by Kenneth Woods | Nov 1, 2010 | News and Reviews
Robert C Reilly at the Catholic News Agency dedicates a good chunk of his monthly column for October to the music of Hans Gal: “Austrian Jewish composer Hans Gál fled the Nazis in 1938 and eventually moved to Scotland, where he died at the ripe old age of 97. I...
by Kenneth Woods | Oct 26, 2010 | News and Reviews
The November/December issue of International Record Review features a 2 full-page feature on recent recordings of the music of Hans Gal, headlined by a review of our new recording of Triptych and the violin concerti. Martin Anderson is the reviewer. “At last a...
by Kenneth Woods | Oct 22, 2010 | Music and Media, News and Reviews
My colleagues at Orchestra of the Swan kicked off their 3rd season as resident artists at Town Hall Birmingham with a bang this week. Coming up next for OOTS is the Finzi Clarinet Concerto with Sarah Williamson, conducted by David Curtis on the 16th and 17th of...
by Kenneth Woods | Oct 20, 2010 | A view from the podium, Mahler, Mahler- Performer's Perspective
Gustav Mahler is a composer whose music again and again finds connectivity in contrast and contradiction. His music is full of starkly contrasting opposites, and yet he always seems to find connection and unity between light and dark, fast and slow, happy and sad, and...
by Kenneth Woods | Oct 18, 2010 | News and Reviews
From the November/December 2010 issue of Fanfare Magazine- entire article available for Fanfare subcribers. Excerpt below: CD Review by Barry Brenesal GÁL Violin Concerto. Triptych. Concertino for Violin and String Orchestra • Kenneth Woods, cond; Annette-Barbara...
by Kenneth Woods | Oct 15, 2010 | Mahler, Mahler- Performer's Perspective
It seems fair for once to say that I am truly approaching a milestone in my life- in about a month, I will be making my first recording of a work by Gustav Mahler. On November 19 and 20, I’ll be going into the studio with my colleagues at Orchestra of the Swan, three...
by Kenneth Woods | Oct 6, 2010 | Nuts and bolts, Performing Life
“Playing Beethoven only gets more challenging” That statement and its many variants is one of those musical truisms one hears so often, one almost ceases to be aware of what it means. It’s not a statement I would make about every composer- demanding as it is, Richard...
by Kenneth Woods | Oct 6, 2010 | News and Reviews
From MusicWeb International, published October 5, 2010 ….TheViolin Concerto comes from the period 1931-2 when Gál was at his most successful in Germany. It is in many ways quite an untroubled work. Throughout it I kept pinching myself that this was not a British...
by Kenneth Woods | Oct 5, 2010 | News and Reviews
UPCOMING CONCERT Thursday, November 4, 2010 7:30 PM St John’s Smith Square, London New Queen’s Hall Orchestra Kenneth Woods, conductor Kit and the Widow, reciters A Gala Concert in Celebration of the NQHO’s return to the newly renovated St...
by Kenneth Woods | Sep 30, 2010 | cello, Performing Life
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a little bit about the challenges of getting to grips with an instrument other than one’s own. I’m now back in Philadelphia, playing again on that same “other” cello, and it’s fascinating how one development has changed my perspective on...
by Kenneth Woods | Sep 23, 2010 | Performing Life
I had a nice moment in rehearsal tonight. I first met Mozart 34 in a pretty good chamber orchestra with a pretty bad conductor. It wasn’t an auspicious first date, but in spite of the noisy circumstances, we had chemistry. It probably helped that my stand partner for...
by Kenneth Woods | Sep 22, 2010 | A view from the podium
As a short follow-up to my long post on the Eroica Marcia funebre, I thought I might mention a little bit about Metamorphosen, Richard Strauss’s late masterpiece mourning the end of the great and continuous musical culture that ran from Bach through to him. On the...
by Kenneth Woods | Sep 20, 2010 | Nuts and bolts
In my last post on Beethoven 3, I talked just a little bit about my experience of studying the work with my teacher, Gerhard Samuel (more on him here and here). It remains a particularly memorable experience since it was the first score we went through together, so I...
by Kenneth Woods | Sep 19, 2010 | News and Reviews
Classic FM, October 2010 issue Gál Violin Concerto, Triptych, Concertino for Violin and Strings Annette-Barbara Vogel, Northern Sinfonia/Kenneth Woods ***** (Five stars) One of a generation of native-born refugees from Nazi-dominated Austria in the 1930’s, Hans Gál...
by Kenneth Woods | Sep 14, 2010 | Nuts and bolts
As part of an ongoing effort to make this blog less boring, I’ve decided to try a few posts on major pieces that are more anecdotal than analytical. (Yes, it’s the old master plan of using stories about your own life to avoid boring other people. Guess how well...
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