Music

Antonio Vivaldi taught at Venice’s Ospedale della Pietà, an institution for orphaned or abandoned girls, but he had further ambitions, and so he also began managing the San Angelo Theater as a producer of operas. At the same time, he was also a good salesman, and, on one occasion, he...

The Experimenter

January 20, 2017 - 11:30am

The work that made Edgar Varèse known internationally was Amériques. He finished it in 1921, by which time he was thirty-eight years old. What happened to all the music he wrote before it? In 1913 Varèse and his wife were living in Berlin, and, after six years of marriage, decided...

Repentance

January 19, 2017 - 11:30am

In 1525 Cardinal Thomas Wolsey founded Cardinal College in Oxford and delegated the search for singers to John Longland, the bishop of Lincoln. Longland’s search for an instructor of a choir of sixteen boys led him to singer and composer John Taverner, who lived in the Lincolnshire village of Tattershall...

Pay Attention!

January 18, 2017 - 11:30am

People who pay to attend a music lecture don’t necessarily pay attention while it’s in progress. In 1905, music critic Michel Calvocoressi was to do his first public speaking and, due to no fault of his own, he ran into trouble right away. He was to give a lecture on...

A Wintry Mix Of Classical Music To Warm You Up

January 17, 2017 - 1:10pm

A perfect way to combat the chill and darkness is to cozy up by a fire with hot beverages and classical music. Here are 10 great classical pieces that will warm you from the inside out and are perfect for a cuddly winter night.

Blunt

January 17, 2017 - 11:30am

Florent Schmitt was an innovative French composer whose 1907 ballet La tragédie de Salomé in some ways anticipated Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring , and the Russian composer expressed admiration for his works. His music had what someone called “an aggressive masculinity,” and when it came to judging the music...

First Hearing

January 16, 2017 - 11:30am

The composer was all caught up in conducting the debut of his first really big work. For several days, Ralph Vaughan Williams had been too nervous to sleep or eat right. He was unaware of friends and musical personages in the audience–Charles Villiers Stanford and the promising composer George Butterworth...

The Meanest Thing in My Life

January 13, 2017 - 11:30am

In his 1928 autobiography John Philip Sousa describes a concert in which he felt that he had to make a statement. During San Francisco’s midwinter fair in January 1894, the Sousa band was asked to perform in conjunction with Scheel’s Imperial Orchestra, which had been playing in a large auditorium...

Premiere: Eau Claire's Waldemar Release 'Visions' EP

January 13, 2017 - 9:00am

I can’t listen to the " Visions EP " (released today) from Eau Claire’s Waldemar without picturing a nostalgic American landscape. This four-song set has hills and valleys, huge vistas in the choral vocal arrangements, rocky canyons in the percussion, sun-speckled forest canopy in the horns and a winding river...

We Should Hear More

January 12, 2017 - 11:30am

He was a composer and he was a critic. So sooner or later Deems Taylor would face a conflict of interest, and, when the moment arrived, he had to figure out a graceful way to review his own piece of music. Henry Hadley had recently been appointed the associate conductor...

Community Leaders Speak About State Of Hip-Hop In Madison

January 12, 2017 - 11:30am

Karen Reece and ShaH Evans, co-founders of Madison's Urban Community Arts Network, discuss the burgeoning art form of hip-hop, educational initiatives using rap and issues of access to venues for the genre – especially for local artists.

Parting Waves, Parting Ways

January 11, 2017 - 11:30am

In his 1824 biography of the composer, Stendhal describes an 1818 performance in Naples of Gioachino Rossini’s opera Moses in Egypt. Stendhal was leery of the opera, thinking that he might be setting himself up to see a musical version of the Inquisition. Due to no fault of Rossini’s, the...

Critic Says Escapist Movies Are Here To Stay

January 10, 2017 - 5:15pm

During the Golden Globes, the musical "La La Land" set a record, winning all seven awards for which it was nominated. The movie has gotten attention for more than its star-studded cast and nod to old Hollywood musicals – the timing of this hit has gotten film critics talking. The musical has a sense of romance and optimism at its heart, and it hit theaters just a month after a bitter and divisive election.

The Price of Originality

January 10, 2017 - 11:30am

Not yet nineteen years old, Francis Poulenc was already one of France’s promising new composers, but in January 1918, with World War I consuming manpower, France had a more immediate need for soldiers, and young Poulenc would find the two occupations a strange mix. From the start, Poulenc was at...

You Want to be a Musician?

January 9, 2017 - 11:30am

In 1831 a performance of Rossini’s Otello convinced thirteen-year-old Charles Gounod that he wanted to be a composer. “I was haunted, possessed,” he said later. “I wanted to write an Otello myself!” He poured his energy into writing music. His studies suffered. “I was kept in school,” he recalled, “given...

Memory

January 6, 2017 - 11:30am

According to piano virtuoso Ignacy Jan Paderewski, in addition to stamina, dexterity, and an ear for music, a concert performer needs a good memory. During the early years of his career, he found out that memory can take more than one form. In 1890, for a French colleague, Paderewski agreed...

Sweet Reward

January 5, 2017 - 11:30am

Twenty-first century neurologists have determined that the pleasure a musician derives from playing the climax of a composition compares with the enjoyment of eating chocolate. If they’re right, Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf had a double reason to remember a reward he received as a young violinist. In 1761 Dittersdorf was...

Not Good Enough

January 4, 2017 - 11:30am

The young man was one of the most handsome in Boston, seemingly a classical Greek statue that had come to life and put on modern clothes. He was also spoiled, and all efforts to make him work had failed. An attempt to turn him into a journalist had sent him...

The Elusive Moment

January 3, 2017 - 11:30am

Although he enjoyed living in Paris, English composer Frederick Delius was restless and unable to concentrate. He was working on a piano concerto, but had hit an impasse. Thirteen years earlier he had made a musical breakthrough at Solano Grove, his father’s orange plantation on the banks of the St...

We Need a Mirror

January 2, 2017 - 11:30am

On January 2, 1875, Edvard Grieg wrote about what would become his best known music to author Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson. He was not altogether enthusiastic: Peer Gynt has turned out the way you said it would. It looms over me like a bad dream, and there’s no way I can be...

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The Salesman

The Experimenter

Repentance

Pay Attention!

A Wintry Mix Of Classical Music To Warm You Up

Blunt

First Hearing

The Meanest Thing in My Life

Premiere: Eau Claire's Waldemar Release 'Visions' EP

We Should Hear More

Community Leaders Speak About State Of Hip-Hop In Madison

Parting Waves, Parting Ways

Critic Says Escapist Movies Are Here To Stay

The Price of Originality

You Want to be a Musician?

Memory

Sweet Reward

Not Good Enough

The Elusive Moment

We Need a Mirror

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