A couple of years ago my wife slipped on the stairs outside our apartment. The resulting fall left her with a painful knee injury requiring months of rehabilitation. In addition to physical therapy the course of rehabilitation included Pilates, a targeted exercise routine developed early in the 20th century by Joseph Pilates, using highly specific […]
Reclaiming Genius A Review of David Montgomery's Franz Schubert's Music in Performance
Winter
How are cherished art works of the past best served and most deeply savored? A visitor to the Basilica of San Francesco in Arezzo will find the remains and restoration of only what Piero della Francesco himself painted in the great 15th century frescoes. The restorer has removed all of the renderings of the many […]
So You Want to be a Musician Part 1: Professional Values
WinterThere are gaps in the way many young musicians are educated today. On the one hand the cultivation of deeper issues of musicianship are often neglected. Instrumental teachers mostly fail to stress the need for students to base an interpretation of the music they work on, both intuitively and consciously, on the harmony, rhythm and […]
The Vibrato Thing
Fall
The Question: If, when and where to apply modern, “continuous” vibrato to older works and still prevent high-brow performance sophisticates from kicking metaphysical sand in your face.1This delightful imagery was borrowed, with a tip of the hat, from Michael Michalski’s private audio advertisement entitled “Webern’s Greatest Hits.” The Good News: They don’t know much more […]
Rethinking the Concert Program Toward a New Paradigm
FallIn the last three decades, the once anomalous summer chamber music festival has become the most common venue for chamber music performances in the U.S. While fiscal exigency has forced regular season series in major cities to scale back or in some cases discontinue their programs, summer music festivals have sprung up and flourished in […]