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...
by Kenneth Woods | Nov 14, 2019 | A view from the podium, Piano, pianists and pianism
Leonard Bernstein was fond of saying of his friend and mentor that Aaron Copland was almost two composers, almost two men: one the smiling, genial, public composer of Appalachian Spring and Billy the Kid, and the other, more severe figure, “a cross between Walt...
by Kenneth Woods | Sep 21, 2019 | Lists
Three modern British masterpieces by English Symphony Orchestra Composers-in-Association: If you’re trying to base you decision on which country to live in on the basis of where you are most likely to hear fantastic new symphonies, you could do a lot worse than the...
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....
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