Musings on ballet, classical music, the violin, and life
Concerts, recordings, reviews, musings, you name it. I’m a lifelong classical music fan.
The violin concerto repertoire is so rich and satisfying, I’m embarrassed to admit that, prior to becoming an adult beginner on the violin in 2005, I was only familiar with a few of them. This, from a self-proclaimed classical music fanatic. Whoops. But maybe that’s you, too. … Read more
Sergei Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2, Op 18 is the kind of music that grips you by the collar and draws you into its world instantly, with its rich orchestral textures and dramatic fervor. I’ve loved it for years. Decades. Last weekend I attended the San Francisco Ballet’s Program 1, and was dazzled by the … Read more
The fourteen-year-old Mozart didn’t see himself as being a music pirate, mind you. He was just doing the thing he so excelled at, with his musical genius and photographic memory, back in the spring of 1770. He and his father Leopold were in Rome, working their way through Italy for the month as the young … Read more
On June 12th, forty-nine people were killed in a gay night club in Orlando, with fifty-three more wounded, in a terrorist attack/hate crime that shook the world. Hours later, James Conlon, guest conducting Sunday afternoon at the San Francisco Symphony, took the mic at the start of the performance. He told us they would be dedicating the performance … Read more
While my first choice for classical music on Easter will always be Handel’s Messiah, which I elaborated on HERE last year, there are a few other wondrous, utterly memorable pieces that conjure up the same rush of powerful spirituality, a sense of Easter Sunday grandeur. There’s the Gustav Holst choral piece I’ve sung in choirs, a gorgeous SATB arrangement of … Read more