archive

Classical music making

From Limina, Brydie-Leigh Bartleet (Griffith): Conductors and Authorship: A Postmodern Critique of Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. A review of How Equal Temperament Ruined Harmony (and Why You Should Care) by Ross W. Duffin. From Logos, an article on Joseph Haydn. A subject and servant of Europe’s most cosmopolitan empire, the composer Joseph Haydn played an important role in the emergence of German cultural nationalism during the 18th and 19th centuries. I'll Be Bach: A computer program is writing great, original works of classical music — will human composers soon be obsolete? A review of Changing the Score: Arias, Prima Donnas, and the Authority of Performance by Hilary Poriss. David Estalote on improvisation and musical language: Imagine if your use of the English language was limited to reading literature with little ability to converse with friends or express your thoughts in your own words — that is how most classical music making has been for the last century. A review of Sibelius: A Composer's Life and the Awakening of Finland by Glenda Dawn Goss (and more). Age of the Castrato: Thousands of boys were castrated in the name of music, and for most the benefits outweighed the drawbacks. A review of After the Golden Age: Romantic Pianism and Modern Performance by Kenneth Hamilton. A review of The Triumph of Music: Composers, Musicians and their Audiences 1700 to the Present by Tim Blanning. From Music and Politics, Christopher Moore on performance and the paradigm of historical contextualism. Gabriel Boylan reviews No Such Thing as Silence: John Cage's 4'33" by Kyle Gann (and more). Chopin, the public face of Poland: During his brief life, the Polish master of the musical miniature became a living symbol of his troubled nation.