I first wrote about this topic in 2010. A number of additional download stores specializing in classical music have come online since (or maybe they were online back then already and I’ve only discovered them now?), so I thought I’d … [read more]
Thought I’d get an early handle on my best-of-the-year list this time around. I’ve blogged surprisingly little about music in 2011. That doesn’t mean that I listened any less, or less attentively. In fact, audio-wise, it was just this past … [read more]
An ear for music is very different from a taste for music. I have no ear whatever; I could not sing an air to save my life; but I have the intensest delight in music, and can detect good from … [read more]
For the past 6 months, I’ve been listening to classical music almost exclusively. (There’s a much longer post – or maybe a series – about that in the works.) Toronto, like most major cities, is definitely under-supplied with bricks & … [read more]
In 2005, the Emerson String Quartet released an album of Mendelssohn’s string quartets which also included a version of the octet. Instead of partnering with another string quartet, though, they recorded it by themselves, taking great care to make it … [read more]
I had forgotten about how much I love Bobby McFerrin. A singer with an incongruously elastic voice and perfect pitch who’s not afraid of anything. Two perfect McFerrin videos: the first one has him singing the Bach part while the … [read more]
This is a beautiful performance of Mozart’s 20th and 18th piano concertos, one of those records that changed my perception of how Mozart concertos could be played. I had grown up listening to Barenboim and Gulda playing these works (my … [read more]
Sad news this morning on CBC Radio 1: Toronto fiddler Oliver Schroer died from leukemia on July 3, 2008. I had only recently discovered Oliver’s music and blogged about it at length. Sensitive obits from TheStar.com here and here.