Joe Horowitz

For last Saturday's performance of Mahler's Ninth Symphony at the Round Top Music Festival, an orchestra of 88 gifted young musicians rehearsed for 22 hours over the course of six days; there were also more than four hours of sectional rehearsals. A splendid young Austrian conductor, Christoph Campestrini, used every minute of his allotted time, correcting and exhorting with … [Read more...] about Mahler in Texas

One of my standard rants - typically inflicted on young pianists - is called "The Piano in the 21st Century."I begin by asking if anyone can name an important pianist before 1900 who was not also a composer and/or conductor. It's supposed to be a trick question - all the names that come to mind (Liszt, Thalberg, Rubinstein, Pabst, von Bulow, Busoni, etc.) support my point that … [Read more...] about Improvising Stravinsky

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

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

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)