Classical Music Diary

Only the beginning of endings

Composers will sometimes dress up these bits of aural clipart with rhythmic flair, but in most cases they stick to the dogma.

From the (hollowed-out) new world

This month, within six days and 20 miles of each other, the Pioneer Valley Symphony and the Musicians of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra both gave incomplete performances of Antonín Dvořák’s “From the New World” (Symphony No. 9, 1893).

Progress!

I was listening to a symphony that just wasn’t doing it for me.

Struggling with ugliness

Barely any way into Brahms’ German Requiem come three diminished chords that almost sound like a mistake.

The purr of the crowd

It’s my first time as part of a live music audience in 18 months. The Quark Quartet makes fantastic selections and performs them well, but it’s impossible to concentrate on the music. The venue is the lawn outside Forbes Library. Behind the unamplified musicians, the parking lot bustles and the library’s HVAC air handler drones.…

The Green Danube

It’s one of those classical melodies everyone is familiar with even if they can’t name it. “An der schönen blauen Donau” (“On the Beautiful Blue Danube”) was written by Johann Strauss II in 1866. Its recognizability over a century later is thanks probably in large part to “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968) and parodies on…

Post-Looney Toons

When your listening to any given piece goes beyond its popculture touchstone, the surprises are that much more surprising.

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