Just on the news: A survey of students: 64% say they’ve cheated 36% say they’ve plagiarized 30% say they stole but a whopping 93% say they are satisfied with their own ethics … and I’ll just bet you that some of that 7% who aren’t satisfied are probably the most honest of the bunch and [...]
Archive of entries posted on November 2008
Billing
To rewind the story, the incident occurred after Rozhdestvensky discovered that his name had been omitted altogether from a list of “Distinguished Conductors” in the BSO’s season brochure. He was also upset that the week’s cello soloist, Lynn Harrell, had been featured in a large photo and given top billing on a concert poster, while [...]
Read Online
Oboe: The oboe is a double reed instrument which means it has two small pieces of wood that you blow on together. It is often used in moves to emulate pity and horror. It can produce a merry and bright sound too. In fact it is the instrument that the orchestra uses to tune up [...]
BQOD
Anyway, both symphonies were quite good. The funniest part came during the second movement of Symphonie Fantastique, when the oboe player had to go offstage to achieve the appropriately eerie tone. During the third movement the oboe player returned, and to reach his seat had to move the English Horn player’s music stand, and the [...]
BQOD
I listen to classical music rarely, but when I do, it normally takes me over: body, mind and soul. The best pieces cause me to close my eyes, prance about, and swing my arms about like a spastic conductor. I am possessed by the spirits of long-dead Europeans.
BQOD
I listen to classical music rarely, but when I do, it normally takes me over: body, mind and soul. The best pieces cause me to close my eyes, prance about, and swing my arms about like a spastic conductor. I am possessed by the spirits of long-dead Europeans.
Considering My Past History With Cakes
… I’d love to see and hear “Cake Catastrophe” because it sounds as if it might be about me. I can’t tell you how many birthday cakes I baked that flopped. I’d wind up hiding the bad cake in the laundry room and Dan would run to the store to purchase a store cake. (I [...]
BQOD
With today’s increasingly superb technology, live orchestras and unpredictable conductors are dispensable. (This was written by a professional violinist who no longer performs, as I understand it, but runs a private studio where the blogger teaches other violinists.)
Elixir
Dan and I went to San Francisco Opera’s production of Elixir on Wednesday night. It was such great fun to see and hear it right after finishing with Opera San José’s production. I certainly know the music intimately. I was sorry we missed Ramón Vargas. (Hmmm. He bagged the final show … ill?) Not that [...]
Aim that Ear!
Classical genius worth biding millennia for. Aim your ear high! This is what I read when I turn my TV to URGE Radio’s classical station. Hmmm. First of all, I’m not quite sure what this means. And no other music stations say things like this. Are we being snobby again, or am I being silly [...]
Mozart and Keys
Levin: Mozart – Mark, you can probably put the lie on this -is one of the only, if not the only, composer that I know who in every single one of his mature operas ends in the same key in which it began. Wagner doesn’t do that. Verdi doesn’t do that. How many cases are [...]
Thankful
I am thankful for so much. Faith, family, friends. Music. Art. Words. Health. House. Warmth. Rain. … and a cleaned up yard. ;-) Mostly I’m just going to be thankful and leave it at that. I wish everyone a very wonderful Thanksgiving. (And yeah, I’ll probably be back later with some silly post, but you [...]
I want an earpiece too!
There is an honorable tradition in opera of singers relying on a prompter to provide cues for words or entrances. But during rehearsals for the Metropolitan Opera’s production of Wagner’s “Tristan und Isolde,” which opens on Friday night, the German tenor singing Tristan, Peter Seiffert, has been using a personal electronic prompter: an earpiece through [...]
And Another
Faced with a severely weakened economy, the New Mexico Symphony Orchestra is cutting more than $200,000 from its budget for the current season. I read it here.