Recently In The Blogs
Being a monthly survey of some
of the interesting articles in the classical music blogosphere
...
For a comprehensive link list of classical music
blogs, see Chris
Foley's page and for a list of the blogs referred to in this
series of articles, click here.
September 25, 2008
There will be a gap in these postings until mid-November, as
your correspondent is taking an well-earned (in his mind at
least) R&R break.
August
29, 2008
Normally, these postings are a month apart, but circumstances
have suggested that a short intermediate one is appropriate.
American Proms Blog
Eric
Braithwaite, whose Proms blog was mentioned in the previous posting,
emailed Musicweb to thank us for the mention, but also to mention
(graciously) his American "rival" Evan Tucker, who
is also writing a blog on the 2008 Proms. I presume he is staying
in London and attending rather than simply listening via the
BBC, but I don't know for sure.
His posts are very comprehensive, but I think the best part are
the numerous links to relevant videos on YouTube, including archival
ones, such as a 1932
film of the BBC SO under Adrian Boult playing Elgar's Pomp & Circumstance
March No. 1.
Elsewhere
Since I'm writing this, I will direct your attention towards On
An Overgrown Path where Bob Shingleton has written a fascinating
article on the great cellist In
Search of Pablo Casals.
August 15, 2008
BBC Proms 2008 (The Unofficial Blog)
Given the time of year, it seems appropriate to include this
blog, written by Eric Braithwaite, a regular Prommer. Essentially,
it is no more than his review of a number of the concerts – eight
at time of writing – and the author himself calls them
reactions rather than reviews, so don’t expect a scholarly
evaluation of the finer details. Having said that, they are well
written, amusing and provocative.
Elsewhere
Planet Hugill has also been to the Proms, reviewing Prom
28,
which featured Stanford’s Second Piano Concerto, which
it seems Robert enjoyed greatly.
Angela Hewitt, on the other hand, isn’t
involved in the Proms, but has been busy elsewhere, including a July
26 performance of Book 1 of the Well Tempered Clavier at the church in Dornheim where Bach
married Maria Barbara. In her words “It was very moving for us all, and
I will never forget it”.
The Land of Lost Content has tracked down an article from the League
of Composers Review from January 1925, entitled Vaughan Williams and
Holst:
compulsory reading for those interested in either or both of these great men.
Finally, Dial M for Musicology has written an interesting opinion
piece entitled
Audience
Pleasers?
which is not about popular pieces of music being programmed all the time, but
rather on the psychology of audiences.
July 10
From Beyond The Stave
Some what of a departure for these pages, this is the blog of
a company, in this case, the book publisher Boydell & Brewer. The
Elgar "debate" refers to a lively debate
in the pages of the Time Literary Supplement over critic
Hugh Wood's comments on a number of Elgar books (this isn't a
new article, dating back to April this year).
Elsewhere
I draw your attention to two interesting articles from Bob Shingleton's On
An
Overgrown
Path.
Firstly, a very recent one, Contemporary
composer's Dutch courage about the 20th century Dutch composer Lex
van Delden, whose name was unknown to me until a few reviews of his string quartets
on the MDG label appeared on these pages in the last twelve months or so. The
other is a "conversation" with the English serialist composer, Elisabeth
Lutyens, written last year, but linked from the homepage at the moment, since
it is around her birthday. I should make it clear that Walking
with Stravinsky isn't a real conversation, since she has been dead
for 25 years, but rather an article written as though the author was talking
to his subject.
I haven't visited Dial M for Musicology recently,
so it seemed appropriate that when I did, there should be two
recent posts mentioning From Beyond The Stave, including the
Elgar debate. The article that most interested me (as a professional
educator), however, was the recounting of a teacher story: Music
History Survey Survey, about the impossibility of
discussing 250 years of Western music history in a eight-week
term.
June 11
Before moving to the new blog for this month, some business arising
from last month's. I remarked that the origin of the blog name
Ionarts wasn't made clear. Jens Laurson, one of the contributors
and a reviewer for Musicweb, sent me a message (via Len Mullenger)
explaining it, and it becomies very apparent if you say the
name, rather than just read it: "Eye on (the) Arts"!
And I should correct my statement that the contributors are
based in Washington DC - they aren't. One is in Baltimore,
another in Hollywood and Jens mostly in Munich!
Susan Tomes
One of my favourite musicians and writers on music is the pianist
Susan Tomes, who is a member of the Florestan Trio and the
regrettably disbanded quintet Domus. She is one of the bloggers
for The Guardian newspaper in the UK. Her posts are
not all that frequent - which makes me feel better that I don't
do more on my own blog - but are insightful and intelligent.
The most recent - The
BBC ruined the Young Musician of the Year - laments
the dumbing down of that competition, turning it into no more
than entertainment. While her posts might be sparse, the comments
on them aren't. This one has prompted 27 so far, mostly in
agreement.
Elsewhere
I mentioned in last month's post that I was presenting a talk to
my music society on British music. If you are interested in seeing
what I chose, try the excitingly titled Music
Talk. Jason at TooManyTristans seems to
have disappeared: the blog is there, it hasn't been updated for
two months,
which is disappointing.
You might be interested in reading Alex Ross's
account at The Rest Is Noise of a new music 12-hour
marathon concert by Bang on a Can in New York - Bang,
whimper - including Stockhausen at dawn. Jessica
Duchen is in the middle of organising "the concert of the
book"
for her most recent novel Hungarian Dances and contributes
an amusing fictonalised tale of the problems involved: The
apprentice concert manager.
Finally, while Hilary
Hahn's blog has fallen silent since March (precisely when I mentioned
it!!), Angela Hewitt has been busy around the world (South Africa,
Canada, Britain) and has launched a scholarship in memory of
her recently deceased mother, associated with the Ottawa
Music
Festival.
May 14
We are journeying to the US capitol
for this month's "new" blog (yes, I have bowed to the inevitable and
now consider
this to be a monthly article).
Ionarts
This five contributors to this blog, the origin of whose name
is not made clear, are
based in Washington DC, and write reviews and commentary on a
range of arts topics, but a random survey suggests that music,
both recorded and performance, is the most common.
Two recent entries to illustrate the content:
Hilary
Hahn performs Paganini concerto gives "arguably
the most outstanding American violinist of her young generation"
a rave review, and Magdalena
Kožená's latest
disc of Handel arias is also well received.
Elsewhere
Robert Hugill at Planet Hugill has written an extended
piece, the title of which is fairly self-explanatory: Gleanings
from this month's Opera magazine, so if you don't
subscribe but are interested, Robert has saved you the expense
of buying it! He has also reviewed the new Birtwistle opera
The Minotaur at Covent Garden.
John France continues his excellent work commenting
on the obscure byways of 20th century British music, which is
of particular relevance to me, since I will be presenting a talk
to my Recorded Music Society on just that topic next month. Almost
certainly I will be using some of his recent selections, such
as William Alwyn's piano miniature Cricketty Mill.
Good reading.
David J Barker
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