Monthly Archives: November 2000

Pianissimo

AndrAs Schiff began his recent Philharmonic stint with Bach‘s D-minor Concerto, seated at the keyboard of a 9-foot concert grand piano with the lid removed, conducting a properly small contingent of string players. I’ve been around long enough to remember … Continue reading

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All-American

By accident or design, the past few days‘ musical offerings added up to an impressive sweep through a varied American music — a festival in everything but name. Famous antagonists — Aaron Copland and John Cage, say — came onto … Continue reading

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Birthday Boy

Conventional wisdom about Aaron Copland is that he is America‘s best “serious” composer so far. Already, however, we’re in trouble; that term “serious” is part of the arts vocabulary rendered meaningless by contemporary realities. What, for example, is the current … Continue reading

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An Energetic, Electric, Eclectic Orange

COSTA MESA, Calif. — When last we visited California’s Orange County, that high-property-value enclave just to the south (and far to the right) of Los Angeles, the Orange County Philharmonic Society’s first “Eclectic Orange” Festival had run its course. Local … Continue reading

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Eclectic Orange

When last we visited California’s Orange County, that high-property-value enclave just to the south – and far to the right – of Los Angeles, the OC Philharmonic Society’s first “Eclectic Orange” Festival had run its course. Local audiences may have … Continue reading

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Time Capsules

Bertrand Desprez Five years ago I used some of this space to exult over my discovery of the French composer Pascal Dusapin at his first appearance on disc – a pseudo-operatic gloss on the Medea legend in a Harmonia Mundi … Continue reading

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Witchcraft

I had forgotten — if, indeed, I ever knew — the somber, deep beauties of On Wenlock Edge. Nothing of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ music, I must confess, has been a boon companion the past few years, perhaps as my expiation … Continue reading

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