On the Berlin Philharmonic website, there’s a kind of frequently-asked-questions section. One section addresses “who decides where the sections of the orchestra sit?” “The answer is simple,” it reads, “the conductors. It’s their responsibility to ensure the best possible presentation of the music.” But theory and practice are not always the same thing. On Thursday, […]
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Chasing the Ace
In Poznań, Poland on a recent Tuesday night, the Chinese violinist Meng Zou played the second movement of the Sibelius Violin Concerto with a burning, overdriven tone. The outer movements featured some inconsistencies in articulation, and he didn’t fully climb into the concerto in the way many of the standout violinists do on record. Zou […]
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Abyss of Glories
for Andy Kozar At every desk I’ve ever owned has hung a framed copy of a piece—just a single page, really, 19 bars, no more—from the “Játékok” by György Kurtág. It is yellowed now, slightly crinkled in a number of places, and marginally off-center (the product of a fall some years ago that I never […]
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Star Wars
In February 2026, a foundation called Cinema for Peace held a gala dinner at Berlin’s Hotel Adlon, arguably the city’s fanciest venue. Hosted by Bob Geldof and featuring a keynote speech by Hillary Clinton, the gala awarded prizes for “International Green Film” or “The Most Valuable Documentary of the Year.” On the red carpet, the […]
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All 600-ish Hymns in the New English Hymnal, Ranked
The Church of England has a long history of books that shifted the paradigm of Anglican worship. The King James Bible brought biblical text into a rich and imposing vernacular. The Book of Common Prayer standardized the aesthetic of church practice. Most relevantly for a music magazine, one particular volume sent such a shockwave through […]
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Concerts Good, Recordings Bad
In “The Yellow Tie,” a biopic about the Romanian conductor Sergiu Celibidache whose premiere I attended in London on Wednesday, things start badly and get steadily worse. We begin with old Celi (John Malkovich) discussing a future engagement with a group of Japanese record executives over lunch at his French estate. To his dismay, they […]
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In Art’s Company
Maria Kalesnikava, the flutist, conductor, arts manager, and activist, was one of the leading figures of the 2020 pro-democracy movement in Belarus. After her arrest in September 2020, she spent five years under arrest, held as a political prisoner. In December 2025, she was released as part of negotiations between the United States and Belarus, […]
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Surface Vibrations
The most important piece of a Steinway concert grand is one almost nobody ever sees. It lies beneath the strings, a thin sheet of spruce, at its center no thicker than a finger, arched and ribbed like the hull of a boat turned upside down. This is the soundboard, and it does the work of […]
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All Fired Up
Here is a sample of the headlines on articles published by Cadenza.work about the turmoil at the Boston Symphony Orchestra: “Boston Is on Fire. Its Orchestras Are Dying.” “They Fired the Best Conductor in America. The Evidence Points to Ideology.” “Fire Chad Smith. The Memo Is the Confession. The Orchestra Needs to Fight Back.” According […]
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Boosts and Bruises
In 2020, violist Wilfred Farquharson was preparing to move to California for The Los Angeles Orchestra Fellowship, a three-year fellowship “for musicians from underrepresented communities” co-organized by the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO), Inner City Youth Orchestra of Los Angeles (ICYOLA), and the University of Southern California. Then, a former participant called him out of […]