Your guide to classical music online

You read about it regularly in composers’ biographies. Schubert, Donizetti, Schumann, Smetana, Wolf, Joplin, Delius—all were likely victims of syphilis. Other STDs were just as common in ages past. Rossini, for example, suffered from gonorrhea throughout his later life, and was so full of enthusiasm for his urinary catheters that he kept them on display [...]

Editor’s Note: As 2012 marks the centenary of Ferrier’s birth, a reposting of this article seems warranted. 2003 marks the 50th anniversary of the death of Kathleen Ferrier, an English icon whose continued popularity among a fanatical legion of admirers based in the United Kingdom continues to puzzle and amuse many music and voice (the [...]

The new ClassicsToday.com has undergone some major upgrades and enhancements over the past few weeks (and a few more to come as well). We thought it would be helpful to share some tips about how and where to find your favorite classical music reviews and editorial information within our new system. 5 Quick Search Form [...]

Reality Check: The Future of Classical Music Lies With Seniors Maybe it’s because I’ve just turned 40, but it seems that everywhere I turn I’m confronted with the “crisis” of classical music and today’s youth. Gramophone magazine is retooling itself to reach a younger audience. Policy makers and supporters of the arts attend lectures on [...]

Are your favorite artists Line Guys or Chord Guys? For some time now Classicstoday.com editor David Hurwitz and I have enjoyed a running dialogue on the endlessly fascinating topic that we have come to call “line guys” and “chord guys.” What this means is simple: Conductors and pianists generally fall into one of these two [...]

Organized by Centro Studi Opera Omnia Luigi Boccherini, Lucca, and Villa Medici Giulini, Briosco (MB) in association with: Palazzetto Bru Zane – Centre de musique romantique française, Venice under the auspices of: Fondazione Istituto Liszt, Bologna 2011 is the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Franz Liszt, and in addition to the expected flood [...]

There 
will 
surely 
be
 enthusiasts 
for 
abominable 
performances 
such 
as 
this 
one,
 because
 novelty 
for 
its 
own 
sake 
always 
has 
its 
attractions. 
The
 problem,
though, 
is
 that
 gratuitous 
quirk s
imposed
 on 
any 
piece 
of 
music 
may 
sound
 intriguing 
once, but 
a 
compact 
disc 
is 
(virtually) 
forever. 
The 
second
 time 
they
sound 
predictable, the
 third 
boring,
 and
 the
 fourth 
time
 infuriating — [...]

Recent articles and editorials about the so-called “decline” of the classical recording industry have generally focused on the reduction in new productions owing to the wave of mergers and acquisitions that have overtaken the major record labels. Polygram turned into Universal, and now seems headed into the welcoming embrace of the French conglomerate Vivendi. Warner [...]

Reissuing back catalog material (what the major labels poetically call “secondary exploitations”) has gradually assumed greater importance than producing new recordings, at least among the big corporate players in the world of classical music. The reasons for this are obvious: it’s comparatively inexpensive, there’s tons of great stuff to choose from, and since the productions [...]

I doubt that Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos would make anyone’s short list of the greatest conductors of the 20th century, and it’s not my intention to claim for him this distinction. If you have been following the reviews on Classicstoday.com, you may have noticed that he has recently appeared on BIS with the Berlin Radio [...]