October, 2014

39 Posts
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Blowing the Budget
Giacomo Meyerbeer
It is prohibitively expensive to stage an opera. In 2012 alone, the Metropolitan Opera in New York had expenses totaling 317 million US Dollars! For one, you need singers, an orchestra of roughly 80 players and a conductor. Some popular
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Cigarettes, Chocolate Milk, and Threesomes
All in a Night’s Work for Rufus Wainwright
Ah, the Late Night Proms. The only time you can spend in the Albert Hall in summer and not be glared at for shuffling your feet or clapping spontaneously. Starting at 10.15pm, finishing at 11.45, you’d think that this nocturnal
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The Waltz King – Three Strauss Brothers
Johann Strauss II, or Junior, or the younger The Waltz King, (not related to Richard), composed over 400 of the world’s most beloved waltzes, polkas, quadrilles, dance music and operettas. These include the perennial favorites: An der Schonen Blauen Donau
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Haydn: Scottish Airs
My Love she’s but a lassie yet From Haydn: Scottish Airs (2014) Released by Harmonia Mundi Haydn: My Love she’s but a lassie yetThe arrangements of Scottish ‘national melodies’ (nearly 400 in all) are among the little-known gems of Haydn’s
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Love and Death in Music
Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde tells the story of good intentions gone wrong. Tristan is sent to Ireland to fetch the beautiful Isolde, the intended bride of King Mark of Cornwall. Tristan killed Isolde’s fiancé, Morold, and Isolde is in despair
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Diversion of the Mind
Victor Borge
I always find music a fun thing to do: musical instruments are ‘played’, and the word ‘music’ lends itself to other words like ‘amuse’, ‘amusing’ and ‘amusement’. If ones looks up the meaning of ‘amusement’ on OED.com, one would find
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The Stepmother Syndrome
Charles Burney and Elizabeth Allen
After Esther Burney died of cancer in September 1762, Charles Burney remained a widower for five years. The reason it took him so long to remarry and find a new mother for his six children was because Elizabeth Allen turned
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