I’m part of a long podcast from
href="http://www.radio-allegro.com/">Radio Allegro w:st="on">
interviewed by a very smart and lively guy, Ashley Foot. The
class=SpellE>podcast
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
href="http://www.artsjournal.com/sandow/2006/02/delight.html">raved
that film here; it’s not just an unforgettable human and musical document, but
a model example of how to put a musical performance on film. We in classical music
would just about drop dead with joy if we did one quarter as well.
So on the podcast, I talk about
the song, and, bless me, I just about start crying. It’s not just the beauty of
the music, or of the idea behind the song, a deepening love story involving
people who aren’t youthful any more. The people involved are right on the film,
too — Young and his wife, who’s one of the backup singers. At the end of the
performance, he sings “I’m still in love with you/I want to see you dancing.”
And he turns around to look at her, and all the backup singers start smiling,
and I just lose it. You might, too, if you see the film, now available on DVD.
But you can hear the song on the podcast,
and hear my talk about the future of classical music as well. I do a lot of
radio, from time to time, but this session, with someone I’d never known of
before, for an organization I’d never heard of, is one of my happiest radio
experiences.
I start at around an hour and 18 minutes into the
class=SpellE>podcast href="http://www.radio-allegro.com/">website href="http://click.linksynergy.com/fs-bin/stat?id=eK4NgdMrdyQ&offerid=78941&type=3&subid=0&tmpid=1826&RD_PARM1=http%253A%252F%252Fphobos.apple.com%252FWebObjects%252FMZStore.woa%252Fwa%252FviewPodcast%253Fid%253D157456650%2526partnerId%253D30">
class=SpellE>iTunes
work unless you have iTunes on your computer.)










Recent Comments
ariel on The Monday post
Classical music crisis ! ? there is none - music is" evolving" to suit the sensibilities of the day and the...richard on The Monday post
Greg, Argento, while tonal, has used atonal material, and more "progressive" techniques than the composers you mentioned, and his operas have...Barney Sherman on The Friday post
Great post. Also: NPR's Rite of Spring dance-along: http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2013/05/08/182348399/come-dance-the-rite-of-spring-with-us and http://www.npr.org/blogs/deceptivecadence/2013/05/23/186267144/wheres-your-awesome-rite-of-spring-video andLouis Torres on The Monday post
So the term "new music" also applies to New-classical music? By Stefania de Kenessey, say [http://www.musicacademyonline.com/composer/biographies.php?bid=144] (see Allan...David P. Sartor on The Friday post
"What we want to do is to show people that “classical” music is a living, vibrant tradition that is far...