by Kenneth Woods | Jan 12, 2015 | A view from the podium, Not quite the news, Satire
10- The tuning slide allows a trumpet player to adjust how sharp he or she is to the rest of the orchestra. 9 – Violinists invariably play sharp when they’re under pressure, which is always. This is why they tune their open strings higher than the rest of...
by Kenneth Woods | Jan 10, 2015 | A view from the podium, Lists
It’s been hailed as “the saddest of all keys.” Andras Schiff called it “Beethoven’s key of existential struggle.” It was Brahms’s Tragic key- the world of his brooding First Piano Concerto and his Tragic Overture- both quite symphonic works. Yet Brahms never wrote a D...
by Kenneth Woods | Jan 2, 2015 | A future for music, A view from the podium
2014 was the year in which the real world finally caught up with Classical Music. As the New Year dawns, we find ourselves all deep in the belly of a whale that looks a lot like society-at-large In earlier blog posts this year, we looked at how the classical music...
by Kenneth Woods | Dec 6, 2014 | A view from the podium
Happy 85th birthday to Maestro Nikolaus Harnoncourt (née Johannes Nicolaus Graf de la Fontaine und d’Harnoncourt-Unverzagt– I really do need a posher name), cellist, conductor and visionary. Without doubt, one of the most interesting musicians of the last...
by Kenneth Woods | Nov 22, 2014 | A view from the podium, Haydn, Nuts and bolts
(Disclaimer- I’ve broken my no-swearing rule in this post. Apologies for any offense. I think Haydn’s music merits a bit of good profanity) Long-time Vftp readers will know that I’m quite the Haydn aficionado. Last Saturday, I broke a long, heart-wrenching...
by Kenneth Woods | Oct 30, 2014 | A view from the podium
The media have been ablaze this week with news of a new film espousing the completely discredited theory that Anna Magdalena Bach actually composed the Bach Cello Suites and a number of other important works by Bach. BS is the food, water and air of the mass media, so...
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