...or, more modestly, the questions raised for classical music by the decline of European culture as the dominant force even in the western world. (See my earlier post.) There's a striking and important novel that appears to be about this, Richard Powers's The Time of His Singing. I say "appears to be" because I haven't finished it yet. But so far one of its major themes is the meaning of classical music in a non-classical world, as explored through the experience of young black classical musicians making their careers in the 1960s. How … [Read more...]

Derek Bermel, a terrific composer whom I like a lot, e-mailed a comment on my last book episode, which deserves to be shared. So, with his permission, here's what he wrote: Sometimes I wonder, in a country which is increasingly South American, Asian, and African, whether it is useful to dwell so strongly on the history of European performance/composition. Because by the time we've 'figured it out', the audience may have mutated so much as to render obsolete the arguments based on 18th and 19th century Europe. I know you - of all people … [Read more...]

I succumbed to one of the new fifth-generation iPods, a nice sleek black one, which shows video and has an 80 gb hard drive. Quite cool, especially since iPod prices have come way down. I've had an iPod for quite a while, and before that another digital player, but now I'm looking forward to ripping CDs at much higher bitrates, giving me much better sound. (The extra hard drive space leaves plenty of room for the larger files.) And, of course, to watching episodes of Battlestar Galactica when I'm traveling, not to mention that DVD about … [Read more...]

That was on the Metropolitan Opera's website, less than half an hour before opening night. They'd been running this countdown for days, and I loved it. How to create excitement! Or, rather, one way to do it, along with the free open house they'd had the day before; the announcement of the deal putting the Met on its own full-time channel on Sirius satellite radio. And, of course, the announcement of the video screens in Times Square and Lincoln Center Plaza, allowing anyone to see the opening night performance free. Here's an … [Read more...]

The new episode of my online book is now online. In it, I outline changes that happened late in the 18th and early in the 19th century, in the way that music was thought about. Amazingly, maybe, from our point of view, music wasn't considered a major art until this time. Before the concept of classical music, as we now know it, could evolve, the status of music had to change -- people had to decide that it was supremely important. Which they did, thanks to many factors, ranging from romanticism, German nationalism, and Beethoven, who … [Read more...]

I can hardly say enough about Eric Edberg, a cellist and professor at the DePauw University School of Music. He's one of the people I've met through this blog (and through my online book), and he and I have been giving each other lots of encouragement. Among much else, he's writing an online book himself (which I've mentioned here before), about how important improvisation is -- or should be -- for classical music. It's important reading. On August 30, he gave a quietly important concert. Well, maybe "quiet" is the wrong word; the … [Read more...]

Apologies to all -- there were some broken links in the curriculum for my music criticism course. I've now fixed them. Thanks to those who pointed them out! … [Read more...]

I've been preparing for tomorrow's session, so this class is on my mind. It's a graduate course at Juilliard, about music criticism. Last year my students were half classical musicians, and half jazz musicians; it looks like the mix this year will be pretty much the same. Which, if I'd expected it, might have led me to change what I teach a little. But on the other hand, the curriculum I made up seems to work, and the jazz students last year seemed to get into it. And apparently they recommended the course to their friends, which is … [Read more...]

I'm part of a long podcast from Radio Allegro in Canada, interviewed by a very smart and lively guy, Ashley Foot. The podcast is called "The Sounds of Summer 2006," and I'm one of several people who pick a piece of summer music we love. And, OK, I picked a piece of autumn music I'd heard in the winter, "Harvest Moon," the deeply beautiful Neil Young song (from his '90s album of that name), as he sings it in the Jonathan Demme concert film, Heart of Gold. I've raved about that film here; it's not just an unforgettable human and musical … [Read more...]

I mentioned a while ago that I'd been on the radio in Houston, on KUHF, talking about the future of classical music. Turned out there was great response from the station's staff, and so they broadcast more of me than they'd at first planned to. But then the broadcasts, I was told, were a great success. The response was "overwhelmingly positive" (this is from an e-mail from someone at the station), with phone calls and requests for more information pouring in. Less credit goes to me, I'd think, than to the station, for featuring … [Read more...]