Blog Feed: Soho the Dog

On Twitter yesterday, Will Robin alerted everyone to the impending release of Downtown Express, in which the moldy old uptown-downtown musical bifurcation has its Hollywood moment. I, for one, could not be more pleased! It means I might finally find backing for my Off-Off-Broadway musical about a serious, serially-minded young composer and the plucky, punky postminimalist he falls for after she accidentally whacks him with a bunch of kale at the Union Square Greenmarket. Featuring the songs "My [..] > read more

Cutting room floor

Published on 2012-02-29 09:18:00

I spent yesterday working on a comic that, for a whole host of reasons, I decided to quash. But this panel was too good to lose: > read more

Match Game

Published on 2012-02-28 18:00:00

Reviewing the Borromeo Quartet (and guests).Boston Globe, February 28, 2012. > read more

Horse trading

Published on 2012-02-20 12:48:00

Reviewing Vladimir Spivakov and Olga Kern.Boston Globe, February 20, 2012.The Schubert-Franko "Valse sentimentale" Spivakov played for an encore was new to me; are there any violinists out there that can tell me exactly what Schubert waltz Franko arranged? Or was he passing off his own piece as Schubert's, à la Kreisler? > read more

Nothing but a vast midnight

Published on 2012-02-16 15:04:00

New England's Prospect: Storyboarding. Sound Icon's in vain and free jazz at the Lily Pad.NewMusicBox, February 16, 2012. > read more

Rise of the Machines

Published on 2012-02-15 15:23:00

Reviewing Richard Egarr, harpsichord.Boston Globe, February 13, 2012.Reviewing Vicky Chow, piano.Boston Globe, February 15, 2012. > read more

I say a prayer with every heartbeat

Published on 2012-02-12 11:16:00

My wife is the bigger Whitney Houston fan in our house, but I'm a fan, too, one of those supposedly guilty pleasures that I never felt all that guilty about. It was the voice, and the formidable technique behind it. She was a real diva, in that she could make a mediocre song into something great, and a great song into something transcendent, through sheer vocal splendor. This is still far and away my favorite:"How Will I Know" is a perfect symbiosis of song, production, and voice. It's a great e [..] > read more

The usual suspects

Published on 2012-02-02 15:56:00

I swear, I was going to do hourly comics yesterday (like last year)—I was going to do them on the train back from New York, but the train was pretty shaky, and then the engine broke down and we were stuck in the dark for a couple hours, and by the time the lights came back on, my brain wasn't really working that well. So instead, I did what any sane person would do under the circumstances: I doodled sketches of mid-century American composers. > read more

I've got a secret

Published on 2012-01-31 09:15:00

And another...Reviewing Anonymous 4.Boston Globe, January 31, 2012. > read more

Been around the world

Published on 2012-01-30 13:38:00

Not really. But I have been mostly elsewhere than this space. Catching up:Fuzzy Math. Many words on the history and appeal of the hot toddy, with recipes both true and speculative. A guest post for Molly Sheridan's Wonderland Kitchen, January 30, 2012.Reviewing Helios Early Opera.Boston Globe, January 30, 2012.Reviewing Lise de la Salle.Boston Globe, January 30, 2012.Reviewing the Boston Symphony Orchestra Chamber Players.Boston Globe, January 24, 2012.New England's Prospect: The Haunted Mansion [..] > read more

Curtains

Published on 2012-01-15 06:30:00

Why Boston is "not an opera town." The Boston Opera Company (1908-1915) and its upshots.Boston Globe, January 15, 2012.Additional tangents:If I had to guess who first said that Boston wasn't an opera town, I'd say Heinrich Conried, the onetime manager of the Metropolitan Opera; after disappointing Boston box office during the company’s 1905 tour, Conried bypassed the city altogether the following season. (Read between the lines of this article, for instance.) Was the founding of the Boston Ope [..] > read more

Und ihre Rosen in purpurner Glut, Bächlein, erquicke mit kühlender Flut

Published on 2012-01-02 19:07:00

Raise a glass! You made it to 2012!Lucy's Purple Aurajuice of 1 limejuice of � lemon1 tablespoon grape jelly1 teaspoon grenadine1� oz. gina decent handful of mint leavesShake it all with big chunks of ice until the jelly is liquefied and the mint is in confetti-like bits. Strain (keeping the mint, leaving the ice).According to the same psychic who filled in the corners of my CV, my wife's aura is, in fact, purple. For those not inclined towards gin (like, say, my wife), this makes for a good moc [..] > read more

Are met in thee

Published on 2011-12-19 12:15:00

It's less than a week until Christmas, which means it's probably time for me to get my act together and get ready for this deluge of services. It also means it's time for that Christmas prerogative of organists everywhere, the willfully perverse reharmonization of familiar carols! This year, the changes really are changes (click to enlarge):Happy Holidays! See you in 2012—when we'll run out this thirteenth b'ak'tun in style. > read more

Think of it as maybe the soil of some great past civilization

Published on 2011-12-19 11:42:00

Reviewing Cappella Clausura.Boston Globe, December 19, 2011. > read more

10-Hour Party People

Published on 2011-06-26 21:00:00

Reviewing the SICPP Sick Puppy Iditarod.Boston Globe, June 27, 2011. > read more

Salient solution

Published on 2011-06-20 12:25:00

Smoked meat (full-fat) at Schwartz's.This summer's annual fall-off-the-blogging-bicycle was brought to you by Soho the Dog's brief all-staff jaunt to Montreal and Québec. And also this week's Boston Early Music Festival gauntlet. But mostly the trip > read more

Equal opportunity

Published on 2011-06-20 09:26:00

Reviewing Kristian Bezuidenhout.Boston Globe, June 20, 2011. > read more

Additive synthesis

Published on 2011-06-20 09:25:00

Reviewing Marc-André Hamelin.Boston Globe, June 20, 2011. > read more

Steppin' Out

Published on 2011-06-18 11:30:00

Reviewing the Boston Early Music Festival Orchestra.Boston Globe, June 18, 2011. > read more

Soul to soul, brother to brother, a cappella

Published on 2011-06-16 23:42:00

Reviewing The King's SIngers.Boston Globe, June 17, 2011. > read more

Old School

Published on 2011-06-15 10:00:00

Reviewing Early Music America's Young Performers Festival.Boston Globe, June 17, 2011. > read more

Transformers

Published on 2011-06-14 09:05:00

Reviewing A Far Cry.Boston Globe, June 14, 2011. > read more

Shir Heart, Attack

Published on 2011-06-07 10:15:00

Reviewing Chorus pro Musica.Boston Globe, June 7, 2011. > read more

Musicians wrestle everywhere

Published on 2011-05-24 11:33:00

Reviewing Ashmont Hill Chamber Music.Boston Globe, May 24, 2011.The final paragraph was whittled for length—the original:But the rest of the program engagingly wrestled with dualities. Snow’s energetic rendition of two “Figments” by Elliott C > read more

Strauss and Mahler Re-Enact Your Favorite Movie Moments (6)

Published on 2011-05-18 07:35:00

Click to enlarge.For the 100th anniversary of the death of Gustav Mahler.Previously:Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.Raiders of the Lost Ark.Midnight Cowboy.The Ten Commandments.It's a Wonderful Life. > read more

Carnival cruise

Published on 2011-05-18 07:29:00

Reviewing the Boston Pops.Boston Globe, May 18, 2011. > read more

I love to tell the story

Published on 2011-05-17 08:27:00

Reviewing Coro Allegro and the United Parish Chancel Choir in Kareem Roustom's The Son of Man.Boston Globe, May 17, 2011.Side note: having read The Prophet at an age when one is presumably most susceptible to it and not been seduced, I confess that I > read more

Diplomatic recognition

Published on 2011-05-16 09:21:00

My original copy went missing in a move sometime during the Clinton administration, but I am happy to report that the single greatest photograph of the Cold War is once again in the library at Soho the Dog HQ:In honor of such an auspicious reacquisit > read more

He went through wild ecstatics when I showed him my lymphatics

Published on 2011-05-10 11:20:00

I was so busy last week that I missed the cost-disease Internetically rearing its head yet again. Greg Sandow brought it up as Exhibit no. 74-D (or so) in the ongoing hand-wringing over orchestral finances (see Louisville, Honolulu, Detroit, Syracuse > read more

Lady of Spain, I adore you

Published on 2011-05-07 14:23:00

Reviewing Opera Boston's Maria Padilla.Boston Globe, May 7, 2011. > read more

Concentratin'

Published on 2011-05-06 10:00:00

The Boston Symphony Orchestra announced their 2011-12 season today. My colleague Jeremy Eichler gives the rundown over at the Boston Globe, along with some reading of the tea leaves as well as more leaves to read. If, like me, your default category i > read more

It's like 1993, and it's weird as hell to me

Published on 2011-05-02 13:25:00

I spent a good portion of last week at the Rethink Music conference in Boston, and my oft-oblique impressions are now up at NewMusicBox: Courts and Conquerors: Thinking and Rethinking the Rethink Music Conference.One important presentation that didn' > read more

It gets bigger, baby, and heaven knows

Published on 2011-05-02 13:23:00

Reviewing Christian Tetzlaff and Antje Weithaas.Boston Globe, May 2, 2011. > read more

I am the DJ, I am what I play

Published on 2011-05-02 13:20:00

Reviewing Dawn Upshaw and Stephen Prutsman.Boston Globe, May 2, 2011. > read more

"... the magician and the prophet on the one hand, and in the elected war lord, the gang leader and condotierre on the other hand"

Published on 2011-04-25 11:48:00

The Boston Symphony Orchestra is into the last two weeks of its season, under a pair of guest conductors who might also be reminders of the group's post-James Levine conducting predicament: Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, often touted as a candidate for > read more

The Rachmaninoff Covenant

Published on 2011-04-21 12:40:00

As of this morning, the International Music Score Library Project, the online repository of public domain music, is offline, due to a rather iffy (to say the least) DMCA takedown demand from the UK-based Music Publishers Association. The full tale is > read more

I don't know when that road turned onto the road I'm on

Published on 2011-04-20 12:30:00

Over at The Faster Times, some thoughts on the Philadelphia Orchestra's bankruptcy filing. > read more

I wish I were happy

Published on 2011-04-18 08:59:00

Reviewing Emmanuel Music's production of The Rake's Progress.Boston Globe, April 18, 2011. > read more

Nun hab' ich ewig Leid und Grämen!

Published on 2011-04-15 13:40:00

There hasn't been much in this space lately—that's what an impending 11-service Holy Week gauntlet will do to one's productivity, I guess. But, in the interests of catching up: a couple weeks ago, the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra had an in-hous > read more

Greased lightning

Published on 2011-04-12 10:30:00

Reviewing the St. Petersburg Philharmonic and Alisa Weilerstein.Boston Globe, April 12, 2011. > read more

To the Victor belongs the spoils

Published on 2011-04-11 09:31:00

Reviewing the Orchestra Sinfonica dell'Europa Unita's "Notte Tricolore."Boston Globe, April 11, 2011.Copyright claims mean Gramsci's writings tend to be search-only on the Web, but the writings of Benedetto Croce remain readily available. > read more

Weekend Insomnia Playlist

Published on 2011-04-09 00:43:00

Alex Ross posted a playlist last week that made me feel lazy for not blogging more; I mean, come on, just write down what you're listening to, how hard is that? Now, I think I've said it here before, but I am a pretty obsessive listener; items are li > read more

Oxygen, oxygen right to the brain

Published on 2011-04-04 09:13:00

Reviewing Harvard's Fromm Concert: Ensemble SurPlus and the Oberlin Contemporary Music Ensemble.Boston Globe, April 4, 2011. > read more

Kinemacolor

Published on 2011-04-01 09:23:00

Reviewing Sound Icon.Boston Globe, April 3, 2011.Concert last weekend, online now, in print on Sunday. Better late than never. > read more

It's taking longer than we thought

Published on 2011-03-25 09:09:00

From Dwight's Journal of Music, vol. III, no. 10 (June 11, 1853), pp. 75-76:Music as a branch of Commerce.The N.Y. Musical World and Times is informed that the music trade of this country, for 1852, amounted to twenty-seven millions of dollars.The sa > read more

If that's movin' up then I'm movin' out

Published on 2011-03-22 09:02:00

Justin Davidson has an article in the latest New York taking a look at what he calls "the new New York School," those Gotham-based twenty- and (barely) thirty-something composers of fairly entrepreneurial bent dedicated to digital life, stylistic lib > read more

Nice 'n' Easy

Published on 2011-03-21 09:46:00

Reviewing the Cantata Singers and Ensemble.Boston Globe, March 21, 2011. > read more

Hector of the flashing (green) helmet

Published on 2011-03-17 11:48:00

I lost track of days this week, so it wasn't until I saw the third passer-by done up in neon green that I remembered that, yes, it's today that's St. Patrick's Day. I'm one-quarter Irish, which is probably just the right amount to enjoy an American S > read more

If you want the job done right, you gotta use the proper tools

Published on 2011-03-15 10:35:00

Reviewing the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin.Boston Globe, March 15, 2011. > read more

We're still singing that same song

Published on 2011-03-14 20:52:00

Reviewing Paavali Jumppanen.Boston Globe, March 14, 2011. > read more

Until the world we roam, how can we be sure?

Published on 2011-03-14 11:58:00

Reviewing the Emerson String Quartet and Sir James Galway.Boston Globe, March 14, 2011.Steve Smith's review of the players' Saturday performance in New York, including the Adès premiere, can, and indeed, should be read here. > read more

Angry, wrinkled Old Majesty

Published on 2011-03-12 23:52:00

Geoff Edgers, in today's Globe, reporting on the Boston Symphony Orchestra's search for a replacement for James Levine, interviews Jonathan Menkis, head of the BSO's players' committee:Whom would he prefer? Menkis mentioned Bernard Haitink, the BSO > read more

One look and I had found a world completely new

Published on 2011-03-09 15:29:00

Because it was a good day to play it: Percy Grainger's arrangement of "Love Walked In": > read more

Sit right down and you'll hear a tale

Published on 2011-03-08 09:03:00

Reviewing the Radius Ensemble.Boston Globe, March 8, 2011. > read more

Obéissant aux dieux, / Je pars et je vous aime!

Published on 2011-03-03 11:38:00

In Li Hao-ku's 13th-century, Yuan Dynasty drama Chang Boils the Sea, Chang, a wandering scholar, benefits from divine assistance in his wooing of Ch'iung-Lien, the daughter of the Divine Dragon King of the Eastern Sea. As the title promises, Chang ev > read more

But when u got it baby, nothing come 2 hard

Published on 2011-03-01 08:30:00

Reviewing Dmitri Hvorostovsky.Boston Globe, March 1, 2011. > read more

That was the curious incident

Published on 2011-02-28 09:50:00

Reviewing the Boston Philharmonic.Boston Globe, February 28, 2011. > read more

CSI: Atonality

Published on 2011-02-23 10:44:00

In 1914 young Frances Glessner fabricated a model of the famed Swiss quartette, the Flonzaley Quartette. Her handiwork was presented to the musicians at dinner one evening, an event remembered by her son: "It was covered with a large floral piece in > read more

What's there is cherce

Published on 2011-02-21 09:00:00

Reviewing the Takács Quartet.Boston Globe, February 21, 2011. > read more

Di piu' risorgere speranza e' muta!

Published on 2011-02-18 13:15:00

To be honest, there aren't as many perks as you might think to being a freelance classical-music critic, but one of them came in the mail yesterday: this new transfer of one of the great performances of Verdi's La Traviata: live, from Covent Garden i > read more

Unlikely music critic of the day

Published on 2011-02-18 09:12:00

We are right off the park, and I get a lot of nature taking Harriet to the amusements. The other day, Anton Webern's music was on the radio. She heard it and said, "It's like wild animals thru the woods walking," and then, "It's like spiders crying t > read more

Just asking

Published on 2011-02-16 12:32:25

Okay, I'll get to the fate of arts funding in the US federal budget in a minute. But first, let us pay proper regard to the parade of arts administrators falling all over themselves to preemptively pass the buck. First up: NEA head Rocco Landesman, w > read more

The Golden Horn

Published on 2011-02-13 21:34:00

So I arrived back home from an evening out, having missed the Grammys, and discovered that, apparently, I am some sort of inadvertent, telepathic kiss of death: nobody I was rooting for won. Darcy didn't win. Steve Mackey and BMOP didn't win. Harry C > read more

Another one rides the bus

Published on 2011-02-11 13:22:00

I don't normally stoop to highlighting contemporary-music-hurts-my-ears ridiculousness, but this lazy, ill-informed screed from one Michael Fedo (Contemporary music sounds like bus crashes! Supporting evidence: three vague anecdotes and a Terry Gross > read more

Noblesse oblige

Published on 2011-02-09 12:46:00

Apropos of nothing, or maybe something—you never know with the way my brainstorms play out—I got side-tracked yesterday digging up dirt on Boston Symphony Orchestra trustees from the 1950s. That's a lot of Ivy League WASP rectitude right there! B > read more

Will You Miss Me When I'm Gone?

Published on 2011-02-09 11:12:00

Kansas is the latest state to take financial aim at the arts, with their governor, Sam Brownback (yes, he's a Republican—how'd you guess?), issuing an executive order abolishing the Kansas Arts Commission, though the abolishing is via some sort of > read more

Das erinnert an vergangene Zeiten

Published on 2011-02-08 17:53:00

Hey, tomorrow is Alban Berg's birthday! So here's an honorary cocktail for the party: rather lush, a little exotically perfumed, a little hell-fire in the background.Lulu's Fix3 parts gin3 parts lemon juice2 parts peppercorn syrup*1 part strawberry p > read more

Second time around

Published on 2011-02-07 11:47:00

Reviewing Yehudi Wyner's Fragments from Antiquity with the Lexington Symphony and Dominique Labelle.Boston Globe, February 7, 2011. > read more

It's either sadness or euphoria

Published on 2011-02-07 11:43:00

Reviewing Joshua Bell and Sam Haywood.Boston Globe, February 7, 2011. > read more

The way you hold your knife

Published on 2011-02-05 16:16:00

Previewing Opera Boston's production of Hindemith's Cardillac.Boston Globe, February 6, 2011. > read more

Only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness

Published on 2011-02-04 12:38:00

Everyone's starting to have fun with the New York Philharmonic's new digital archive, so in honor of the other big event in New York this week, here's a real rarity: Leonard Bernstein and Richard Nixon being civil to one another.This was less than a > read more

Hourly Comic Day 2011

Published on 2011-02-02 10:34:00

(Click to enlarge.)(More hourly comics here.) > read more

Multiplicity

Published on 2011-02-01 07:32:00

Reviewing NEC's "Salute to Franz Liszt."Boston Globe, February 1, 2010.Sergey Schepkin sent a nice e-mail clarifying that the four-hand arrangement of the "Hungarian Rhapsody no. 2" was not Liszt's own, as was listed in the program, but that of Liszt > read more

Vogel als Prophet

Published on 2011-01-31 12:06:00

A while back, I decided (and I quote):I don't have a Twitter account, and I probably never willAs you can see on the right side of the page, I changed my mind on that one. What happened? Well, Emerson, after all. And flattery will get you everywhere. > read more

Leftover Beethoven Miscellany: Everybody's Talkin'

Published on 2011-01-30 11:10:00

From time to time until the book comes out, this space will feature bits and pieces that were too esoteric, tangential, or just plain odd to make it into the final version.One of the casualties of the latest draft of the book was the 18th-century phi > read more

The Old Order Changeth

Published on 2011-01-29 16:40:00

If [Milton Babbitt] had not opted to be a teacher and a composer, he would have been a great big league manager.—Joseph Polisi, The Artist as CitizenR.I.P.—nah, scratch that, rest in cheerfully generous, irascible opinions and good beer. I am for > read more

O caro, o bello, o fortunato nastro

Published on 2011-01-28 10:47:00

Soho the Dog HQ has seen its online wherewithal this week preempted by those infernal twins, Work and Life, which means that, among other things, I missed Mozart's birthday yesterday. Except that I didn't, because last weekend, I celebrated in agreea > read more

Freestyle pairs

Published on 2011-01-24 09:57:00

Reviewing the Boston Modern Orchestra Project.Boston Globe, January 24, 2011. > read more

There is a bear in the woods

Published on 2011-01-21 14:39:00

Yesterday, the Republican Study Committee, a group of House Republicans "organized for the purpose of advancing a conservative social and economic agenda," announced a proposal to cut government spending; among the proposed cuts is the complete elimi > read more

If it stands up, you stay there

Published on 2011-01-18 16:06:00

Reviewing Christine Brewer.Boston Globe, January 18, 2011.Update (1/18): For the sharp-eyed: no, Kirsten Flagstad was, of course, not American—but the set in question was making reference to her fame in America. > read more

Doesn't think she waltzes, but would rather like to try

Published on 2011-01-18 10:00:00

So by now you've probably heard about this whole 10 Greatest Composers thing over at The New York Times. As link-bait goes, it's reasonably high-minded, and Anthony Tommasini is right to frame the whole exercise as cocktail-party game rather than ser > read more

It was a dark and stormy night

Published on 2011-01-17 16:03:00

Reviewing the Cantata Singers.Boston Globe, January 17, 2011. > read more

Now the gas station was closed, and the snow was eight feet tall

Published on 2011-01-12 13:43:00

Snow day! Soho the Dog HQ has never looked lovelier—mainly because the snow covers up everything.No better time to take in Ivan Ivanov-Vano's 1952 animated adaptation of Rimsky-Korsakov's Снегурочка (The Snow Maiden):First time she really > read more

Cori ardenti

Published on 2011-01-11 10:22:00

So far, at least, I have spent 2011 feeling like I'm trying to swim through a pool of Lyle's Golden Syrup. I am just getting nothing done—or, if I am, it's taking so long that, by the end of it, there's not even any feeling of accomplishment left. > read more

No more champagne, and the fireworks are through

Published on 2011-01-04 20:00:00

Reviewing Boston Baroque.Boston Globe, January 4, 2010. > read more

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