Essays
Can Music Tell a Story?
Igor Stravinsky had a standard pronouncement concerning music: He said
"Music can express nothing but itself." or words to that effect. This
was the equivalent of Balanchine's "Ballet is woman!" and both were
uttered in a video on Balanchine (who was not a woman as far as I was
aware!). continued
Post-atonality and the 21st
Century:
It has been a long time since the onset of Schönberg's atonal "revolution". At the time (1910s and 20s.), it seemed like a good way to get away from the cliches of the late tonal period and to codify and organize the sounds of the post-Mahler and Strauss neo-Romanticist chromaticism and extreme expressionism.
continued
On absolute pitch with
addendum
I have noted that, in internet musical circles, interest in absolute (perfect)
pitch seems on the upswing. As a non-possessor of that faculty, I, too, have had
a long interest in it and thought I'd write some brief remarks on the subject. continued
