If you haven’t checked out Daniel Wakin’s article from today’s NY Times on the ambitious concert series launched by Elisha Abas and Simona DeFeo – a unique series showcasing principal players from the world’s major orchestras – go read it now.
A Concert at Carnegie Hall Not Involving Mahler
I’m just back from hearing the amazing Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Picture an ensemble…
Vintage Hindemith Shellac at… the Crooks & Liars Blog?
It’s true! It’s true! The planet’s most popular political TV blog sports a “Newstalgia” subsite featuring vintage media moments, including this recently posted, gourmet music rarity: the 1948 Pathé recording of Paul Hindemith’s Violin Concerto, performed by Henri Merckel with the Lamoureux Orchestra led by Roger Désormière. Okay, it’s a 64k mp3, which means your brain has to fill in a few holes left by the lo-fi sound, but it’s well worth a listen.
Haitink / LSO @ Avery Fisher, Part Drei
My review of their performance of Mahler’s Symphony No.9 is live at Classical Source.
Joan Walsh Dares Say It
Via the incomparable Bob Somerby comes this gem written by Joan Walsh, echoing exactly what American Politics Journal‘s founding editor, Jeff Koopersmith, was saying well over a decade ago (Bob’s emphases preserved):
“The Clinton Tapes” makes clear that from start to finish, President Clinton was besieged by a vicious just-say-no GOP abetted by the perversely, inexplicably, cruelly anti-Clinton leaders of the so-called liberal media—from the New York Times‘ lame crusades against Whitewater and Chinese donors and Wen Ho Lee, to the integrity-free “opinion” journalism by Maureen Dowd and, sadly, Frank Rich, to a whole host of other liberal media characters who couldn’t shake their feeling that Clinton was a fraud, a poseur, a hillbilly, a cynic. Their trashy eight-year oeuvre will likely go down in history as the most spectacularly malevolent and misguided White House coverage ever —and politically costly, since it also encompassed Vice President Al Gore and probably made George W. Bush president in 2000.
Read Joan’s erudite takedown of your media here, and Bob Somerby’s analysis here.
[Crossposted to APJ.]
Haitink / LSO @ Avery Fisher, Part Deux
My review of their second Schubert/Mahler concert is live at Classical Source. Part le premier was reviewed by Elizabeth Barnette.
What do you know? Evidence suggests Beethoven didn’t write Für Elise!
Whither the “Russian School”?
Go read Jessica Duchen’s new article in Standpoint on what some Russian musicians are saying about the decline of the “Russian School.”
Blast from the Past: A review from 2001
Here is my review of “Willem Mengelberg / Concertgebouw Orchestra: The Radio Recordings” (Q-Disc), originally published by andante.com in 2001 and recovered from the memory hole.
All the Richer
I am pleased to see that Alan Rich is back to blogging after a serious medical crisis that scuttled his summer. Go read!