For the month of October, the #ClassicsaDay team (of which I’m a part), decided to go with a Halloween theme. The idea is to share works marked in some way with the composer’s demise. It can be the last piece a composer completed before death, or one left incomplete at death. For my part, I […]
Ludwig van Beethoven
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#ClassicsaDay #ClassicalNine Week 2
September is the ninth month of the year. And so the #ClassicsaDay team decided to make the number the theme. For September 2018, the challenge is to post classical works that have to do with the number nine. I chose to alternate between nonets, opus nine compositions, and works with a catalog number of nine. […]
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#ClassicsaDay #Bernsteinat100 Week 4
August 2018 is the centennial of Leonard Bernstein’s birth. Many classical radio stations, performance groups, and writers marked the occasion. And so did #ClassicsaDay. Bernstein was known as a composer, conductor, performer and an educator. Since #ClassicsaDay is primarily a music feed, I concentrated on the first two of those roles (and occasionally the third). […]
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#ClassicsaDay #Opus1 Annotated List Week 1
I’m a regular contributor to the #ClassicsaDay Twitter feed. For January 2018, I decided to mark the first month of the new year with firsts. Each post features the first published work of a different composer. Emphasis on the word “published,” In some cases, the Opus 1 is the first mature work of the composer. […]
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Anguish and Triumph – a new Beethoven biography
Why do we need a new biography of Beethoven, the facts of whose life are already well-known and whose works are among the most familiar in the entire repertoire? Jan Swafford, composer, scholar, and distinguished biographer of Brahms and Charles Ives, answers that question handsomely in his new Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt […]
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The Deceptively Easy Mastery of Gilbert Kalish
In this recording of Haydn, Beethoven and Schubert, Gilbert Kalish presents an appealing program of works he knows well. The opening and closing works are the final piano sonatas of their respective composers — Haydn and Schubert, with a selection of short works by Beethoven in the middle. Haydn’s Sonata No. 62 in E-flat (Hob.XVI:52) […]
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Leif Ove Andsnes: The Beethoven Journey Continues
Pianist Leif Ove Andsnes continues his highly personal exploration of Beethoven’s piano concertos. The second release in this series features the second and fourth concertos, which work well paired together. Andsnes plays and directs the Mahler Chamber Orchestra from the keyboard. The use of a small ensemble give these works an unusual lightness and transparency. And […]
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The Beethoven Journey
It’s taken a while for Leif Ove Andsnes to get around to Beethoven. And judging by the first installment of his traversal of the piano concertos, it was worth the wait. This first volume of “The Beethoven Journey” includes the first and third piano concertos. According to Andsnes, they were chosen to provide a study […]
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Beethoven Violin Sonatas Lively and Expressive
Barbara Govatos and Marcantonio Barone have been performing as a duo for over a decade, which makes their traversal of Beethoven’s ten violin sonatas so enjoyable. There’s an easy give-and-take between these performers that turn the music into a lively conversation between old friends. Both Govatos and Barone play with precision, which makes them well-matched. […]