Archive for the “Now Hear This!” category
A Happy Viennese New Year
by Glenn on January 9, 2018
If the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols makes me wish I were English, the Vienna Philharmonic’s New Year’s Concert makes me ready to learn German and move to Austria. I had to watch this year’s Vienna Philharmonic New Year’s (…)
Adventures in Classical Programming
by Glenn on August 24, 2017
When you program a concert of classical music, it’s tough to be creative. As an audience, we generally don’t like the unfamiliar—surprises can be dicey. A typical evening might be a short and upbeat piece to start out the evening, (…)
John Williams and The Force Awakens
by Glenn on January 23, 2016
Our local Regal Cinemas has a $5 Tuesday night special, which was enough incentive to get us out of the house on a dark, cold, wet, and windy Portland evening (I guess we could just call it a Tuesday in (…)
Addendum: Beethoven Symphony No. 5
by Glenn on November 15, 2015
I got into the car on Friday (30 October 2015) and apparently reached my saturation point on the amount of pledge drive talk I could handle on KMHD 89.9, the Portland jazz station. So I turned over to Portland All (…)
Zubin Mehta and Saint-Saëns in the Berlin Phil Digital Concert Hall
by Glenn on September 26, 2015
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921) Symphony No. 3, Organ Symphony I am reading through Michael Steinberg’s The Symphony: A Listener’s Guide and listening to the works he describes. Steinberg has picked 118 symphonies for his book. I’ve listened to 15 of them, (…)
Solti’s Handling of Elgar’s First (Symphony Studies No. 1 of 118)
by Glenn on June 25, 2015
One of my long-term projects is to read through the late Michael Steinberg’s The Symphony and listen to the works he describes. I first encountered Steinberg’s writing
The “Resurrection” on Resurrection Sunday
by Glenn on April 7, 2015
I dream of the day that the worship at church is more inspiring and less painful. It seems to me that more worship is ruined by a sound person who is hearing impaired and/or wants other people to be hearing (…)
Music for Tax Season
by Glenn on March 22, 2015
It’s tax season. I know, I should be checking my NCAA bracket and living and dying with each game, but I didn’t actually fill out a bracket. No, no March Madness for me. It’s tax season so I’m getting our (…)
Mahler 9 | ensemble mini | joolz gale
by Glenn on March 16, 2015
Note: I have included some audio examples in this post. They are small samples of larger works included here for educational purposes in the spirit of fair use. I have purchased and own the recordings that are included here. For (…)
Abbado, von Karajan, Rattle via Duggan
by Glenn on February 24, 2015
I’ve listened to a particular recording of Mahler’s Ninth Symphony several times over the last couple of weeks. It’s a recording made in September of 1999 by Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic.
Chopin’s Nocturnes and an Unfamiliar Artist
by Glenn on February 14, 2015
The other night I had some hours of tedious computer work ahead of me, so I turned for some accompaniment to a collection of pieces that I hadn’t heard in a long time—years, perhaps?—the Chopin Nocturnes.
New Mahler 2 from 1980
by Glenn on November 13, 2014
A little bit of insomnia so I wrapped myself in a down blanket (Portland has some serious “hey, ho, the wind and the rain” going on this morning) and sat down at the computer to write. While I wrote I (…)
