Frederic Woodman Root News
American composer and music educator (1846-1916)
- United States of America
- composer, music teacher, editor, writer, teacher
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2024-03-29
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2024-02-27 09:59:00
Classical music must not cease from exploration
Today is a poignant personal anniversary, so I have been listening to Valentin Silvestrov's Stille Lieder (Silent Songs) in the 1986 ECM recording. This morning that performance by baritone and Sergej Jakowenko accompanied by Ilja Scheps was, for me, the most sublimely appropriate masterpiece. But that is because of the personal conditions relating to today. Tomorrow, depending on the conditions, a Sibelius symphony, a Mozart string quartet, Iiro Rantala's jazz improvisations, or Steve Roach's electronica will be sublimely appropriate. Masterpieces, like every human condition, are impermanent. They come and go, and return and return - Silvestrov's Stille Lieder first featured here back in 2008, many years before the Ukrainian tragedy gave their composer his 30 minutes of fame. (Newcomers to Silvestrov's music should know that Stille Lieder are the Root from which his better known masterpieces, the Fifth Symphony and Requiem for Larissa grew.) For decades classical music has been trying, without […]
The Boston Musical Intelligencer
2023-12-18 16:37:18
Schumann Got It Right the First Time
I wrote earlier in these pages about Schumann’s Fourth Symphony, which before it was revised had a successful but heavily criticized premiere. The original version has now been recorded and published, and can be appraised alongside the revised version, which has been performed exclusively for 182 years. I now move on to extend my remarks after Jeremy Denk’s fine recital on December 9th. Critical opinion has never weighed in very much about the various revisions to Schumann’s major compositions for piano, and this is as regrettable as it is incomprehensible. I think especially of the Davidsbündlertänze,, op. 6; Symphonic Etudes in the form of Variations, op. 13; Kreisleriana, op. 16; and most recently the three-movement-long Phantasie, op. 17. All of these have been available in many publications for a hundred years or more. On my own shelves are the Kalmus reprint of the Breitkopf edition in seven volumes of Schumann’s […]
The Boston Musical Intelligencer
2023-10-01 23:03:23
Gravity Waves and Curveballs: Sherman Remembered
[caption id="attachment_32597" align="alignleft" width="300"] Gravity abhors straight lines[/caption] We reprint our well-remembered 2016 feature and interview with Russell Sherman. He died last night at 93. Russell Sherman’s eagerly awaited annual faculty recital on April 3rd at Jordan Hall will feature works long connected with him: Schoenberg’s Three Pieces for Piano, Op. 11, Beethoven’s Sonata for Piano No. 21 in C Major, Op. 53 “Waldstein”, Debussy’s Préludes, Book 2, and Liszt’s Transcendental Etudes (12) for Piano, S 139, No. 2 in A Minor: Molto vivace, No. 9 in A-flat Major “Ricordanza”, No. 10 in F Minor: Allegro agitato molto. He tells us he plays them differently each time. He can also imitate other famous pianists. He has lots to say in a free-form interview which follows the break. Youngish concertgoers and musicians who are not yet old will find it very difficult to imagine either the sea change that took place […]
2023-08-10 12:12:44
Roughly landing in the decades between the 1740s -1770s Rococo music took Root in France and spread
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- timeline: Composers (North America). Performers (North America).
- Indexes (by alphabetical order): R...