With the fate of American orchestras in the news, the National Endowment of the Humanities has recently awarded $300,000 for a symphonic project -- "Music Unwound" -- that dramatically explores new templates for concerts and new missions for institutions of performance. The NEH public programs division funds orchestras once every decade or two. That the Humanities Endowment is … [Read more...] about Something New and Necessary for Orchestras
Schubert on the Trombone
Among his colleagues, the unclassifiable bass trombonist David Taylor is both famous and notorious. I happen to have known him for something like 25 years. We occasionally play together in my living room. David sight-reads Beethoven cello sonatas and German Lieder. One day, I introduced him to the harrowing late songs of Franz Schubert. I though they might be a fit for the … [Read more...] about Schubert on the Trombone
Interpreting Stravinsky (continued)
Igor Stravinsky, in his polemics, preached "against interpretation." He insisted that his music be performed as written, and as he himself had performed and recorded it. He idealized mechanical instruments. But in 1978 -- seven years after his father's death -- Soulima Stravinsky created an edition of the Stravinsky Piano Sonata (1935) adding pedallings, dynamics, and … [Read more...] about Interpreting Stravinsky (continued)
Lou Harrison and the Great American Piano Concerto
The music of Lou Harrison represents a rare opportunity for advocacy. To begin with, he is unquestionably a major late 20th century composer, and yet little-known. Also, he is both highly accessible and stupendously original. And he is the composer of a Piano Concerto as formidable as any ever composed by an American. The Harrison Piano Concerto (1985) was the centerpiece of … [Read more...] about Lou Harrison and the Great American Piano Concerto
Bruckner and Religion
For the second time in two weeks, I've heard an unforgettable symphonic performance fortified by intense religious conviction. In Pittsburgh, Manfred Honeck delivered Tchaikovsky's Fifth Symphony as a profession of faith in God and mankind (see my blog of Feb. 13). Never before had I heard this work's problematic finale so infused with liturgical resonance, so distant from … [Read more...] about Bruckner and Religion