Tag Archives: Mozart

Lucerne Festival Shake-Up: Mahler Out, Mozart and Beethoven In

I’m hugely disappointed:

Change of program:
LUCERNE FESTIVAL hereby announces that on 8 August as well as on 10 and 11 August, Claudio Abbado will conduct Beethoven’s Incidental music to “Egmont” and Mozart’s Requiem. For artistic reasons, this program replaces the originally scheduled Eighth Symphony by Gustav Mahler.

I had been planning to attend what was to be the culmination of Abbado’s Lucerne Mahler symphony cycle. Interesting that as of the hour of this post lucernefestival.ch seems to be having technical problems (style sheets and javascript are offline). I will post more information as soon as I know more.

Is There a “Mozart Effect”? Oliver Sacks Says No… and Yes

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An example of crass commercialism for which I blame myself — and it makes a great gift.

Does listening to Mozart make you a genius? Lest anyone forget, here is an example of a decade-plus-old product for which I take near-full responsibility.

Courtesy of the gang over at bigthink.com, Oliver Sacks has a detailed answer:

Continue reading Is There a “Mozart Effect”? Oliver Sacks Says No… and Yes

Vintage Holiday Cheer

Yes, I know it’s from an Easter oratorio. Yes, you’d expect me to post an historically informed version. But no! Here’s a 1938 aircheck of the “Hallelujah” Chorus from Handel’s Messiah (in what sounds to me to be Mozart’s arrangement) performed by the Concertgebouw Orchestra and Tonkunstkoor conducted by Willem Mengelberg, with a little bit of audio restoration from a so-so source by yours truly.

{enclose Handel-Mozart.Messiah.Hallalujah.1_eq.mp3}

Hear last year’s early electrical holiday cheer here.