Month: July 2020

45 years ago this weekend (July 25-27, 1975), my life changed. My 12th birthday present from my grandmother (a founding member of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus) was a weekend at Tanglewood – culminating in hearing, live, the piece I was then obsessed with – Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. I hung...

My choice for a deep dive into a single work this month is The Epic of Gilgamesh by the great 20th century Czech composer, Bohuslav Martinu. My initial encounters with Martinu’s music – the Rhapsody Concerto for viola and chamber orchestra and the Fourth Symphony (which was written to mark the end of...