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Recent Posts
- What’s New for the 26th of July:
- A Kinrowan Estate story: chicken pot pieces
- What’s New for the 19th of July: Charles de Lint’s Ottawa novels with a quote from Drink Down the Moon, Gary’s review of Nordic fiddle music, It’s Michele Walther and Irina Behrendt playing Aaron Copland’s ‘Hoe Down’ from his Rodeo album
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Midsomer Odd Things
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Library and Its Librarian
- What’s New for the Fifth of July: Remembering Jane Yolen; some new Americana and jazz music; Fishing Blues
- A Kinrowan Estate Story: Recursive Loops
- What’s New for June 21: Jennifer Stevenson’s ‘Solstice’
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Turkish Coffee
- What’s New for the 7th of June: Foxes in literature, live Balkan music, comforting jazz, Americana jazz, and wonderfully weird fusion jazz; and John Fogerty live
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Bloodied Kings
- What’s New for the 24th of May: Gary’s Review of Elizabeth Bear’s White Space novels, iain’s review of the Lonely Signal Burns novellas by her, she reading her own story, ‘The Chains That You Refuse’, and I see Gary has some tasty music reviews fir us as well
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Our Greensward
- What’s New for the 10th of May: books reviewed by Jennifer Stevenson, music by Teddy Thompson, Americana music from all over, and some live music from John Fogerty
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Walk
- What’s New for the 26th of April: the nature of Stories; some new and newish SF, plus new world, jazz, folk and Americana music
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Spring Day
- What’s New for the 12th of April: Some new and recent SF; new Americana, Norwegian folk rock and jazz; and thoughts on War For The Oaks
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Unified Theory of Libraries (A Letter to Anna)
- What’s New for the 29th of March: Beer and spirits, in song and text, some new Scandinavian fiddle music and jazz flute music, and more
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Ghostly Librarian
- What’s New for the 15th of March: some DeLint stories for early spring; lots of polskas, Serbian folk rock, progressive jazz, and Nordic music from the archives
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Hedge Witches
- What’s New for the 1st of March: Emma Bull’s War for The Oaks, Rosanne Cash’s ‘Runaway Train’, Johnny Cash at San Quentin, plus new Americana and jazz music
- A Kinrorwan Estate story: Cranachanh
- What’s New for the 15th of February: Some Seanan McGuire fantasy, Alison Bechdel’s latest, Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin; Nordic sounds, old time, Americana and Tex-Mex music
- What’s New for the 1st of February: Kage Baker retrospective; new Americana, Buddhist chants and Finnish songs, new and reissued jazz, and more
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Fireplaces in Kinrowan Hall
- What’s New for the 18th of January: World music and fiction by Amal El-Mohtar
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Bridges and Paths plus a Troll
Tag Archives: classical music
Talisman’s Music of Russian Princesses: From the Court of Catherine the Great
When one hears the phrase “Russian Classical Music”, one thinks perhaps of the ballets of Tchaikovsky with their searing drama and heartbreaking grace. One thinks of the piano concertos of Rachmaninov, with their wondrous lyricism and blazing virtuosic demands on … Continue reading
Posted in Music
Tagged classical music, Czarist Russia, women composers
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Gustav Mahler: The Complete Symphonies
Both Tim Page and Erik Ryding, in their essays accompanying this Sony reissue of Leonard Bernstein’s landmark cycle of the complete symphonies of Gustav Mahler, give Bernstein pride of place in Mahler’s “rehabilitation” in the 1960s. While I don’t want … Continue reading
Posted in Music
Tagged classical music, modernism, romanticism
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Arnold Steinhardt’s Violin Dreams
I run across a fair number of musical biographies, autobiographies, reminiscences, and the like, all the way from Berlioz as seen by his contemporaries to Ned Rorem’s somewhat scandalous diaries. The common thread, of course, is that they are about … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged biography, classical music, music
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Roger Norrington, conductor and The London Classical Players’ Ludwig van Beethoven’s 9 Symphonies
Listening to these recordings of Beethoven’s nine symphonies, plus the overtures to “Creatures of Prometheus,” “Coriolanus,” and “Egmont,” I find myself right back in the middle of the “tradition versus innovation” argument. This is particularly entertaining, given that the subject … Continue reading
Posted in Music
Tagged classical music
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Ludwig van Beethoven: The Complete String Quartets
Beethoven Early String Quartets Beethoven Middle String Quartets Beethoven Late String Quartets Beethoven String Quartets Live (DVD) Mmm . . . two of my favorite things in one review: Beethoven and string quartets. I willingly confess to a weakness for … Continue reading
Posted in Music
Tagged classical music, romanticism
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Milos Forman’s Amadeus
The story of Amadeus is by now fairly well known. From a screenplay by Peter Shaffer based in turn on his original stage play, the film is told in flashback from the viewpoint of Italian composer Antonio Salieri, who lived and worked … Continue reading
Hector Berlioz’s Evenings with the Orchestra
No honest discussion of the Romantic era in classical music can take place without making mention of Hector Berlioz, the great genius from France who seemed to typify Romanticism in casting almost all of his music in dramatic terms and … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Berlioz, classical music, French culture
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Claude Debussy’s Noel des Enfants Qui N’ont Plus De Maisons (Christmas Carol for Homeless Children)
Though Claude Debussy is one of my favorite composers, I hadn’t heard “Noel des Enfants Qui N’ont Plus De Maisons” (“Christmas Carol for Homeless Children”) until recently. It’s on soprano Carmen Balthrop’s lovely CD The Art of Christmas, Vol. 1. It’s … Continue reading
Posted in Music
Tagged c, classical music
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Art Tatum’s Piano Starts Here
Craig Clarke contributed this review. Jazz pianist Art Tatum, more than 50 years after his death, still has the power to impress new listeners and wow even the most accomplished pianists. Largely self-taught, Tatum’s style was so original and his … Continue reading
Shigeru Umebayashi’s House of Flying Daggers and Tan Dun’s Hero
Recent years have witnessed a major resurgence of interest in Asian culture in the West, as anime and manga become more and more popular, and as Asian martial-arts epics receive major releases in American movie houses. The first real mainstream … Continue reading
Posted in Music
Tagged classical music, soundtrack
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