I was having a conversation last week with a small group of people who are quite knowledgeable about classical music. For some reason, they started to talk about “gypsies,” which of course is another name for Roma people. The people I was talking with talked about the...

GUSTAV MAHLERYesterday started out pretty well. I decided to write a post about music that is good to listen to on Mother’s Day. I was happy to think about that topic and I started to make a list of musical selections.Then while I was making my list, I suddenly...

Most of us think we know what avant-garde music is. It’s music that is ahead of its time, right? Music that sounds like music will sound in the decades or centuries that follow it.The problem is, that definition is wrong. You see, most avant-garde music doesn’t sound...

I don’t usually write reviews of performances on this blog. I’m not a music critic, and there are lots of other bloggers who have that ground covered.But I feel compelled to write about the astonishing debut that the British pianist Paul Lewis made with the New York...

“Mary Poppins” – Would you rather spend two hours and 20 minutes watching this, or the same amount of time seeing Aida? Your choice. When you invite your friends to go to see an opera with you, do they whine “Okay, but how LONG will it be?” I’ve had that happen. I...

Is opera better than chamber music? Is choral music better than piano music?Those are fairly ridiculous questions, of course, but kind of interesting anyway. Much to my discredit, I’ve been thinking about them lately. And even though nobody asked me to, I came up with...