by Kenneth Woods | Jan 24, 2020 | Not quite the news
This is a story which has gone un-told for too long. Every time I conduct Beethoven’s 7th Symphony, I am reminded of the viola terrorist. She was a very GREAT LADY, and the PRINCIPAL VIOLIST of the very slightly larger orchestra in the very slightly more populous town...
by Kenneth Woods | Jan 12, 2020 | rock
Like a lot of my friends and contemporaries, the death of Neil Peart, the drummer and lyricist of the band Rush, hit me hard. When I decided I wanted an electric guitar, my parents rightly decided that if it wasn’t to be a faddish thing that I lost interest in...
by Kenneth Woods | Jan 4, 2020 | ESO LvB 250, Lists
The 10 Best Beethoven Symphony Finales Yes, I know, he only wrote 9 symphonies, but nobody does ‘top 9’ lists. So: best Beethovenian finale in a non-Beethoven symphony? It could be Brahms 1, in which Brahms masterfully integrates some of the formal complexities...
by Kenneth Woods | Dec 16, 2019 | A view from the podium, Piano, pianists and pianism
Notes I wrote for the 6 CD Albany Records collection of live performances by the great American pianist, Howard Karp. These are proper live recordings – taken mostly from archival reel-to-reel 2 track tapes of Howard’s concerts in Madison and Urbana. Give...
![The good, [the] bad and [The] Messiah](https://kennethwoods.net/blog1/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Messiah-Groom-Square.jpg)
by Kenneth Woods | Dec 7, 2019 | A view from the podium, Not quite the news, Performing Life, Satire
NB – I have become aware in recent years of a special category of internet pedants who have made it their job in life to police the completeness and formality of the title of the work being discussed in the following post. Out of concern for their...
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