by Sedgwick Clark We were driving bumper to bumper out to the country last Friday and checked out the Met Opera station on Sirius XM. It was about 20 minutes into Wagner’s Die Walküre, and Hunding had just come home from a hard day at the office to discover his lovely wife, Sieglinde, with a [...]
Read the rest of this article »
by Sedgwick Clark My favorite solo piano music is Debussy’s – iridescent, sensual, and, after all these years, mysterious. My first recording of his music was by Charles Rosen performing Images, Books I and II, Estampes, L’Isle joyeuse, and other short pieces on an Epic LP. It had been praised by David Hamilton as “indispensable” [...]
Read the rest of this article »
by Sedgwick Clark April 22, 1972, was American composer Elliott Carter’s night to remember, when 2,800 listeners at Carnegie Hall cheered a stupendous performance of his Variations for Orchestra (1955) by Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony. Solti brought him to the stage and the audience went wild. They were called out by the audience [...]
Read the rest of this article »
by Sedgwick Clark December is a special time for us at Musical America because we have the great pleasure of honoring a group of the finest musicians in the world and introducing the latest issue of our annual Directory. At our Awards party Joy to the World reigns, we forget about our typos, gnashing of [...]
Read the rest of this article »
by Sedgwick Clark Gardiner’s “Authentic” Missa solemnis I was driving with a friend over Thanksgiving weekend, and we tuned in during the middle movement of a Sibelius Violin Concerto on Sirius FM. I was quickly enthralled by the soloist’s rubato and technical command and declared him to be “an old Russian violinist.” When I heard [...]
Read the rest of this article »
by Sedgwick Clark Atlanta Symphony/Spano My broadest exit smiles so far this season occurred the same week at Carnegie Hall featuring programs with a chorus: the Philadelphia Orchestra and Westminster Symphonic Choir (Joe Miller, director) under Yannick Nézet-Seguin in Verdi’s Requiem on 10/23 and the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chorus (Norman Mackenzie, director) under Robert [...]
Read the rest of this article »
by Sedgwick Clark Nearly three years ago, December 6, 2009, President Barack Obama said these inspiring words at the Kennedy Center Honors presentation: “In times of war and sacrifice, the arts — and these artists — remind us to sing and to laugh and to live. In times of plenty, they challenge our conscience and [...]
Read the rest of this article »
by Sedgwick Clark Hurricane Sandy left a humbling amount of destruction in its wake, including a breath-catching sight in midtown Manhattan: a construction crane dangling 1,000 feet above West 57th Street, just east of Seventh Avenue, across from Carnegie Hall. Traffic was cordoned off between Sixth and Eighth avenues on 55th through 58th streets, bringing [...]
Read the rest of this article »
by Sedgwick Clark Tuesday night’s first Philadelphia Orchestra concert in New York was exciting for several reasons. First and foremost, it featured a Verdi Requiem in Carnegie Hall. For others, it was a proving ground for Yannick Nézet-Séguin as a simpatico music director for the Orchestra at last. A short, compact, 36-year-old Montreal native, with [...]
Read the rest of this article »
Dear Friends of Muncie, If all goes well, the editorial section of Musical America Directory will close today, and I’ll be able to turn to yet another episode of “Why I Left Muncie.” Keep the faith! SAC
Read the rest of this article »
