The Classical Music Guide Forums

Jim Svejda, a host for KUSC recently devoted his entire morning show (March 15th, 2007) to ripping Chinese pianist Lang lang. He called Lang lang’s interpretations preposterous and egotistical. He spent the show playing Lang lang’s recordings and comparing them to other pianists. He surmised that th...

Judging from the numbers, it would certainly seem that MySpace is attracting more audience for 'classical music.' I've always said that if you get rid of some of the formality (er, stuffiness) associated with classical music, most of these composers will continue to attract a new audience. The L.A. ...

I think the symbology of the Magic Flute is simply that Sarastro is initially presented as being evil but turns out to be one of the good guys. This is representative of the 'spin' that the Catholic Church put on FreeMasonry, depicting them as the evil ones. I think this is all that's involved with ...

Yes! Happy birthday dear Beethoven! One of my first (musical) loves and still an enigma after all these years. By the way; I don't know if any of you saw the movie Immortal Beloved, but I hear it was based on the plot line that he was in love with his late brother's wife. I found this an absurd noti...

No question that Mozart cast a looong shadow. (And he's one of my favorites! I could listen to him endlessly. {Don't tell anyone.}) There were certainly others though. Mendelssohn was certainly a prodigy and it has been pointed out that he was composing masterworks in his teens. I love Mendelssohn, ...

Out here, in the states, (California) the big deal is these huge new concert halls with acoustical properties that lets you hear a paper rustle in the audience. Re- Disney Hall and the new on in Orange County Henry Seagestrum. My feelings about them are kind of like the 'new' digital recording techn...

When I was in music school (the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore) we had a music history prof. who's pet theory was that everything after Bach was just a re-hashing. We even had to justify his position on a final exam! If you look at music from a purely harmonic analysis, his idea is hard to disput...

I've been gravitating towards Sibelius, Stravinski and some of those English guys, I like Elgar, now that I've realised he wrote more than Pomp and circumstance and Enigma variations