By Robyn Guilliams Dear Law & Order I’ve been hearing a lot about a recent U.S. ban on ivory that will prevent string players from transporting their instruments in and out of the country. However, I recently travelled to Europe and back with my cello (my bow has a small ivory inlay in […]
Read the rest of this article »By: Edna Landau To ask a question, please write Ask Edna. The summer is a special time for many of us, presenting an opportunity to take a break from our normal routine and relax sufficiently to enable us to reassume our job responsibilities with increased vigor and renewed enthusiasm. For those who are graduating, the summer […]
Read the rest of this article »By Rebecca Schmid The story of Billy Budd, a Herman Melville story which became the basis for Britten’s now classic opera, revolves around a seaman whose allure is so strong that John Claggart, the Master-at-arms on an 18th century war ship, conspires to eradicate his presence. Fate takes a strange twist when Budd, reduced to […]
Read the rest of this article »By Sedgwick Clark The critics’ darling series “Spring for Music” had four good years of thoughtful, sometimes innovative programs played by first-rate American orchestras from the provinces for a mere $25 a ticket in Carnegie Hall, no less. But none of our country’s billionaires or blue-chip companies was willing to chip in a couple mils […]
Read the rest of this article »By ANDREW POWELL Published: May 22, 2014 MUNICH — Composer first, virtuoso second. That, increasingly, is history’s view of Marcel Dupré, the long-lived, globe-trotting Frenchman whose suite Le Chemin de la Croix received a fluent and technically assured performance on Palm Sunday (April 13) from Munich organist Helene von Rechenberg. The hour-long score follows the […]
Read the rest of this article »By ANDREW POWELL Published: May 20, 2014 MUNICH — In a rambling, two-page “personal statement” to Munich Philharmonic subscribers made public today (May 20), Valery Gergiev stressed the role of music as bridge-builder and affirmed his now divisive assumption of the post of Chefdirigent of the orchestra, effective in fall 2015. The statement covers a […]
Read the rest of this article »By ANDREW POWELL Published: May 17, 2014 MUNICH — Something has happened to Moscow’s Bolshoi Orchestra. Perhaps steady funding? It has lost its old woolly sound, judging from an April 9 Bell’Arte tour stop here at the Gasteig, and found another: a gleaming, uniformly virtuosic persona that commands attention. Vassily Sinaisky, overseer of this transformation, […]
Read the rest of this article »By Rebecca Schmid Classical music historiography of the 20th century tends to create neatly delineated periods, with World War Two creating a kind of indelible caesura in all things aesthetic and philosophical. This is particularly true in Germany, where the Nachkriegszeit (post-war period) is defined as a veritable epoch: a time in which the country […]
Read the rest of this article »By Sedgwick Clark New York Philharmonic/Christoph von Dohnányi; Paul Lewis, piano, April 10—If you like your Brahms Germanic, the British pianist Paul Lewis is not your cup of schlag. He has been praised for his Schubert and Beethoven performances in small venues hereabouts and on Harmonia Mundi recordings, but this was his first appearance with […]
Read the rest of this article »By Brian Taylor Goldstein, Esq. Dear Law and Disorder I had a signed agreement with a promoter to present my artist. The contract provided for two deposits and a final payment on the day of the performance. I worked for over a year with this promoter to put this deal together. Not only did […]
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