I recommend Wieland Samolak’s 1993 album, Steady State Music:
When I was a teenager I used to sit on an empty field listening for hours to the sounds of distant cars, railroads, helicopters, and other motorized objects. These sounds, which are very rough and noisy when they are near, attracted me from the distance because they […]
To celebrate its 120th anniversary, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra is giving away a symphony every day. Yes, please. Here’s the selection:
Franz Schubert - Symphony no. 8 ‘Unfinished’
Ludwig van Beethoven - Symphony no. 2
Felix Mendelssohn - Symphony no. 4 ‘Italian’
César Franck - Symphony in D minor
Gustav Mahler - Symphony no. 1
Antonín Dvořák - Symphony no. 8
Camille […]
NPR’s 100 most important American musical works of the 20th century, with excerpts from each.
Spoiler: Katie Hafner’s book, A Romance on Three Legs: Glenn Gould’s Obsessive Quest for the Perfect Piano, is one of the most enjoyable I’ve read this year, a really nice little page-turner.
Glenn Gould was one of the great pianists of the 20th century, known as much for his personal quirks as for his musicianship. Gould’s […]
The latest MacArthur Fellows got their genius grants today. Among them is one of my favorite writers, Alex Ross.
I was listening to my last.fm library this afternoon and noticed that Johann Sebastian Bach is on tour, 300+ years and still going strong.
A Day in the Life of a Musician by Erik Satie:
An artist must regulate his life.
Here is a time-table of my daily acts. I rise at 7.18; am inspired from 10.23 to 11.47. I lunch at 12.11 and leave the table at 12.14. A healthy ride on horse-back round my domain follows from 1.19 pm […]
An archive of record covers from Blue Note Records. [via dial “m” for musicology]
I’m not as thrilled with this one as I was with the unusual editon last week, but it’ll do. You might recognize the opener from the 28 Days Later soundtrack.
Is it harder to write a sonnet than a great hip-hop verse?
The literal rules for writing sonnets, tankas, haikus etc. aren’t particularly hard to follow. It’s following the rules and actually saying something that’s hard. You can write a sonnet that makes no sense, and has no real power in the words. Likewise, you […]
The only reason I put together the unusual edition is because of the first track “Strange Overtones”. I’ve been repeating that religiously since I heard it earlier this weekend. I haven’t had a track get such heavy play since “Weird Fishes”. Other highlights include Victor Wooten’s sick bass solo around the 2-minute mark in “Oddity,” […]
Highlights in my fifth Monday muxtape include a more relaxed, non-heavy-metallic Judas Priest; my good friend and brilliant jazz vocalist Kat Edmonson; an obscenely catchy tune from Peter, Paul & Mary; a quiet little number for percussion ensemble; and some Yeasayer—the bass just kills me. Can’t sit still when that one comes up.
Remembering the genius whom Stanley Kubrick stole music from, a nice remembrance of the life and music of György Ligeti. Ligeti is well-known for Poème Symphonique For 100 Metronomes and his piano etudes like Devil’s Staircase. And lots of other good stuff. I also came across an interesting video of a visual listening score for […]
My fourth muxtape is ready for your aural pleasure.
I stumbled on a video of Glen Velez playing a frame drum. I saw him in a workshop a while back when I was in college. Insane skills. We also did some overtone singing, but one of the coolest things I remember was him improvising a little solo with shakers, with all kinds of mind-bending […]
This week’s installment at mlarson.muxtape.com.
András Schiff did an 8-part series of lectures on all of Beethoven’s piano sonatas.
My second muxtape in an ongoing series of indeterminate length. Some static hiss on the last track, but it’s a hot performance.
Classical and pop reviews 2, Greg Sandow’s follow-up to his previous post on the topic:
Certainly we’re not immersed in classical music because we want to check whether the latest pianist to come along really knows what to do with Beethoven — whether her tempo in the slow movement of some sonata really is correct or […]
The first in a series of themed weekly amusements. Get your fix while you can at mlarson.muxtape.com; I forgot to post earlier this week and I’ve got a new edition coming in a few days.
I stumbled on a couple music reading lists on Amazon. Daniel Levitin suggests 11 books to read on music. Songwriters on Songwriting could be good and I’m especially curious about The Art of Practicing.
And Alex Ross wrote a top twenty guide for 20th-century music, both books and recordings. I’m curious about John Cage’s Silence and […]
La Scala is going to stage an operatic version of An Inconvenient Truth. Hmmm.
I like this brief survey of conducting styles, comparing their approaches to a work that everyone has heard.
Fringe just finished up their first season:
The concerts will look something like this: chamber music (classical music played by small groups of musicians) will be the focus of each evening, with performances of some of the most virtuosic music compositions ever written, performed by the best musicians in Atlanta and throughout the country. Unlike […]
In 1800s America, Shakespeare productions had juggling and singing amidst the acts, and theatergoers would cheer the heroes, boo the villains, shout out lines along with the actors, even walk about on the stage. Opera divas would sing “Yankee Doodle,” “Home Sweet Home,” Irish ballads and other folk songs, and take requests from the audience. […]
David Byrne has a new art installation that connects an organ keyboard to various parts of a large building. Playing the Building makes a giant musical instrument out of the structure of columns, walls, pipes:
I’d like to say that in a small way it turns consumers into creative producers, but that might be a bit […]
Alex Ross writes about the life and music of John Luther Adams.
Adams is an avid art-viewer, and is particularly keen on the second generation of American abstract painters: Frank Stella, Ellsworth Kelly, Jasper Johns, and Joan Mitchell. There are more art books than music books on the shelves of his studio, a neat one-room cabin […]
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