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Comment by Randall Smith on May 10, 2017 at 7:17am

When I was in Italy (Tuscany) a couple weeks ago, I learned that Giacomo Puccini was born and lived in Lucca. While not an opera lover (but not a hater), I attended a concert with 5 "Puccini's" and 5 "others". A soprano, baritone, and pianist performed and were marvelous.

Amazingly, this little walled city has a concert EVERY night, this being the 3800th consecutive performance! It's held in a church, usually to packed audiences. Great accustics.

I also toured Puccini's home, now a museum. I sure learned a lot about the man and his music. If you ever go to Lucca, don't miss the concert(s) or the museum. 

Comment by Loren Miller on February 23, 2017 at 7:56am

For anyone who is interested, I just updated my piece regarding the Shostakovich 5th Symphony, since the old link to Michael Tilson-Thomas' program no longer works, but one on YouTube does.  I just watched this again the other day, and the power of the work and its impact is still clearly manifest.

Comment by Loren Miller on February 23, 2017 at 7:46am

Ha!  Didn't know that.  I may break out his Water Music later!

Comment by Randall Smith on February 23, 2017 at 6:54am

And today is Handel's birthday. May his music live on.

Comment by Randall Smith on August 3, 2016 at 7:39am

Handel! On my radio now! Genius! What more can I say?

Comment by Grinning Cat on March 14, 2016 at 8:37am

In the car on Friday, I heard NPR news get their priorities completely backwards, reporting first on Nancy Reagan's funeral, and last on Keith Emerson's death. He'll be missed!

Comment by Loren Miller on March 14, 2016 at 8:31am

"And now for something completely different:"

The recent departure of keyboard master Keith Emerson reminded me of his intimate connection with classical music, which is what attracted me to him in the first place.  He drew from it all the time, played with it, did variations on themes and created his own works ... and sometimes, he just let it RIP!



Thanks for the music, Keith.

Comment by Randall Smith on March 14, 2016 at 7:37am

WOW! The Merrill Tucker duet was something else. I got goosebumps, even moist eyes. Thanks, Rich, for sharing.

Comment by Rich Goss on March 13, 2016 at 9:57am

This one's for Kelly. Grab a little glass of wine because this is a true vignette. Here's a general rule I made up about music: the more you learn, the more you'll enjoy what you're listening to. And it's a world as big as you care to make it.

Take Georges Bizet, for example. Great genius, but did you know he was the youngest student ever accepted at the Conservatoire to Musique de Paris—14 or so. He wrote the following at 23 and it has one of the most glorious duets you'll ever hear. It's called the “Friendship duet” from The Pearl Fishers.

What makes the following video so important (to me) is that I was there. I was one of the fans clapping their heads off. You don't hear applause like that at a baseball game. It's more intimate and there's a more deeper rapport between the individual artist(s) and audience.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBak0xdWopY

So, give it a listen

. The magnificent melody enters at 1:47. When I saw a live version of it, at that moment the back of the stage is softly illuminated to reveal the ballet dancing of the high priestess (la diesse in the duet) with her followers prostrate in prayer lying in rows at her sides. She wore a diaphanous Ceylonese costume and the image resided in my mind all these years.

Addendum: when my girlfriend and I got back to New Jersey, we told her father about the Carnegie Hall performance. He was a violinist in the New Jersey Orchestra and friend of Ferdie Grofe, writer of the Grand Canyon Suite. Quite knowledgeable. His response: “You see, they sure are a couple of Jewish boys from Brooklyn who made good.”

Addemdum II: Bizet had one of the saddest, most tragic lives of any of the major composers. But that's for another post.

As the Jews say: Enjoy.

Comment by Rich Goss on March 12, 2016 at 1:27pm

Loren, I found this on the question about Stalin.  We'll have to read between the lines a bit.  It shows how scared DS was. 

During 1936 and 1937, in order to maintain as low a profile as possible between the Fourth and Fifth symphonies, Shostakovich mainly composed film music, a genre favored by Stalin and lacking in dangerous personal expression.^[24]

"A Soviet artist's creative response to just criticism"

The composer's response to his denunciation was the Fifth Symphony of 1937, which was musically more conservative than his earlier works. Premiering on 21 November 1937 in Leningrad, it was a phenomenal success. The Fifth drove many to tears and welling emotions.^[25] Later, Shostakovich wrote in his supposed memoirs, Testimony: "I'll never believe that a man who understood nothing could feel the Fifth Symphony. Of course they understood, they understood what was happening around them and they understood what the Fifth was about."^[26]

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