Joe Musicology

Oddly enough, there’s been a great big to-do going on around the web about the Appoggiatura. I suppose folks wanted to use a fancy word for what they are hearing in the music, and the debate is basically whether they used the correct word. First, let’s get a good clear (albeit dry and heartless) definition: “A [...]

An old friend of mine, violinist Katha Zinn, has been working with pianist Illya Filshtinskiy on a multi-media project focused on Russian composer Alfred Schnittke’s Third Piano sonata (1994). The performance of the score, when taken alone, is downright remarkable. Zinn provides a warmth that brings off Schnittke’s patent tension with a velvet glove-an interpretation [...]

I understand that tonight Paul Simon, among others, was inducted into the Academy of Arts and Sciences. I’m not sure what it means to him, but I think that he deserves appreciation. They say he played this song for them. I wonder if he is still trying to get that rest…

I recently took the opportunity to liberate my turntable from the stereo cabinet. I have always wanted to set up an efficient method by which I could digitize L.P.s. After all, the old L.P.s are cheaper, sound better and have a bunch of wonderful information on the sleeve. Finally, it gives me an avenue by [...]

Ladies and Gentlemen

  So, a few months back  Musikproduktion Jürgen Höflich sent around a call for authors to write prefaces for study scores of pieces written by some 19th century composers. Among them were Louis Spohr’s two big oratorios, Die Letzten Dinge and Des Heilands Letzte Stunden. Because Spohr was a contemporary of Weber and very important [...]

On Friday evening, March 18th, Richard Egarr returned to the Handel and Haydn Society to conduct an historically informed concert featuring Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. Because of his distinguished reputation as an expert in period performance, Egarr was certain to fit in quite nicely with Boston’s oldest performing ensemble. And it was an evening of masterpieces, including [...]

It all started innocently enough—at least for me. It was really a heart wrenching story. Housekeepers at the Hyatt Regency Hotels in Cambridge and Boston spent a day with trainees following them, only to find out at the end of the day that they were actually training their replacements. I remember reading this article and [...]

A while back I read an interesting post on Steinskog dealing with the “Best Credit Scenes.” An interesting category for discussion, particularly with regard to the opening of Eyes Wide Shut and the way that the opening soundtrack gradually shifts to a diagetic background, only revealed when Tom Cruise turns off the CD player as [...]