Puccini’s love life kept him from music

I trust everyone will forgive me for writing about Giacomo Puccini again on this last day of 2008, but one of my Christmas gifts was the Mary Jane Phillips-Matz biography from 2002, and, like the other biographies, it has to discuss the composer’s romantic life.
The composer’s relationships outside his relationship with his live-in lover and [...]

Messiaen prepares to enter the canon

A friend sends along this article from The Washington Post about Olivier Messiaen, whose 100th birthday celebration ends this week.
Stephen Brookes’ piece makes some good points about the French composer, who’s closer to canonical than most other composers who are relatively recently deceased (Messiaen died in 1992). Certainly the Quartet for the End of Time [...]

Honoring the founder of the ‘Nutcracker’ feast

It’s been a busy Christmas season as I’ve tried to fit in a bunch of visiting and shopping along with writing and planning, as well as composing. But I’d rather be too busy than not have enough to do.
Last night I went to the Ballet Florida production of The Nutcracker, and this version is one [...]

Missing ‘It Came Upon the Midnight Clear’

Even though the Christmas season is a time when we sing the old songs, it’s a body of work that also is mutable. Like any other form of music cherished by the public, tastes change, and what once was near and dear to us, even at a time when traditional modes of celebration are paramount,  [...]

Millhauser collection a worthy choice for NYT list

I’ve been writing reviews this week and small pieces of church music, and that’s left me short of time to address some larger topics in this blog.
But I did want to mention something from the weekend: The New York Times‘ list of the 10 best books of 2008. One of them is the short story [...]

Christmas rituals include film, music

The Christmas season is a season of rituals, and that’s how contemporary people mark the passing of the year. In older times, there were large group rituals for the end of harvest season and such, and while societies still do these things, today’s rituals are the small things individuals do.
They’re things like serving a holiday [...]

Notes, links on recent concerts

Concert notes, from out and about:
1) Boca Symphonia. I’m intrigued by the programming choices this year from conductor Alexander Platt, not least because he’s scheduled the Violin Concerto of Jonathan Leshnoff, who as a Peabody student won a small composition prize I created in 1993 and have funded since then (it’s since grown, which is [...]

Of French composers, Ravel dominates piano programs

Heading off to hear the pianist Di Wu this evening at the Kravis Center; the Chinese-born pianist is doing an all-Ravel program that features Miroirs, Gaspard and the Pavane pour une Infante Defunte.
I heard this young artist last year in a recital in the Piano Lovers’ series in Boca Raton, and she did an afternoon [...]

Dinnerstein disc a winner, and so is Lasser piece

The New York-born pianist Simone Dinnerstein has been getting a lot of good press lately, and there are ample reasons for it.
Her Berlin concert album, released earlier this year, features the pianist in music by Bach and Beethoven,  as well as a new American piece, by Philip Lasser, based on a Bach chorale.
This, to my [...]

Following up on Leo Arnaud

One of the very first blog entries I wrote here was one about the film composer Leo Arnaud, who is best-known for the music we know as the Olympics theme, which originally was written as a brass piece called Bugler’s Dream.
I’ve received several excellent comments from readers about Arnaud, in particular from people who knew [...]