Some years from now, you might find yourself looking back on a former hobby or pastime, something you’ve long since ceased, with nostalgia—maybe with a pang of regret. This happens to most of us at some point in our lives, that bodiless longing for the passions or diversions we used to keep. And at this […]
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Posted inReport
Wind
There’s something about an annoying office job that makes you idealize working with your hands, even if you have—like me—no aptitude for it at all. Last winter, I applied for an apprenticeship at the organ builder Orgelbau Scheffler, in the tiny, former East German village of Sieversdorf, outside Berlin, with a romantic idea of learning […]
Posted inInterview
Immersion
VAN: Two weeks ago, I heard you play Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 2 at the Berlin Philharmonic with the Staatskapelle Berlin and David Afkham, substituting for Patricia Kopatchinskaja. At practically the same time, you were touring with the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Three days after the tour ended, you played Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in Frankfurt, then […]
Posted inHistory
The Pianist’s Eye
The pianist Lilian Kallir was a formidable sight-reader who could easily play a Mozart Piano Concerto on the first reading, though she was mostly known for the instinctive musicality, tonal beauty, and precocious maturity of her playing. In 1991, presented with a last-minute change in a program, switching from Mozart’s Piano Concerto in F Major, […]
Posted inPlaylist
A Barbara Hannigan Playlist
On February 4, 5, and 6, the soprano Barbara Hannigan will perform Hans Abrahamsen’s “let me tell you,” with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Andris Nelsons, conductor. Here is her introduction to this playlist, which she uses to inhabit her role of Shakespeare’s Ophelia. “For many of the major pieces I perform, I make a […]
Posted inProfile
Queen Of The Gods
“My heart is aghast, / my mind’s in a whirl” sings Fricka, goddess of marriage, hearth, home, and family, faced with her husband Wotan’s latest disruption to their family life. In Richard Wagner’s “Der Ring des Nibelungen,” the queen and king of the gods struggle over how to manage their and other people’s marriages, unruly […]
Posted inEssay
Where The Flowers Are
Long before you see Fréderic Chopin’s tombstone, at the Père Lachaise graveyard in Paris, you’ll see the mountains of cards and plastic flowers. What you won’t see, surprisingly, is much red and white, the colors of the Polish flag. Considering the composer’s omnipresence in his country, with its Chopin University of Music, Chopin Airport, and […]