by Kenneth Woods | Jan 7, 2008 | A view from the podium, Favorite posts, Nuts and bolts
I’m a bit concerned that this sudden outpouring of advice is making me look even more like a pompous gasbag than I do simply by virtue of being a conductor (and worse yet, a conductor who writes), but then there was this…. In the comments on More Tips...
by Kenneth Woods | Nov 6, 2007 | A view from the podium, Favorite posts, Mahler, Nuts and bolts
Here’s a short excerpt of last week’s performance by the Rose City Chamber Orchestra of Schubert’s “Death and the Maiden” quartet as arranged by Mahler and me. Without changing a single note of the work, Mahler’s version makes...
by Kenneth Woods | Nov 5, 2007 | A view from the podium, Favorite posts, Haydn, Mahler, Nuts and bolts
12 Tone music is dead. Yeah, right…. Given the fact that the stats, email and the comment page tell me that my rather arcane post on tonality from Saturday is one of the most read and discussed posts I’ve ever done here, I would say that this music still has almost...
by Kenneth Woods | May 29, 2007 | A view from the podium, Favorite posts, Haydn
I think I’m falling in love…. Strangely, the object of my affection is a dead Austrian who is one of the most misunderstood figures in music history. Boring, stuffy, old fashioned, a relic from music history class, dry, academic, fussy and even quaint- he’s been...
by Kenneth Woods | Feb 2, 2007 | A view from the podium, Explore the Score, Favorite posts, Mahler, Nuts and bolts
It’s probably no coincidence that the two most popular composers of the 20th Century, Shostakovich and Mahler, are also the two whose autobiographies are most intimately associated with their work. However, although their musical work may have been shaped in part by...
by Kenneth Woods | Jan 10, 2007 | A view from the podium, Favorite posts, Mahler, Nuts and bolts
Music, even vocal music, is ultimately an abstract art form. Musical ideas, even those attached to words, are inherently abstract. Nevertheless, we all find ourselves searching for the meaning of musical ideas. Wagner went so far as to assign meanings to themes...
Recent Comments