Category Archives: A Little Night Music

“Gusts of splendor, gods and demi-gods contending with vast swords, color and fragrance broadcast on the field of battle, magnificent victory . . . it will be generally admitted that Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is the most sublime noise that has … Continue reading →

LAST FRIDAY WAS WALPURGIS EVE, when witches ride and ballerinas glide, a festivity that provides the only justification I can think of for producing Charles Gounod’s Faust. Bill di Donato’s Bel Canto Opera did its usual patch-‘n’-paste job, in the … Continue reading →

Photo by Susesch BayatCHARLES LINDBERGH’S SOLO FLIGHT across the Atlantic in May 1927 sent the world into a tizzy of adoration. It spawned parades, popular songs, Lucky Lindy Hair Tonic and — not the least — a strange but endearing … Continue reading →

Photo by Ken HowardLAST WEEK’S VISIT BY THE ENSEMBLE Intercontemporain delivered exhilaration and bafflement in equal measure; I don’t think I was the only member of the commendably large crowd at UCLA’s Schoenberg Hall to leave the concert wondering what … Continue reading →

TWO PERFORMANCES OF THE “GREAT” C-MAJOR Symphony; in between, the no-less-great C-minor Sonata: We Schubertians, a noble if embattled breed, had reason to stand tall last week. Great performances of great works reveal new facets, no matter how familiar the … Continue reading →

ASK ANY ORCHESTRAL MANAGER, ANYWHERE IN THE world, and you’ll get the same answer: There is no better way to pave a pathway to financial ruin than by playing new music. The real money flows in to the tunes of … Continue reading →

Photo by Dimo SafariDURING INTERMISSION AT LAST THURSDAY’S Philharmonic concert, the talk in my corner was about long-lost or neglected composers. The concert had begun with Arthur Honegger’s Symphonie Liturgique, which the orchestra had last played in 1949. It was … Continue reading →

THE ART FOR A RECENT ECM DISC SHOWS a solitary figure on a shadowy, fog-swept landscape, his worldly possessions, including a drum and a trumpet, beside him in loose bundles. The photograph — as is usual with this exceptionally arts-aware … Continue reading →

STRANGE, THESE CONFLUENCES. LAST week was the time of the double bass: Italy’s Stefano Scodanibbio, with Terry Riley, in an off-the-wall Monday Evening Concert at the County Museum; the multiphased Edgar Meyer in a new concerto of his own fashioning … Continue reading →

TARRED WITH THE BRUSH OF “CONSERVAtive,” politicians turn into bogeyman figures suitable for frightening small children. Composers are not so drastically afflicted. Their world may not be mine, but I feel safe there on occasional visits. At Pasadena City College, … Continue reading →