by Kenneth Woods | Mar 15, 2012 | A view from the podium
Rick Jones, long-time chief classical music critic for the London Evening Standard, has published a review of Bobby and Hans volume 2 on his blog , Words and Music. You can read the whole thing there (CD reviews are along the right hand side of the blog). A short...
by Kenneth Woods | Mar 15, 2012 | Explore the Score
Welcome to a special edition of Explore the Score. I’ve told friends for years that some day I wanted to write a book about Shostakovich 5. Here’s the short version. Dmitri Shostakovich- Symphony no. 5 in D minor opus 47 Genesis Shostakovich’s Fifth...
by Kenneth Woods | Mar 9, 2012 | Bobby and Hans
In celebration of the release of Bobby and Hans, volume 2, Gramophone Magazine commissioned a special blog post for their website. That’s right, folks- you didn’t hear it here first In fact, you can’t read it here, at all.! Mosey on over to the...
by Kenneth Woods | Mar 1, 2012 | News and Reviews
There’s a very nice review of last night’s concert with Orchestra of the Swan by critic Edward Clark now up on the Classical Source website. Read the whole thing here. A short sample follows: ….This Orchestra of the Swan concert began with the first...
by Kenneth Woods | Feb 29, 2012 | News and Reviews
Orchestra of the Swan/Kenneth Woods at Cadogan Hall – Tallis Fantasia, Frank Bridge Variations – Tamsin Waley-Cohen plays The Lark Ascending Wednesday, February 29, 2012 Cadogan Hall, London Reviewed by Edward Clark When I travel abroad I am sometimes asked what the...
by Kenneth Woods | Feb 27, 2012 | A view from the podium
Apologies to regular Vftp readers frustrated by the quiet state of the blog- it’s been a very, very busy patch here. The good news (well, depends on whether you look forward to or dread new content here) is that I’ve got quite a backlog of things for the blog that...
by Kenneth Woods | Feb 18, 2012 | A view from the podium
The composer Felix Mendelssohn made many visits to the British Isles during his short life, yet it is little known that he stayed in North Wales for several weeks in 1829, visiting many of its famous beauty spots. But fact can indeed prove stranger than fiction, since...
by Kenneth Woods | Feb 5, 2012 | A view from the podium
Over the last five or six years, I’ve gradually been building up a rather nice library of orchestral parts, all marked with my bowings and any special requests (such as “on the string”: I haven’t yet tried writing in things like “stop glaring,...
by Kenneth Woods | Feb 4, 2012 | A view from the podium
From the February 3, 2012 Surrey Advertiser: Surrey Mozart Players on top form for Electric Theatre performance Those who ventured out to the Electric Theatre last Saturday were in for a real treat. The Surrey Mozart Players under their charismatic conductor Kenneth...
by Kenneth Woods | Feb 4, 2012 | A view from the podium
One might think that having a blog would mean never having to bottle up a rant. Sadly, I’ve found that the opposite is true- when you never know who (if anyone) is reading or why, it’s best not to carelessly let fly with whatever is bothering you. Better to save the...
by Kenneth Woods | Jan 26, 2012 | A view from the podium, Bobby and Hans
What follows is a bit of a treasure. It is an interview with Hans Gál, done in 1971. It is unknown who the interviewer was, or if , when and where it was published. Nevertheless, it contains some of Gál’s most extensive commentary on his own creative work, his...
by Kenneth Woods | Jan 26, 2012 | A view from the podium
How music speaks to power? The doubtful legacy of Theodor Adorno Readers of this blog will know that Ken is a great enthusiast for composers like Shostakovich, Sibelius, Elgar and Schumann – among many others. His taste is catholic, and he is even open to...
by Kenneth Woods | Jan 24, 2012 | Nuts and bolts
In the comments for my previous blog post on the Real Top 20 C Major Symphonies of All Time”, I assembled a list of the greatest “C minor symphonies that end in C major.” The first four pieces I thought of were Beethoven 5 Brahms 1 Bruckner 8 and...
by Kenneth Woods | Jan 22, 2012 | News and Reviews
A big thank you to Jason in Iowa, who alerted us to the fact that the eminent musicologist and Brahms scholar, Bernard D. Sherman, picked Orchestra of the Swan’s recording of the Third Symphonies of Hans Gal and Robert Schumann as one of his top 10 best...
by Kenneth Woods | Jan 21, 2012 | Study with Ken
Magicians of the orchestra: revealing the conductor’s art On Sunday 20 May 2012 the Two Rivers Festival (ww.tworiversfestival.co.uk) will present a special day-long workshop at The Bushell Hall, Birkenhead School working with an ensemble of players from the...
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