Blogcritics Author: C. Michael Bailey

Music Review: Two Beethoven Firsts

C. Michael Bailey — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 13:08:47 EDT

Papa Haydn and Wagner are both alive an well in 21st Century Beethoven.
The modern classical music listener may never know it, but Beethoven did compose after Haydn and Mozart, and not Wagner and Brahms. Acknowledged as the reformer of the sonata form as used in the symphony, Beethoven did compose two symphonies that, while ground breaking, remained in the established compositional mould of Haydn and Mozart's...

Music Review: Time of the Templars

C. Michael Bailey — Tue, 27 May 2008 09:05:47 EDT

"World without End" indeed.
Naxos Records has pioneered the new frontier of media by using an old format – the compact disc. The label founded in 1987 by Klaus Heymann redefined the recording and marketing of classical music by providing the standard repertoire at a budget price. The label accomplishes this by using very fine but little known artists and orchestras...

Music Review: Two Beethoven Thirds

C. Michael Bailey — Tue, 6 May 2008 07:07:02 EDT

After Beethoven's Third Symphony music was never the same.
The beautiful thing about Beethoven's Symphonies is that they are always in vogue. We are currently blessed with the embarrassment of riches from the ongoing recording of symphony cycles from two fine orchestras and conductors. In the recent article Two Beethoven Fifths, we took the bull by the horns and faced the most recognizable piece of...

Music Review: Franz Liszt and the Beethoven Symphonies

C. Michael Bailey — Sat, 3 May 2008 12:28:12 EDT

They were the first Rock Stars.
Franz Liszt was a showoff. The Hungarian pianist and composer was an aristocrat, had movie star looks, and talent to burn. Liszt (1811-1886) did for the piano what Nicolo Paganini (1782-1840) had done previously for the violin, which was to turn the instrument into a vehicle of virtuosity. Where previously composers and performers were...

Music DVD Review: Beethoven Symphony No. 9 and Concert in Honor of Pope Benedict XVI

C. Michael Bailey — Sat, 26 Apr 2008 07:12:53 EDT

The only thing better than a recording of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is a video performance.
Germany has made many cultural contributions. Perhaps the greatest was Ludwig van Beethoven. The revolutionary from Bonn threw the doors open from the Classical era into the Romantic era. He did this almost singlehandedly with his "Ninth Symphony." Since its premiere in May 7, 1824, the "Ninth Symphony" has served as the...

Music Review: Naxos Records' Sonic Rebellion

C. Michael Bailey — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 12:24:04 EDT

"Classical Music" is not dead.
Klaus Heymann and the Hong Kong-based Naxos Records revolutionized the recording and marketing of classical music by using superb but little known musicians to perform both the standard and not so standard repertoire. This enabled the label to sell their CDs for a quarter of what the major labels were expecting. It has been in the not-so-standard...

Music Review: Les Voix Baroques - Canticum Canticorum

C. Michael Bailey — Wed, 9 Apr 2008 13:39:02 EDT

It is vibrant and colorful, sensual and pious. This may be the "classical" recording of the year.
Canticum Canticorum is a brilliant artistic-marketing tipple point by the Canadian period ensemble Les Voix Baroques. Canticum Canticorum is Latin for Song of Songs or The Song of Solomon, a slim and unusual book found in the Hebrew Tanakh and the Christian Old Testament. Reputedly written by King Solomon or an agent, the Song of Songs is thought...

Music Review: Frederic Rzewski The People United Will never Be Defeated! / Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues by Ralph van Raat

C. Michael Bailey — Tue, 8 Apr 2008 20:28:57 EDT

Think of J.S. Bach composing Goldberg Variations as a member of the Shining Path...
Concert music (what we are going to call "modern classical music" for this article) is alive and well in the United States and abroad. This is largely because of the efforts of Klaus Heymann and Naxos Records, who have created a new paradigm for marketing concert music, one that has left the big names (EMI, BMG) reeling. Naxos' two...

Music Review: Two Beethoven Fifths

C. Michael Bailey — Tue, 1 Apr 2008 12:24:22 EDT

Two extraordinary Fifths of Beethoven...
Ludwig van Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, "Opus 67," is one of the most recognizable pieces of classical music to novices and experts alike. Its distinctive four-note motif struck twice to introduce the piece is immediately identifiable as a hallmark of Western, if not World, Civilization.The Fifth Symphony was difficult for Beethoven to...

Book Review: Mysteries of the Middle Ages - The Rise of Feminism, Science, and Art from the Cults of Catholic Europe by Thomas Cahill

C. Michael Bailey — Sat, 23 Feb 2008 10:14:11 EST

Thomas Cahill goes Medievel on readers...
Thomas Cahill inaugurated his “Hinges of History” with the popular How The Irish Saved Civilization in 1996. I am unsure if the author at the time had envisioned a series with this volume, but it did provide him an excellent jumping off point for the consideration of Western Civilization from the vantage point of a positive, consensus...