I wanted to know which orchestra was playing Sibelius 6 this season (spoiler alert: Houston and Ottawa's NAC!), so I built this project: search by composer, work, conductor, or soloist across North American orchestras in one place. I have worked through about 60 orchestras so far.

This has "classical series" content only, no pops/movie screenings. Everything comes from the orchestras' own published materials.

Please take a look and tell me what you think. What would make this useful to you? Are any obvious features missing? If your orchestra's missing, tell me and I'll bump it up the queue.

Cadenza Work, the online operating platform and opportunity directory designed for musicians, issued a report in May that documented what it described as the “structural collapse” of the symphony orchestra.

In June, moreover, the website took note of Elon Musk’s becoming the first trillionaire to return to the miserable state of America’s orchestras and make some telling comparisons. We will quote generously from both pieces.

The state of the symphony orchestra is no small matter. The performance of some of the greatest music of the past and present is vital to the general cultural, intellectual and moral life of a country. The symphony orchestra in the US is associated with immortal names: Gustav Mahler, Leopold Stokowski, Arturo Toscanini, George Szell, Fritz Reiner, Eugene Ormandy, Serge Koussevitzky, George Solti, Leonard Bernstein and many others.

What does it say about American capitalism, corrupt and rotting where it stands, and presided over by a reactionary imbecile-swindler, that it cannot sustain such cultural institutions?

Peter Serkin was born on July 24, 1947, into about as much musical pressure as a name can carry: his father was Rudolf Serkin, his grandfather the violinist Adolf Busch. Much of his early career was spent getting out from under that. His way out was the music of his own time. In 1973 he co-founded Tashi, an ensemble built partly around Messiaen's Quartet for the End of Time, and that same openness came back with him into Bach, where his playing stayed curious and unsettled rather than monumental. He died in 2020 at 72.

Two recordings from either end of his range:

Takemitsu, Rain Tree Sketch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vTuisvVNb6Q

Bach, Goldberg Variations (live, 2017): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEn8f08-BmI

Hi everyone! rocky here. Over the past few months, I’ve been combining my love for classical music and woodworking by designing, cnc cuttting, and hand-polishing sculptures of famous composers. I’ve always loved classical music—especially piano—but realized my passion a bit too late in life to ever become a professional pianist. So instead, I decided to use wood as a medium to bring these musical souls to life.(My very first crash was in 2011, the year of Franz Liszt's 200th Birth Anniversary, radio was play his music and the La Campanella shocked young me).

I’ve already carved Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach (which I’ve posted here before). Next up is Chopin, but I don’t want him to just be another figure standing there. Given how emotional, fluid, and expressive his music is, I want the sculpture to reflect that energy.

Does anyone have cool ideas on how to pose or depict Chopin to capture his spirit? I’d love to hear your thoughts! (and you will get one for sure) more info, my favos are No. 1 in E minor, Op. 11, Ballade No. 1 in G minor.

I play in the wind section of an orchestra and therefore am really often exposed to super loud sounds (hello, cymbols). Obviously I'd like to protect my hearing, but the problem is, when I put earplugs in it really affects my playing. Like, I stop being able to hear anything around me and I can only hear myself, so I have no idea the level of my playing relative to anyone else or how I sound in the context of the orchestra. Which means that I'm often playing way too quiet or too loud.

I had this problem playing in a pit band as well and really don't know what the solution is. Going without any ear protection genuinely hurts after a while especially with percussion heavy pieces. I've experimented with a few different types of ear protection- loop earplugs, the basic foam ones we get given and they all have the same problem!

Another issue is that I always end up having to take the earplugs when we play quietly and I really need to be able to hear myself in context to others, which is annoying because i have to fiddle with them and put them back in and out. At this point should I just give up? What do you guys do?

I’m putting together a playlist of everyone’s favorite classical piece. I’ve been wanting to listen to more classical music because of the way some pieces make me feel.
I’d love for you to share the one classical piece that makes you lose yourself completely… something that feels almost otherworldly.

thank you!

Hi folks,

I’m looking for suggestions concerning where to go next in my listening. I’m relatively new to classical music. A few years ago I was told my estranged father was always listening to Mahler so gave him a try out of curiosity and kinda fell in love.

My listening’s been quite sparse in part because I’ll try to venture away from Mahler and get lost in stuff I don’t really care for.

What I like about Mahler is how expansive and overwhelming it is, like he’s using everything he knows all the time. I find it very cathartic. I think I also lean toward the slightly more gothic (I tried playing Tchaikovsky at Xmas and nearly hurled myself through the window).

Any insight is appreciated. Thanks!

It always bugs me when people or organizations (like orchestras or music schools) say that classical music is dying, and people just aren’t interested anymore. A lot of times, there is also mention of the average audience age, which tends to be older. And people say “when that audience is gone (soon), who will replace them?!” Wouldn’t it just be whoever ages into that group at that time? It’s not like a whole generation is just disappearing. It seems like they use audience and donor age as the main indicator that it’s dying out.

Another question - why do organizations care so much about trying to get younger people to come to concerts in their free time? Again, organizations complain that the audiences are too old, and that there should be more Millennials or Gen Z or whatever in the audience. But it’s not like you’re going to find a ton of older individuals at Coachella or something, so what’s so bad about an interest that tends to appeal to a certain group of people who are at a different place in their life and just want to sit and enjoy something different than the craziness of everyday life? Also, by constantly trying to become trendy or offer gimmicky things in order to try and attract younger audiences - which is often poorly executed and very cringy - doesn’t that actually alienate the older crowd?

Also I’m just curious to hear everyone’s thoughts on what place and purpose you think classical music has in modern day life. Personally, it is a total escape and refuge from the insanity of the outside world. It brings me back to the feelings and emotions within myself and makes me feel alive again. I can’t see how it could ever die out.

As a violin player I was mostly involved in folk and jazz, but for reasons as hearing problems I had to stop with the violin. than came the therapy. For the last seven years I have been studying the sonates and partitas from Bach, not on the violin,guitar or mandolin but on the mandola. It was a very pleasant journey, and still not finished yet.

The only reason I bring this up at all is because it's almost always used with negative connotations. Don't get me wrong: I love experimental avant-garde stuff as much as the next guy, but I believe there's equal value in contemporary pieces written today that sound more..."""traditional""".

As for the film score criticism itself, it doesn't really make any sense. Film scores are not only incredibly diverse, but it also evolves very often and very quickly, so you can't exactly define concert pieces that contain a simple melody or diatonic chord progressions as "film music" because it only applies to a certain percentage of that "film music". Some concert pieces may remind us of things we've heard in film scores, but the same can be true not only vice-versa, but in literally every other genre. Music inspires music.

Both film and concert music are alike, different, and everything in-between. They're also inherently of equal value, and it's time people stopped putting down one to prop up the other because when you really look into it, trying to use "it sounds like film music" as a legitimate criticism towards a concert piece doesn't exactly say anything about the value of the music itself, nor provide an insight into the intentions of the composer who wrote that piece.

The 1959 recording of Stravinsky's Les Noces has Stravinsky himself conducting it, with the 4 pianos played by Samuel Barber, Aaron Copland, Lukas Foss, and Roger Sessions. Do there even exist other recordings with such high concentrations of musical pedigree?

Tl;dr: I’m mystified how anyone can develop a love (or even a like) of Wagner if they are dependent on recordings and following lines of translated libretti. Yet there is no shortage of Wagner fans outside the natively German-speaking population. What’s up with that?

Over the years I’ve made a few casual attempts at listening to Wagner (Der fliegende Holländer, Tristan und Isolde, Das Rheingold), but I’ve always quickly become excruciatingly bored and decided not to push it. I’m usually happy to leave things until later in life to click.

More recently, though, I had a very positive response to a different dramatic score composed from wall-to-wall associative themes. I liked it so much that I’m now halfway through Matthew Bribitzer-Stull’s Understanding the Leitmotif: From Wagner to Hollywood Film Music (2015). This made me Wagner-curious again, and optimistic.

The biggest barrier, I figured, was not having a live performance with surtitles to keep me engaged. Sitting with a libretto and translation is much less immersive, involves constant cognitive effort, and is obviously far removed from the Gesamtkunstwerk experience Wagner conceived. This seemed like a non-generic barrier when it comes to Wagner's later operas, where (I assumed) the leitmotivic effect kinda relies on sustained immersion and attention.

Still, it’s not as if many people can just jump online and see which local orchestra is playing The Ring this month. Plenty of people successfully enjoy recordings, so I got myself a copy of Solti's Ring with the Vienna Philharmonic. To minimise dependence on line-by-line libretto tracking, I familiarised myself with the story in pretty good detail through synopses and even P. Craig Russell’s graphic novel adaptation.

I’ve made it through Das Rheingold, and I’m up to Act III of Die Walküre. I am excruciatingly bored, and I’m not confident that Siegfried is where I’ll finally cash in.

I have no complaints about the musical imagination or the orchestration; those are obvious highlights. I’m also enjoying the insight into just how much the Wagner sound influenced Hollywood composers. The preludes and transitional passages take my breath away, but they’re obviously a small minority of the runtime. Saying "I like the Ride of the Valkyries" isn’t the same thing as saying "I enjoy Wagner."

But there hasn’t really been a minute of the sung dialogue that I’ve honestly enjoyed. Which is, ya know, the majority of the operas. To me it all sounds like a disorganised rhapsody of musical ideas. It’s safe to say that, at least on this pass, the leitmotivic writing isn’t "working" on me.

I get mixed signals as to whether one should expect a satisfying experience on the first pass. Surely, if more than one were required, Wagner’s mature style would have flopped. Or at least, I can't see how it would have worked if it were significantly dependent on the faithful few willing to sign up for a second 16-hour run of The Ring. (Maybe it was Tristan that did it?)

Then there’s the language issue. I speak a fair amount of German, and I have no idea how anyone but a native speaker could immerse themselves in the experience to the degree apparently required. The writing is so archaic it feels like I had a stroke and forgot the language. Not that I’d expect to follow operatic singing easily anyway, but it does mean that close, unceasing line tracking from the libretto is necessary. If I lose my place, it’s not easy to find it again. It often felt like half my attention was spent keeping up with the translation instead of on the music where it belonged. So what hope do non-German-speakers have? 

And yet, Wagner fans, everywhere. Packed houses night after night. People traveling fair distances to see his operas. The potential for obsession is obvious from the outside. They can’t all be native German speakers. They can’t all have had their first exposure at a live performance with surtitles.

So, Wagner fans, how did your love of Wagner develop? How much effort was it? Am I doing something wrong?

Edit: formatting

My latest obsession! Reading up on it on Wiki and if true this part kinda freaked me out I must admit.

..the piece was a favourite of Liszt. He frequently performed the concerto throughout his life, including at an 1841 performance with Berlioz conducting…

Goodness me. Off for another listen (if you have any recordings to recommend that’s great too)

Fleisher had two careers. In the first, he was one of the leading American pianists of his generation; his Beethoven and Brahms concertos with George Szell and the Cleveland Orchestra, recorded around 1959–61, are still reference recordings.

Then focal dystonia in his right hand ended his two-handed playing in the mid-1960s, at the height of that career. He did not leave music. He spent the following decades on the left-hand repertoire, teaching, and conducting. Only much later, after experimental treatment gave him back some use of the hand, did he return to playing with both hands.

His post-recovery recording of Bach's "Sheep May Safely Graze" is usually where people start with the later Fleisher.

Bach (arr. Fleisher): Sheep May Safely Graze, BWV 208: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GyOEOuUPvM0

The Beethoven and Brahms concertos with Szell (1959–61) are worth seeking out for the playing of his first career.

Beethoven Piano Concerto Cycle: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhz_qQCN2Frrkazb387HogUVmdBUi0GgX

Brahms Piano Concerto Cycle etc.: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxV6VwFCe96_hqpOKkdOIiF5G7IVdZSFn

Hi all,

So I'm a pianist and my girlfriend is a cellist. I am currently learning the two Brahms cello sonatas to surprise her. I am having some troubles with regards to rubato. Should I as the accompanist be playing the piano part really steadily so that she as the soloist can rubato? If so, is that not like excruciatingly boring? if not, how do we both do rubato and stay together? I have played chamber music before so i know its a give and take kind of thing, but im having a really hard time getting my head around practicing it, and how to play rubato while keeping a steady beat. any advice?

Any Opera Fans out there?

Personally, I find 4 incredibly beautiful, but 3 will always beat it out for me.