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Category Archives: On Music
Tone Poem Tuesday
One of Leonard Bernstein’s main self-appointed missions in life was the advancement of new American music. As comfortable as he was in the orchestral repertoire all the way back to Mozart, Bernstein saw it as his duty to stand up … Continue reading
Something for Thursday
CCR: Here’s what I don’t understand about this song: “It was down in Louisiana, just about a mile from Texarakana.” Huh? According to what I’ve found on Google, Texarkana is roughly 35 miles away from the Louisiana state line. (Although … Continue reading
Tone Poem Tuesday
Reinhold Gliere was a Russian composer who lived long enough to stop being a Russian composer and become a Soviet one. He was born in 1875 and lived to 1956, almost exactly contemporary with Joseph Stalin. As the last living … Continue reading
Something for Thursday
A film music suite from the movie Miracle, about the “Miracle on Ice” hockey game at the 1980 Winter Olympic Games. That game was played 44 years ago today. Wow. For more on that game, please check out Sheila O’Malley’s amazing … Continue reading
Tone Poem Tuesday
Sometimes it’s interesting to compare performances by the same conductor, but separated by decades. Here we have Leonard Bernstein conducting his own Overture to Candide, which is likely the most enduring of his own works. The first performance is from one … Continue reading
Tone Poem Tuesday (Farewell, Seiji Ozawa)
Maestro Seiji Ozawa died last week, aged 88. Ozawa was best known for his long tenure as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, all twenty-nine years of that tenure–the longest of any of that great orchestra’s many amazing conductors. … Continue reading
Posted in On Music, Passages
Tagged Passages, Tone Poem Tuesday
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Something for Thursday: Happy Birthday, John Williams!
John Williams turns 92 today…and he’s still working. In his honor, let’s listen to some of his work! Williams won a Grammy just the other night for this: “Helena’s Theme” from Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. It’s a typically gorgeous … Continue reading
Tone Poem Tuesday
Ugh! I don’t know why this didn’t publish. I could swear I clicked the right thing on here. Anyway, this should have run the day before yesterday. Admittedly, this is one of my “Fallbacks because I’ve been having a busy … Continue reading
Something for Thursday
Phil Collins turned 73 the other day. Collins no longer performs due to age and health reasons, which is very sad…but there was a time when he was ubiquitous to a staggering degree. From the mid-80s to around 2000 or … Continue reading
Tone Poem Tuesday (PDQ Bach edition)
Peter Schickele died on January 16 of this year. He was a composer and a comedian who was best known as the self-styled musicologist responsible for “unearthing” the music of “P.D.Q. Bach”, the “21st of J.S. Bach’s 20 children”. Over … Continue reading
Posted in On Music, Passages
Tagged Passages, Tone Poem Tuesday
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