony has its own label and does not depend on the major labels to get such new repertoire out. I shall watch for this.

Modernistfan

Well, they did mention the holiday today and did play a few additional selections, namely: another short work by Salamone Rossi entitled "Al Naharot Bavel' (By the Waters of Babylon), one movement of Ernest Bloch's work "From Jewish Life," and a brief choral work by the contemporary American compose...

Modernistfan

Well, they did play a very brief selection (about 3 minutes) by the Italian Jewish early baroque composer Salamone Rossi entitled "Adon Olam," a prayer that normally closes the service, at roughly 6:30 p.m. Rossi wrote Jewish liturgical music basically in the style of Monteverdi. Better than nothing...

Modernistfan

Well, I finally got a reply from one Mark Steinmetz, described as VP of Content, USC Radio Group. The reply is as follows: Dear Mr. [redacted], Thank you for taking the time to write us with your concerns regarding Alan Chapman’s Modern Times broadcast. Your opinions and concern matter to us. Each w...

Modernistfan

Yes, they should play "Tehillim," but they won't. I have not gotten an answer from the station as yet. On Monday, they did mention Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year) and did play a couple of very trivial items: "Omer Tantz" by Henri Oppenheim (who?) on an album on Chandos with Kleztory and I Musici...

Modernistfan

I almost hate to start another kerfuffle with KUSC-FM in Los Angeles, but I just sent the following message to the station: In your "Modern Times" segment of September 28, 2019, I was extremely interested that you were to feature the music of Steve Reich, as I am a big fan of his music. However, I w...

Modernistfan

It was announced that the American composer Christopher Rouse, age 70, has passed away. This is a huge loss to American music generally, and particularly to American symphonic music. I am a big fan of his music, and have automatically bought any CD with his music.

Modernistfan

Agreed, I have a number of those recordings on New World with the New York Philharmonic and Pittsburgh Symphony. The NYPO also put out a recording of two symphonies by Christopher Rouse, conducted by Alan Gilbert, on the Danish label DaCapo. It's still a bit shocking to see the BSO on Naxos, though.

Modernistfan

This is not an April Fool joke a few months early, but an actual recording announced on the Naxos Direct website for November. Yes, the Boston Symphony, conducted by Andris Nelsons, will actually appear on a Naxos recording entitled "Boston Symphony Commissions," featuring new works by Timo Andres, ...

Modernistfan

Donald Weilerstein and his wife Vivian Hornik Weilerstein playing with their daughter Alisa Weilerstein (piano trio--Donald on violin, Vivian on piano, Alisa on cello).

Also, the Chung Trio (Myung-whun Chung on piano, Kyung-wha Chung on violin, Myung-wha Chung on cello; three siblings).

Modernistfan

Here we go again--a young American conductor who happens to be African-American and who is getting rave notices and a significant appointment in Europe but who is virtually ignored in the United States. Ryan Bancroft is from Los Angeles; he won the prestigious Malko Conducting Competition in Denmark...

Modernistfan

I got a more detailed look at the contents at naxosdirect.com. I was right that the listing at jpc was not complete. However, I realize that I do not need that much duplication (the only things that I do not have in one recording or another are some of the Vienna New Year's Day concerts and a relati...

Modernistfan

I got a look at the contents on jpc, which may not be complete (it doesn't seem that the listing that they have is enough to fill 96 CDs and 1 DVD). For one thing, it does not include the Richard Strauss Mehta recordings already re-released in a Sony box set, which I already have, and which is some ...

Modernistfan

Next month, Decca (yes, Decca!) will release a recording of Julia Wolfe's hour-long oratorio "Fire in My Mouth," with The Crossing, the Young People's Chorus of New York City, and the New York Philharmonic conducted by Jaap van Zweden. This work tells the story of the Triangle Shirtwaist Fire in New...

Modernistfan

A huge box set is about to come out with all of the recordings Zubin Mehta made for RCA and Columbia/Sony. I heard Maestro Mehta a fair number of times when he was music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and later as a guest conductor. Some years ago, I heard him conduct the Bruckner Eighth i...

Modernistfan

A couple of names to add:
Alessandro Stradella was stabbed by a hitman almost certainly hired by a member of the nobility with whose wife Stradella had been messing around.
Marc Blitzstein was beaten to death by three sailors in Martinique in an apparent gay-bashing incident.

Modernistfan

Maybe few people today will openly admit to such attitudes, but they are more prevalent than any of us would presumably like. Remember the Gramophone reviews of, for example, the Shostakovich quartets by the Emerson Quartet (and also some other reviews of recordings by that ensemble). At that time, ...

Modernistfan

I would not dismiss this as "tripe," but there are a number of serious issues here. First of all, there has to be a significant distinction made between the existence of racism among practitioners of classical music and more generally, in the commercial structure of classical music, on one hand, and...

Modernistfan

Well, I finally got the Henze "Heliogabalus Imperator" from Presto Classical in England and listened to it this morning. What a spectacular piece! Henze throws everything but the kitchen sink into that work (and the kitchen sink may well have been in it with the percussion).

Modernistfan

The young American conductor Jonathon Heyward, just 26, was recently appointed Chief Conductor at the Norwestdeutsche Philharmonie, starting January 2021. This was a post held at one point by Andris Nelsons. I am still at a loss to understand why Heyward has not gotten more engagements in the United...

Modernistfan

I am convinced that if Ted Williams had seen Jackie Robinson at the tryout, such as it was, he would have gone to Red Sox management and said that they had to sign him. He probably would have said that, if they had Robinson hitting leadoff, he would not only have hit .400 again, but would have broke...

Modernistfan

It was well known that the Red Sox did give some sort of a tryout to Jackie Robinson prior to his being signed by the Dodgers, but they did not take it all seriously and did not really attempt to follow up or sign him. It was not so well known that the Red Sox also blew a chance to sign Willie Mays....

Modernistfan

Subsequently, Furtwangler also did conduct the premiere of Schoenberg's Orchestral Variations, Op. 31, a strictly 12-tone piece, as well as the premiere of Bartok's First Piano Concerto in 1927 at the ISCM concerts in Frankfurt, with the composer as soloist. The Bartok First Piano Concerto is not a...

Modernistfan

I can certainly understand why Mookie Betts and other Red Sox players who are black or Hispanic will not go to the White House. However, I hope that this does not open up a racial divide in the clubhouse or between the fans and the players. Although Boston has a reputation as an extremely liberal to...

Modernistfan

I will not, and cannot, listen to recordings made by a conductor who, AFTER the conclusion of World War II and the Holocaust, would refer to Schoenberg's atonality as "biologically inferior." (Yes, I know that Furtwängler actually conducted the premiere of Schoenberg's Variations for Orchestra, Op...

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