Music and Nature: Trees
When we’re young and in dance class, we’re told to imitate trees – swaying in the wind, bowing down in a torrent of rain or just standing tall in the cold winte... Continue Reading...
Interlude
Music and Nature: Flowers
Flowers show us the invisible world – they pop up to show us Spring, they dance in the wind, they bring happiness, and can mark occasions of solemnity. Composer... Continue Reading...
Mapping the Musical Genome: The Wagner Family
Richard Wagner (1813-1883) was the manliest man in a manly world of manly composers! Creator of theatrical and musical dramas lasting the better part of eternit... Continue Reading...
How Stravinsky Was Inspired by Ragtime
We associate ragtime music with performers and composers such as Scott Joplin, confined by their poverty and marginality to the US. What we may not realize is h... Continue Reading...
The Beauty of Counterpoint
Often, the point of interest in the music isn’t the melody but what’s going on underneath. I recently attended a performance of Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker, bu... Continue Reading...
How Inspiration Strikes
Composers tend to be a peculiar lot, particularly as it pertains to the best and most conducive circumstances in which they compose their best music. Of course,... Continue Reading...
Mapping the Musical Genome: The Bach Family
'Young Bach' as Konzertmeister in 1715 by J. E. Rentsch, the Elder. Johann Sebastian Bach was part of an extensive Saxon-Thuringian family that produced an un... Continue Reading...
Music and Nature: Birds
For music and nature, birds are the natural – they sing! Or, rather, we hear their communication as singing. A friend in Hong Kong trains birds to sing, playing... Continue Reading...
