Tag Archives: Classical Music

Music and architecture, cont.

Posted on December 13, 2016 by David Brussat

In October, Roger Scruton visited the belly of the musical beast, in Germany, to deliver a lecture against atonal composition. It was as if  the superhero of classical architecture, Henry Hope Reed, arose from his grave to address the celebrants … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Art and design | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Modern music in recovery

Posted on November 25, 2016 by David Brussat

Here is an interview by Paul Senz of the Catholic World Report of Robert R. Reilly, who amid a career in the foreign-policy establishment discovered that modern classical music has undergone a renaissance. In fact, he finds that this revival … Continue reading →

Posted in Books and Culture | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Musical skyscrapers afloat

Posted on June 29, 2016 by David Brussat

Here is a passage from The Nutmeg of Consolation, the 14th volume of Patrick O’Brian’s 20-volume naval novel, set in the Napoleonic era. Capt. Jack Aubrey and his surgeon friend Dr. Stephen Maturin, one evening in the South China Sea, … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Art and design | Tagged , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Why art is not progressive

Posted on June 9, 2016 by David Brussat

William Hazlitt, the British essayist and critic of the early 19th century, wrote “Why the Arts Are Not Progressive” for the Morning Chronicle, of London, in 1814. He argues that science is progressive but art is not: What is mechanical, … Continue reading →

Posted in Art and design, Books and Culture | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Skandalkonzert vindicated?

Posted on April 13, 2016 by David Brussat

A post on the website Artlark, “Skandalkonzert: The Battle for Modernism,” describes a riot that had classical concertgoers in Vienna battling amongst themselves in the pits and with the musicians and the even the composers. Pieces by Schonberg, Weber and … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Books and Culture, Humor | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

“Orchestrate a Renaissance”

Posted on February 15, 2016 by David Brussat

Composing a comeback for classical music and classical architecture is the twin purpose, or so it seems, of the Future Symphony Institute, founded in Baltimore by Andrew Balio, the principal trumpet of that city’s symphony orchestra. Its latest project is … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Books and Culture, Preservation, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Krier’s symphony for London

Posted on February 13, 2016 by David Brussat

On my first trip to London in 1979 I took in a classical performance of the London Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall on the Southbank embankment of the Thames. I felt the hall’s demerits as architecture even back … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Books and Culture, Development, Landscape Architecture, Other countries, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

Bowdlerizing Mozart

Posted on January 31, 2016 by David Brussat

In a passage from Wolfgang Hildesheimer’s biography, Mozart, the author discusses posterity’s attempt to sanitize the composer, including his operatic music, some of which sang out in the sort of joy that stuffed-shirt guardians of society’s morality can’t abide. But … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Shostakovich in Leningrad

Posted on November 13, 2015 by David Brussat

I just read a passage so astonishing about Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 7 (“The Leningrad Symphony”) that I must pass it along. It is about how the Soviets got a score for the newly written music to Leningrad during the siege. … Continue reading →

Posted in Art and design, Books and Culture, Video | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The satisfactions of Satie

Posted on July 27, 2015 by David Brussat

Erik Satie is a French composer of whom I know little, but am very familiar with one of his pieces, the first of his three “Gnossiennes,” which I suspect most readers will recognize as well. It is the first video … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Art and design, Books and Culture, Video | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments