Review: Four of Japan’s best jam on the film music of the great Japanese composer. The Orange County Register, December 20, 2010. Please click here to read my review and show my editors that you’re interested even though you’re not
Requiem for a listener’s listener
(First published in 2004. I don’t find it online anywhere, so I reprint it here.)
Charles Warwick, resident of Anaheim, once sent me the nicest letter I have ever had from a reader. It was short and simple. It said he purchased the Register so he could read me.
Over time, I came to know him well. He wrote e-mails about my reviews, asked questions, reflected on his own listening and reading. It turned out that he was the most avid classical music listener that I’d ever met, bar none. He had a huge record, CD and tape collection, and especially enjoyed, just as I do, symphonic music and the great conductors. He subscribed to Gramophone and Opera News and read classical music articles in newspapers and would clip things and send them. He became, we joked, my personal clipping service.
Should I stay of should I go?
If all goes according to plan, the reconstituted Man Bites Dog will perform the above at the office Christmas party this afternoon, with yours truly as lead singer. We were working on Bach’s “Ich habe genug” but just couldn’t get it ready on time.
Name the musician
Who is this man?
What you want for Christmas (III)
A fine new set of the 12 “London” Symphonies by Haydn, with Les Musiciens du Louvre-Grenoble conducted by Marc Minkowski. Click here to read my review of this set.
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Gerstein and Chen make impressive debuts
Review: Kirill Gerstein and Mei-Ann Chen perform Rachmaninoff and Dvorak with the Pacific Symphony. The Orange County Register, December 10, 2010. Click here to read my review
photo: rosalie o’connor
Scientific American comes out for music education
The editors of Scientific American have taken a brave stance on the teaching of music in our schools. They’re for it.
That’s all well and good, of course. We’re all for music education in schools, as well as pets for the elderly, walks on the beach and a cure for cancer. I know that’s controversial, but that’s just the kind of person I am. Always looking for a fight.
I suppose that it bolsters the argument in some people’s minds that a scientific publication comes out in support of — gasp — music! But I ‘m struck once again, as always in such cases, by the nature of the argument. The premise is that music is good for your child because a) it bolsters his math scores or b) it helps her with spatial skills or c) it aids his focus and concentration. Etc. Scientific studies prove it.
Call it the utilitarian view: Music is good for kids because it helps them in the things that really matter.
No one would ever think of defending the study of algebra or chemistry or Shakespeare from such premises, even though most of us probably have little practical use for any of them the rest of our lives. No one defends sports in schools in such a way. All of these things are thought of as intrinsic goods, and beyond the pale of debate. Not that we disagree. Kids have to exercise their minds and bodies.
But put an instrument in some child’s eager hands and you have to come up with all sorts of non-musical reasons why you should do so.
That music is a good and necessary thing in itself is apparently beyond the comprehension of most people.
Salonen, Boulez, L.A. Phil to offer tribute to Ernest Fleischmann
The Los Angeles Philharmonic announced today that it would offer a concert, free to subscribers, in tribute to its late executive vice president and managing director, Ernest Fleischmann. Conductor Laureate Esa-Pekka Salonen, Pierre Boulez and associate conductor Lionel Bringuier are set to conduct the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Group for the event, at 8 p.m. March 29 in Walt Disney Concert Hall.
The program will be announced at a later date. Free tickets will be made available to subscribers beginning February 22.
Great moments in commercial music: Jameson’s whiskey
Music by Mozart (slow movement of the Third Violin concerto), whiskey by Jameson — good music, good drink, clever commercial.
Incidentally, the concerto was written in 1775; the storm in the commercial takes place in 1781.
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What you want for Christmas (II)
Unlike our last entry in this sweepstakes, this one has been around for a couple of years now, but it’s worth reviving in this case. “Works of Igor Stravinsky” includes virtually everything that the chameleon composer wrote, from the Symphony in E-flat to the Requiem canticles, all conducted by the composer (a few pieces by Craft), on 22 CDs.
Too dear, you say? Au contraire. Amazon.com has the box set on sale for $28 and change (click here).
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