classicalconditioningblog - Tumblr blog

[classicalconditioningblog]

Play a tone for so long until you hear its individual vibrations hold the tone and listen to the tones of the others -to all of them together, not to individual ones- and slowly move your tone until you arrive at complete harmony and the whole sound turns to gold to pure, gently shimmering fire

Karlheinz Stockhausen, score to “Set Sail for the Sun” from Aus den sieben Tagen (From the Seven Days). Listen here. (via classicalconditioningblog)

[classicalconditioningblog]

in which Carmen fights back

[classicalconditioningblog]

6 great classical music TED Talks:

Evelyn Glennie: “How to truly listen”

Benjamin Zander: “The transformative power of classical music”

Michael Tilson Thomas: “Music and emotion through time”

Robert Gupta: “Music is medicine, music is sanity”

Itay Talgam: “Lead like the great conductors”

Charles Hazlewood: “Trusting the ensemble”

[classicalconditioningblog]

#TimesUp for classical music, too.

Boston Globe: BSO’s Andris Nelsons says sexual harassment isn’t a problem in classical music

The Telegraph: Mariss Jansons: ‘Women on the podium are not my cup of tea’

New York Times: Met Opera Suspends James Levine After New Sexual Abuse Accusations

NPR: Another Famous Conductor, Charles Dutoit, Accused of Sexual Assault

[classicalconditioningblog]

We gave you the 10 worst classical music covers, and so here are 10 of the very best covers of the last few decades….we’re sensing a theme…

[classicalconditioningblog]

playlist: women who score

Only 2% of the 250 top-grossing films from 2013-2016 were scored by women. Since the Academy Awards began in 1929, only 2 women have won for Best Score.

This list is only a small sampling, and includes women of color and Indigenous women, as well as women identifying as LGBTQ+.

((click each name to listen))

Rachel Portman: Emma | Kathryn Bostic: Dear White People | Mica Levi: Jackie | Laura Ortman: Gringo Trails | Anne Dudley: The Full Monty | Usha Khanna: Dil Deke Dekho | Wendy Carlos: A Clockwork Orange | Germaine Franco: Coco | Lesley Barber: Mansfield Park

[classicalconditioningblog]

Bernstein conducts Mahler

[classicalconditioningblog]

double chromatic harp (c. 1895) made by henry greenway (1833-1903) in brooklyn.

little is known about greenway, other than that he was a civil war veteran turned piano repairman and instrument-maker. only two harps by greenway survive. this one would have been difficult to play, with glissandi in any key other than c major completely impossible.

(via Metropolitan Museum of Art)

[classicalconditioningblog]

Francis Poulenc and his dog, Mickey.

Pair with Poulenc’s “Le Chien Perdu (The Lost Dog)” – listen here.

(photo sources: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4)

[classicalconditioningblog]

Happy birthday to Russian pianist, composer, and Movember participant Alexander Scriabin!

Born on January 6, 1872, Scriabin pioneered a distinctly Russian, post-tonal style that transitioned Western music from the late Romantic era into the 20th century.  Listen to his Piano Sonata No. 5 here.

(Photo sources: last.fm; Carnegie Hall; DoveSong.com)

[classicalconditioningblog]

Austrian pianist Paul Wittgenstein lost his right arm in World War I.  Determined not to let five fewer fingers stop him from playing, Wittgenstein commissioned a number of works for left hand alone – including Maurice Ravel’s famous Concerto for the Left Hand in D Major, premiered by Wittgenstein soloing with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra on January 5, 1932.  Listen to it here.

(Photo source: antiwarsongs.org)

[classicalconditioningblog]

Pianist Paul Barton brought a piano up a mountain in Thailand to play Beethoven at a refuge for injured and elderly elephants.

(source)

[classicalconditioningblog]

19 epic examples of conductor face

[classicalconditioningblog]

angel playing bassoon (18th c.?)

(image via)

[classicalconditioningblog]

Happy New Year! Hope it’s filled with lots to learn.

“I graduated from Juilliard recently, and just earned a trial with the London Symphony.” “Was there ever a time when you wanted to quit?” “It was harder when I was younger, and all my friends were outside playing. Back then my Mom really kept me practicing. But then I hit a point where I began to love the instrument, and I really couldn’t imagine my life without it.” “How did you know when you reached that point?” “I guess it was the point where I’d learned enough that I realized how much more there was to learn.”

[classicalconditioningblog]

excerpt from Aria (1958) by John Cage 

(image via)

[classicalconditioningblog]

from 30 Rock S02E13