Tag Archives: A-to-Z 2013

And so we come to the end of this year’s A-to-Z adventure, with another modern composer, Judith Lang Zaimont. I’ve never heard her music before the other day, so this chalks up as another ‘new to me’ composer, which is … Continue reading →

We’re almost to the end! Today we’re back in Japan, with the music of the very-much-still-with-us Takashi Yoshimatsu. There is a lot of fascinating music coming out of Japan these days. Yoshimatsu is almost entirely self-taught, having gained his musical … Continue reading →

I know, I missed yesterday, so we’ll do a make-up post today. ‘X’ is a tough letter anyway, obviously, and it pretty much led me inexporably to Iannis Xenakis, a Greek composer of highly mathematical, avant-garde music. When I say … Continue reading →

Richard Wagner can be a real slog, I will admit. He can be heavy and ponderous, and even when he’s not being those things — because he can also be light and ethereal — he’s always totally serious. He’s never … Continue reading →

In the interests of honesty, here’s some music by a guy whose music I just don’t like very much at all. Antonio Vivaldi is one of the leading Baroque composers, and he’s uncommonly beloved, but whenever I listen to Vivaldi, … Continue reading →

African classical music, what little I’ve heard, tends to be as interesting as any nationalistic classical music, especially when the language of Western music is combined with the folk tunes and indigenous rhythms of the homeland. This is yet another … Continue reading →

As I near the end of this alphabetic exercise, I look back and note a complete lack of women cited here. Now, this blogging meme-thing was clearly not meant to serve as any kind of exhaustive, or even representative, survey … Continue reading →

Jean Sibelius is one of those composers I struggle with from time to time. He seems like a composer whose music I should like more than I do, and yet, I don’t dislike his music. I’ve never really made a … Continue reading →

Toward the late 19th century, Russia came into its own in a big way as artistic Romanticism took hold in that country. One of the greatest composers to emerge from that period, slightly before Tchaikovsky, was Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. I haven’t … Continue reading →

Well, you gotta do what you gotta do when you get to Q. I don’t know anything about this composer at all. Not a thing. His Wikipedia page indicates that he was born and studied in China and eventually emigrated … Continue reading →