Category: The Music Column

Heidi Waleson’s Mad Scenes and Exit Arias: The Death of the New York City Opera and the Future of Opera in America (2018) is a challenging and enlightening work—one which dares much and succeeds remarkably well.  We must concede that we do not often find a work of expository prose to be as appealing as...

My relationship with Barnes & Noble is fraught with emotion simply because it is a big bookstore, among other things.  And I am one of those types—an inveterate reader—who is easily hooked.  I was once embarrassed when a lady told me that she had caught herself reading soup-can labels: As one who had done the...

Last year, in a January 3 review published by the Daily Telegraph, Hannah Furness made some remarkable assertions concerning the presentation of traditional operas on the modern stage.  Furness quoted the tenor Michael Fabiano, then playing the Duke in a Royal Opera House production of Rigoletto, to the effect that “the treatment of women in...

I have been told that there is something called the “Pavarotti Effect,” and that this phenomenon is observable and definable.  Perhaps sometimes the Pavarotti Effect was an affect, or perhaps it was subsumed by the “Superstar Effect,” as Sherwin Rosen called it in a paper published in The American Economic Review in 1981.  Rosen insisted...

An Italian-American restaurant I count on features sound reasons for my presence there, and that of others.  I like the tone in that environment.  There is an aspect of 1950’s atmosphere—the place is quiet, the lighting subdued, and the manners polite.  The menu is gratifying when the garlic is held in control, and the service...

Some two decades ago, I found myself preparing for a trip to Niagara Falls, where I was to meet a lady.  I had not been to Niagara Falls before, though I was familiar with the movie Niagara (Hathaway, 1953), which has sometimes been called the best Hitchcock movie not by Hitchcock.  I didn’t want to...

Back in the day, was there anyone more famous than Arturo Toscanini?  Everyone knew who he was, what he did, and what he looked like.  He was more famous than Walt Disney and got coverage like a movie star.  And even the sight-challenged were aware of his performances and recordings.  The first recording I ever...

When Carlos Kleiber died in 2004, the world didn’t find it out until he had been gone for six days.  The elusive maestro/uncanny conductor had escaped the exploitative notice of the press for one last time.  There were the predictable reactions to the passing of the mystery man, but there was a difficulty in comparisons,...

I was thinking recently about Earl Wild for several reasons: his achievement as a pianist; his substantial and extended contribution to the “Romantic Revival” through his performances and recordings; and my own memories of exchanges with him after three of his appearances in New York City. When I beheld him backstage, standing far away from...

The subject of the Brahms Violin Concerto in D major (Op. 77) is fitting because we are talking about a work that is respected, which is one thing, but also loved, which is more.  I had some special times with the Brahms Violin Concerto, even some special bad times, but I always come back to...

When they are so easily available for free, the opportunities on YouTube don’t leave much excuse for not taking advantage of them, even though in one particular case at least, the musical presentation is puzzling or unidiomatic or off-putting.  But even there, gradually, the realization sets in—the realization that one hears the distillation of a...

The statistics that break down the consumption of music into types and groups are not very comforting to consider.  But if we really want to know what the musical situation is, rather than to entertain a fantasy of what it ought to be, we would have to acknowledge the realities of musical art in our...

There are so many difficulties with our National Anthem that it’s hard to keep up with them all.  But the explicit question that it asks—whether we see the Stars and Stripes still flying after the twilight’s last gleaming—is actually a pertinent question today, and not only one about the bombardment of Fort McHenry in 1814....

Now, you know I am indulging myself when I think of the nominated topic and come up with examples that are all piano recordings!  That’s a limitation within a limitation, and I admit it.  And I am also aware that when we talk about sound, I am supposed to make noises like a hi-fi buff,...

Extraordinary writing about music doesn’t come along very often, as I have been forced to notice by my own experience—as have my own put-upon readers!  But in the realm of classical music, I would suggest that Donald F. Tovey’s Essays in Musical Analysis is an imposing composition, a stunt of writing—the freight of its assertions...

Well, after 50 years and more in New York, I have heard the fat lady sing, and I know what that means.  There have been some issues as the decades have zipped by, I must say; and I have dealt with the problems seriatim—riots, street crime, altercations, the murder of an elderly benefactor, and other...

Although music doesn’t have an obvious link with golf, I say it does, so that I can contradict myself immediately.  The late Sam Snead was and still is well known for his beautiful swing, which he related explicitly to waltz-time, and more than once.  Tempo and rhythm were aspects of motion, as he saw the...

Tossing around a word like music is problematical—and culture is even harder to deploy meaningfully.  Nevertheless, I am going to give both a try in a revealing juxtaposition that was brought to my attention by that world-traveling anthropologist Henry Radetsky, an academic colleague and a valued friend.  Henry is a cultured man I have learned...

We live in revolutionary times of rapid technological change, and yes, it is a little disconcerting when the rules morph and the practices mutate.  But I did predict years ago that vinyl would be back, and so it is.  This year’s junque is next year’s antique.  And I remember back even to Before Vinyl. A...

National Public Radio is a bad idea, as you can tell from the name.  But the specific reality is even worse, though I suppose it comes in different forms.  The service is varied in that local stations can tailor themselves differently.  But I believe that my take on NPR is basically true about the “NPR...

Silence can be a bad thing if there is too much of it, but today that is not often the case, for we live in a noisy world.  The postindustrial era promised to turn down the volume, but it didn’t—too often, we are ourselves directly responsible for a lot of noise.  But not all of...

In response to numerous entreaties, private demand, and the obligations incurred by untold knowledge, I have reluctantly agreed to undertake this Music Column; and I will only continue to inscribe it as long as those three particular conditions remain in full force.  Yet I do not conceive The Music Column to be self-preoccupied—rather, it addresses...