Review: The French Canadian pianist astonishes with a complete performance of the composer’s ‘Annees de Pelerinage.’ The Orange County Register, January 24, 2011. Click here to read my review.
Great moments in film music: ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’
From time to time, I’ll rescue some of the videos from my deceased blog. Here’s one.
Here are the opening credits and first scene from “The Day the Earth Stood Still” (1951), music by Bernard Herrmann. Dig the theremins, notice the tuba. After that, the videologist has removed the dialogue from the first scene to reveal the composer’s snazzy/sinister underpinning. The vibraphone is a particularly nice touch.
I’m back
I’ve been gone for a few days on business and though I intended to do some blogging, I was unable to manage it. But I’m back now.
While I was gone I missed Pinchas Zukerman conducting the Pacific Symphony and Gustavo Dudamel conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic (in Mahler’s 9th).
Anyone hear either of those concerts and care to share his or her thoughts? I’d like to hear them.
I hope to be back to regular blogging soon. Thanks for visiting in the meantime.
Top Ten Greatest Notes of All Time
Top 10 lists are big these days in the sophisticated world of the internet and its readership. Even the august New York Times (in January) got into the act recently by naming (or taking a deep breath and beginning to try to start to name) the 10 greatest composers of, like, forever. But never before has the world seen a list like the one we attempt today: The Top Ten Greatest Notes of All Time.
A word on our methods. First, we ate dinner. Then we started to think about doing the dishes but decided to do them later. They can wait. The food won’t stick, not with the dishwasher we have. (We paid a little extra.) Secondly, or thirdly, it’s hard to keep track, we got a committee of the world’s leading musicians together at a retreat in the mountains of Nevada, fed them lavishly and then corralled them all into a small meeting room without heat or air-conditioning and told them not to come out until they had settled on a list of the ten best notes ever. We took the resulting list and compared it to our own and decided to use ours. Theirs was totally wrong, a product of “group thinking” and “political correctness.”
We won’t claim that our list will be approved of by all. We’ve made some controversial choices, for sure, but, in sum, we stand by them. At the very least, we hope that our list of the Top Ten Greatest Notes of All Time will serve as a teachable moment, the start of a further and fruitful discussion, nationally and globally, on this most important topic. Without further ado, then …
The Top Ten Greatest Notes of All Time
List of Orange County movie theaters showing Dudamel, L.A. Phil
It starts at 2 p.m. this afternoon. Here’s my review of the program they will perform. Go here and type in your zip code to find a theater near you. Listed below are the Orange County theaters which will show the concert.
Aliso Viejo 20
26701 ALISO CREEK RD
ALISO VIEJO, CA 92656
949-425-3861
Irvine Spectrum 20 plus IMAX
65 FORTUNE DR
IRVINE, CA 92618
949-450-4920
AMC Tustin Legacy 14
2457 PARK AVE
TUSTIN, CA 92782
714-258-7036
Read more…
Dudamel delivers the goods
Review: Gustavo Dudamel leads the Los Angeles Philharmonic in a program of Adams, Bernstein and Beethoven destined for movie theaters on Sunday and a European tour later this month. The Orange County Register, January 7, 2011. Click here to read my review
photo: miguel vasconcellos, the orange county register
Carlos Kleiber: ‘Unter Donner und Blitz’
Here’s wishing Classical Life readers a happy and prosperous new year.
Tonight on PBS, Franz Welser-Most conducts the Vienna Philharmonic in the annual Strauss blowout. You think he’ll do as well as Carlos?
Interview with the music critic
It’s going to be a slow week, so today I thought I’d open up the blog to your questions.
Think of it as an interview with a music critic — and you’re the interviewer.
You can ask questions about classical music (naturally), music criticism (ditto), newspapers, blogging, performance, recordings, music education, writing — anything, really. I will not answer any question about what I was doing the night of April 11, 1971, however, so don’t even go there.
If you’d like to see a short interview that I did with a music critic, go here.
Leave your questions in the Comments section. One at a time, please. If you would like to ask a follow-up question, go ahead and do so after I’ve answered your first one. I will answer your questions in the body of this post, below.
ANSWERS TO YOUR QUESTIONS:
Merry Christmas
Merry Christmas to my faithful readers. I am very grateful to have you.
The space pen above was among the gifts I received. It writes at any angle and will come in handy when taking notes at concerts, I’m sure. My son gave it to me and had it inscribed.
Below, Christmas morning listening — perfect for the occasion, I’d say.
The Big Stokowski, or, Shaq conducts the Boston Pops
This happened last night.
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