Did you really hear that? When I was in high school, I was a pianist for a swing band. A real dance band filled with terrific adult musicians that played at country clubs and grown-up parties. This is where I learned my Cole Porter, Jerome … Read more
Rachmaninov: Rhapsody on a Theme by Paganini While we’re on the subject, let’s go ahead and add one more work to finish out this series on Paganini. We started with Paganini’s Caprice No. 24 and then went to Liszt’s Etude based on the same work. … Read more
The year: 2093. The place: a classroom (or whatever the cyber-equivalent will be). The topic: Pop Music at the Dawn of the 21st Century. Whatever else is taught, there will be no way to avoid discussing rap music. A phenomenon that many thought would fade … Read more
Liszt: Grandes études de Paganini (No. 6) Why not? We talked last week about Paganini’s Caprice No. 24 that had inspired other composers, so we might as well see how that works. Franz Liszt had been inspired by Paganini’s successful virtuosity on the violin to do much … Read more
Paganini: Caprice No. 24 in A minor Few names are associated more strongly with virtuosity than Niccolò Paganini (1782-1840). He was one of the first performers to rise to fame in the wave of fascination with virtuosity that seized audiences in the early 19th century. … Read more
Charles Ives: Variations on “America” For a celebration of the Fourth of July, we should turn to something American. Who are the quintessential American composers? We could toss out some names like Sousa, Billings, Copland, or Irving Berlin, and pretty soon we would have a … Read more
Cluny. A name on a music history test. A place in Burgundy, at the Eastern edge of France, where something or other important happened about a monastery and Abbey in the early Medieval period. That much I remembered—couldn’t forget it if I tried, really, since … Read more
Brahms: Intermezzo, Op. 116, No. 6 My father was a big Brahms fan. At the age of 5 or so, I was not often allowed to handle his collection of easily breakable 78 rpm recordings, but I can remember wearing out an vinyl LP of the … Read more
What do we hear? Really hear? One of the first challenges in studying the arts involves paying attention to what we hear and see. Let’s start with the music we hear. Tell the truth: have you ever listened to the radio and been unable to … Read more
Shostakovich: Piano Concerto No. 2 I grew up playing band arrangements of Shostakovich’s symphonic music. They were some of the more challenging works we took on as students, and Shostakovich wrote interesting horn parts. So I developed an early interest in his music. I still … Read more