Allegro Largo Scherzo Finale

Part three of a series examining the curious lack of new symphonies. Part Two is here. Culprit #5: Musical Directors Throughout much of the early 20th Century, European audiences knew American composers as specialists in short orchestral works full of charming folk tunes; it was widely believed that there was no such thing as an [...]

7. Schoenberg: Verklaerte Nacht; Schumann: Cello Concerto; Brahms arr. Schoenberg: Piano Quintet It will certainly be interesting to see how the combination of Schoenberg and Schumann succeeds here. Although it might seem as if the NZSO is moving somewhat out of the repertoire comfort zone with the one-and-a-half doses of Schoenberg, this is somewhat misleading. [...]

Take a look at the brochure I’m actually quite flabbergasted by the dullness of the NZSO’s subscription programme for next year. There is very little New Zealand music on display – and less that I really want to hear. Of course, if you’re the kind of person looking out exclusively for repertoire symphonies, then you’re [...]

Previous Post Culprit #3: Feminism (I’ll try to explain myself) An article I saw  on Gloria Coates’ website noted that, throughout the course of Western art music, symphonies by female composers have been few and far between. In large part this is due to the general lack of female composers until the beginning of the [...]

The symphony has, it would be fair to say, fallen rather out of fashion during the modern/post-modern era. Many composers appear to consider it to be an unwieldy, unnecessary, 18th century relic, and many of the composers who do utilise it are stuck in a very much an antiquated musical paradigm, churning out putrefied (neo/post)-romantic [...]