by Kenneth Woods | Aug 20, 2019 | Nuts and bolts
Vibrato has been a subject of lively debate in the discussion of performance practice for a couple of generations now, but usually when we talk about orchestral vibrato, we mean string vibrato, and, usually, we’re talking about abstaining from said string...
by Kenneth Woods | Jul 27, 2019 | A view from the podium, Lists
They say “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” but that just won’t do for music. Surely there must a scientifically sound way of determining once and for all what the most beautiful openings are in the history of symphonic music? Well, here you go....
by Kenneth Woods | Jul 27, 2019 | A view from the podium
This made me laugh. I am, generally speaking, not an aficionado of the short. As far as I can tell, shorts are at their most permissible as recreational or sporting clothes for kids or grown ups (biking shorts are allowed as long as you are on a bike, kids should be...
by Kenneth Woods | Jul 25, 2019 | A view from the podium
Recorded LIVE at Cadogan Hall, 9 June, 2019 English Symphony Orchestra Kenneth Woods – conductor “Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony also received one of the best performances I have heard live. Woods’s fine and sane musicality ensured...
by Kenneth Woods | Jul 21, 2019 | News and Reviews
by Kenneth Woods | Jul 10, 2019 | News and Reviews
From the Summer 2019 issue of Musical Opinion Quarterly, a new five-star review from Guy Rickards: There are a number of orchestrations of Brahms piano or chamber works, most notably (perhaps) Rubbra’s of the Handel Variations, Op 24, made in 1938, and Schoenberg’s of...
by Kenneth Woods | Jun 25, 2019 | A view from the podium, Not quite the news, Satire
Just ten months ago, the City of Manchester Ensemble was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Ticket sales were dropping faster than Boris Johnson’s pants at a Royal Ascot after-party, and the orchestra was haemorrhaging money at an alarming rate. It looked like their...
by Kenneth Woods | Jun 17, 2019 | Mahler, Mahler- Performer's Perspective
Here’s a bit of music history I didn’t know I had. Gerhard Samuel, who gave the first performance of Hans Rott’s Symphony Symphony in E, repeated the work for his final concerts before retiring from the podium as conductor of the Cincinnati...
by Kenneth Woods | Jun 13, 2019 | News and Reviews
by Kenneth Woods | Jun 3, 2019 | Explore the Score
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847) Concerto in E minor for Violin and Orchestra, Opus 64 There were surely many Felix Mendelssohns, but perhaps the most singular of them is the figure described by Michael Steinberg as “the most astonishing of all the composing...
by Kenneth Woods | May 30, 2019 | Explore the Score, Nuts and bolts
Ken will be conducting Vaughan Williams Fifth Symphony with the English Symphony Orchestra at the 2019 Elgar Festival in Worcester Cathedral on Saturday the 1st of June, 2019. Details here. In 1952, when Vaughan Williams was asked to pick one of his symphonies for a...
by Kenneth Woods | May 30, 2019 | Headlines, Mahler, Music and Media, News and Reviews
Thanks to John Quinn from Seen and Heard International for this lovely and comprehensive review of last night’s epic Orchestra of the Swan concert with April Fredrick, soprano. Read the whole thing here. “The concert opened with one of Mozart’s...
by Kenneth Woods | May 25, 2019 | Mahler, News and Reviews
[Re-blogged from MahlerFest.org] BEYERS, DEVANE, KOREVAAR STANDOUT PERFORMERS AT MAHLERFEST XXXII Published in “Wunderhorn”, the Journal of the New York Mahler Society By Kelly Dean Hansen, Freelance Classical Music Writer In its 32nd year, the fourth...
by Kenneth Woods | May 25, 2019 | A view from the podium
For background, see this recent article from the New York Times At the risk of being labelled a grumpy old square, Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Helicopter Quartet has to be the biggest pile of steaming bullshit ever to emanate from the tradition of Western art...
by Kenneth Woods | Apr 25, 2019 | Mahler
In all the long history of symphonic music, with the possible exception of Berlioz, there has probably never been a symphonic debut as audacious as that of Gustav Mahler in his First Symphony. Becoming Mahler In the 130 years since it was written, this work has become...
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