The Classical Music Guide Forums

H. C. Robbins Landon writes, "When Haydn returned from London [to Vienna], he and Beethoven frequently gave concerts together, Beethoven as piano soloist and Haydn conducting his London symphonies." ("Haydn: His Life and Music") I don't have information about what Beethoven played in those concerts,...

Typical Lebrecht: false premise, questionable "facts," specious argument. Why does anybody trust this con man? Why does anybody read him?

Perhaps it should be pointed out that this article was published in the Jewish Daily Forward. Part of that newspaper's agenda is to be alert to antisemitism and report it--or, in today's issue, its absence: "Former New York Times sportswriter Gerald Eskenazi finds that antisemitism hasn’t been much ...

The Vienna State Opera Orchestra are employees of the Austrian government and their boss, State Opera Director Joan Holender (male), declared a nondiscrimination policy long ago. The Vienna Philharmonic, whose membership is a subset of the State Opera Orchestra, is a private concern governed by its ...

Leo Larsen is not included in Kutsch & Riemens's encyclopedic "Grosses Sängerlexikon" or in any other reference I have. Possibly a Swedish name? He seems to have been a real person, not a pseudonym, but evidently did not make a career that anyone has felt worth the mention.

<< take Debussy's orchestral works, which I've only heard in decent stereo sound - surely a lot of detail and colour goes missing in old recordings? >> Not if the conductor managed the orchestra's internal balances well and the microphone placement and sound engineering were well done. Recordings ma...

I love it! Completely silly, of course. C major, the key of the Jupiter Symphony, expressing "innocence, simplicity, naïvety, children's talk"? Give me a break. <grin> But in Beethoven's time, perhaps they actually believed this. Somewhat later, Schumann characterized Mozart's G minor symphony as "G...

Another vote for Casadesus. His record of "Le Tombeau de Couperin" is a particular favorite.

<< the opera finale from Amadeus >>

The opera is Salieri's "Axur, Re d'Ormus," which Salieri and Lorenzo da Ponte arranged for Vienna in Italian from "Tarare," Salieri's big success in Paris (with a libretto by Beaumarchais himself).

Broadband cable.

Gould always said that Mozart wasn't much of a composer, and I wonder whether he didn't make that recording of the sonatas in order to prove his point. Many of his interpretive ideas are irrelevant if not actually frivolous, such as playing a series of variations in increasingly fast tempos regardle...

<< pronunciation >> Robert A. Fradkin, "The Well-Tempered Announcer: A Pronunciation Guide to Classical Music" will answer a lot of your questions. It's available from the usual online sources--amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, etc. List price is $32.99, B&N offers "members" a discount. << a recommend...

This is just anecdotal, but in the New York area I've been seeing more younger people at orchestral concerts in Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center, and at the Metropolitan Opera. By "younger" I mean apparently in their 20s. Couldn't estimate the percentages of the audience, except that it's still a f...