Take Me To Your Lieder | Stephen Fry | New Adventures | 24 May 2012
On Dietrich Fischer Dieskau, and why classical music is worth the learning curve. "You’ll hate it at first perhaps. But leave it on. Leave it on over the next few days and suddenly, it will steal into...
View ArticleA Sinuous Theme That Bears Repeating | Stuart Isacoff | WSJ | 15 June 2012
Ravel knew that "Bolero" was regarded as his masterpiece, but he saw it as a one-off, an experiment in minimalism, one theme repeated "a number of times without any development, gradually increasing...
View ArticleEurodämmerung | Mark Ronan | History Today | 18 June 2012
On the euro and Wagner. "The Euro was created from a sense of idealism, to increase the unity and prosperity of Europe. But like the Ring it holds its owners in thrall and its destructive aspects...
View ArticleThe Audition | Jennie Dorris | Boston Magazine | 28 June 2012
Mike Tetreault is a percussionist. He has 10 minutes to impress a Boston Symphony Orchestra selection committee. A single mistake and it's over. A flawless performance and he could join one of the...
View ArticleMozart At The Gateway To His Fortune | Scott Horton | Harper's | 06 July 2012
Interview with musicologist Christopher Wolff about Mozart's "unusually productive and innovative" four years as court composer in Vienna. "Mozart’s perception of his imperial elevation had a direct...
View ArticleBach's Music, Back Then And Right Now | Jeremy Denk | New Republic | 15...
"His logic is unassailable but not tedious. His proofs soar. Bach is a mirror to everything we would like to be. He is almost too good to be true, to be believed. But we believe in Bach on the evidence...
View ArticleCharles Rosen, on Liszt
Charles Rosen, on Liszt"Liszt's late works are admirable and minor; the early works are vulgar and great"
View ArticleRoll Over Beethoven | Eric Banks | Bookforum | 11 December 2012
Tired title, laboured first paragraph, but once you're past those, the pleasure of this piece begins. On Beethoven's Fifth Symphony: Its canonic status as the most referenced orchestral work; and the...
View ArticleThe Strangest Art | Wendy Lesser | Prospect | 12 December 2012
“Think for a moment what it would be like to inhabit a world that is operatic. Every action, every thought, every utterance is geared to never-ending music. Think of the metaphysical questions. First:...
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Alex Ross on Writing about Music
Image by Ferrari + caballos + fuerza = cerebro Humano  on Flickr"People who care deeply about music want someone out there doing the work of listening to this vast quantity of new music and singling...
View ArticleThe Piccolo And The Pocket Grouse | Eric Wagner | Orion | 02 January 2013
"The relationship between music and birds changed in the mid-twentieth century with Olivier Messiaen. Where other composers had used bird song as an aural garnish in larger works, he approached it as...
View ArticleListening To Lupu | Leo Carey | New Yorker | 24 January 2013
Short reflection — a note, really — on the mystique and genius of concert pianist Radu Lupu. "There’s another facet to the excitement of a Lupu concert: he no longer records. You know that when you...
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Bach Blows Minds | Sam Knight | Prospect | 25 February 2013
Reflections on hearing the Slovak pianist Mikuláš Škuta play Bach: "Until I saw those fingers, those hands, my pleasure in the Goldberg Variations had been in their construction—in the filigree, the...
View ArticleA Fusion Of Piano And Cerebellum | Normal Lebrecht | Standpoint | 04 March 2013
Note in memory of Charles Rosen. "Charles was the epitome of the philosopher-pianist, a hybrid species that risks extinction with his passing and which deserves more concentrated attention than he...
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