Blog Archives

The Rite, Then and Now

5/29/2013

The man who wrote the Rite.

Today, the internet is bursting with articles commemorating the 100th anniversary of the Rite of Spring. So here’s my contribution: an essay I wrote for the May issue of Literary Review of Canada about Stravinsky’s masterpiece and its influence over 20th-century music.

Claude Debussy famously described Richard Wagner’s music as “a beautiful sunset that was mistaken for a dawn.”

The French composer wasn’t the only one who saw Wagner as the culmination of an old era, rather than the beginning of a new one. Friedrich Nietzsche called Wagner’s music “the song of a dying swan.” And the Austrian critic Eduard Hanslick wrote, “Wagner’s art recognizes only superlatives, and a superlative has no future. It is an end, not a beginning.”

0 Comments

Interview with Gil Shaham

5/27/2013

0 Comments

With this album, Shaham launched Canary Classics.

I talked to violinist Gil Shaham last week about his do-it-yourself record label, Canary Classics. Here’s the interview, as it appeared in yesterday’s Kansas City Star.

At 42 years, Israeli-American violinist Gil Shaham has everything a classical soloist could want – and more.

First, he has a big international career. In the concert season now drawing to a close, Shaham has played concertos with orchestras in Paris, Milan, Tokyo, New York, Los Angeles, Boston, Philadelphia, Montreal and Toronto, and next weekend he’ll be at Helzberg Hall to play Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto of 1935 with the Kansas City Symphony.

0 Comments

A Lawsuit Grows in Brooklyn

5/21/2013

0 Comments

What will the courts make of Currier vs. the Brooklyn Phil?

I’ve written before about how the classical music world aspires to a state of “pristine issuelessness.” Dubious deals are hidden from view, scandals are swept under the rug, conflicts are smoothed over – and whatever the problem may be, everyone agrees it’s best not to talk about it.

The whole machinery runs like an exercise in Palestrina counterpoint: carefully regulated to avoid any kind of discord. (And then everyone wonders why classical music doesn’t get more attention in the media!)

0 Comments

Is There a Doctor in the House?

5/16/2013

0 Comments

The diploma and funny hat make it official.

Every now and then, I write on a topic not directly related to music. I wrote this essay – originally titled “A North American’s Guide to the Use and Abuse of the Modern PhD” – for the website 3 Quarks Daily, where it was posted on May 13, 2013.

You applied to the program, and you got in. Then you spent the next four, six, eight or more years stroking the capricious egos of professors, jockeying for position within your peer group and marking bad undergraduate essays for the minimum wage. You completed the research, the grant applications, the writing, the comprehensive exams, and finally the defence.

0 Comments

Carmelites at the COC

5/13/2013

0 Comments

These nuns are up to the challenge. (photo: Michael Cooper)

On Saturday night (May 11), I was at the Four Seasons Centre last night to see the Canadian Opera Company’s current staging of Poulenc’s Dialogues of the Carmelites. Directed by and designed by Canadians Robert Carsen and Michael Levine (respectively), it’s a thought-provoking production. And one of the many things I found myself thinking about, as I left the theatre, was the term “production values.”

The phrase is much bandied-about in the opera world. Often, it simply means that a lot of money was conspicuously spent. In this sense, “high production values” is an economic term, referring to the use of expensive scenery, costumes, lighting and stage equipment.

0 Comments

Interview With Janina Fialkowska

5/9/2013

0 Comments

Pianist Janina Fialkowska.

Here’s my interview with pianist Janina Fialkowska, from the Houston Chronicle.

When Janina Fialkowska returns to Jones Hall on Thursday to perform with the Houston Symphony, she’ll walk to center stage, sit down at the piano and play Frédéric Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 – with both hands.

That may sound like an odd thing to say. But anyone who heard her last Houston Symphony appearance, in 2002, will recall that on that occasion she played with one hand only. The piece was Maurice Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, but Fialkowska played it with the only good hand she had – her right.

0 Comments

Ehnes, Braun and Maule at the WMCT

5/3/2013

0 Comments

James Ehnes, Russell Braun and Carolyn Maule.

In many ways, the decision by the Women’s Musical Club of Toronto to pair up violinist James Ehnes and baritone Russell Braun in a joint recital was a stroke of genius.

Both are among the best Canadian artists currently before the public. As well, they share stylistic affinities: an unaffected, no-nonsense approach to interpretation that doesn’t shortchange depth, drama or virtuosity. Adding pianist Carolyn Maule (Braun’s wife) to this duo created a potent little chamber ensemble for a Thursday afternoon concert at Toronto’s Koerner Hall.

0 Comments

Eatock Daily

I'm a composer based in Toronto – and this is my classical music blog, Eatock Daily.

When I first started blogging, Eatock Daily was a place to re-post the articles I wrote for Toronto’s Globe and Mail and National Post newspapers, the Houston Chronicle, the Kansas City Star and other publications.

But now I have stepped back from professional music journalism, and I'm spending more time composing.

These days, my blog posts are infrequent, and are mostly concerned with my own music. However, I do still occasionally post comments on musical topics, including works I've discovered, enjoyed, and wish to share with others.

– CE

Index

Click here for an alphabetical list of blog entries.

RSS Feed