The Well-Tempered Ear
Do classical music streaming services have too many flaws?
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By Jacob Stockinger
Are classical music streaming services a good development and a good deal? A good way to listen to classical music? Recommended for listeners and performers?
Not according to Alex Ross (below).
But then his standards may not be yours.
Ross is the prize-winning music critic for The New Yorker magazine. He may be the most respected and familiar name in classical music criticism in the U.S., perhaps even the world.
Ross has been undertaking a pretty exhaustive comparison of various classical music streaming services such as Apple Music and Apple Music Classical; Idagio; Spotify; Presto Music; and Qobuz.
While he finds some things to praise, and finds some improvements have been made, he also finds that all of the services come up short and distort the listening experience. (Illustration for The New Yorker by Lan Truong.)
Of course, one might argue that a professional critic makes different demands and has more specific, rarified needs than most classic music fans.
He is more mainstream and convincing with his disapproving comments about the way such streaming services cheat performers out of earning a livelihood.
The Ear also wondered if Ross would consider serving as an advisor or consultant to Apple Music or any off the other classical streaming services.
Decide for yourself.
Here is a link to Alex Ross’ comparative report: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/cultural-comment/apple-again-fails-to-save-classical-music
Do you use a classical music streaming service?
Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with it?
Why?
How could it improve?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: Musical America offers an exhaustive and helpful guide to international FREE streaming of operas, concerts and recitals, complete with program notes and links for listening
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PLEASE HELP THE EAR. IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE IT or TAG IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event. And you might even attract new readers and subscribers to the blog.
By Jacob Stockinger
During the COVID-19 pandemic, so much music is being streamed – through both live streaming and delayed pre-recorded streaming – that it can be hard to keep track of it all.
After all, the events are taking place locally, regionally, nationally and internationally.
How do you know what operas, orchestral concerts, chamber music concerts and individual recitals will take place? Where and when they will take place? What time is it in your time zone? And where do you find links to the performances, such as those by the famed Berlin Philharmonic (below)?
Getting so much information can be daunting.
But one loyal reader has helped The Ear by sending word about the most exhaustive compilation or online guide to FREE streaming of classical music events he has seen so far.
It is done by Musical America, and The Ear highly recommends it.
The Musical America website advises users that the guide will be updated twice weekly, and that Central European Time (CET) is six hours ahead of Eastern Daylight time (EDT) — or seven hours ahead of Central Daylight Time (CDT).
It also tells you how long many of the streamed videos are available for. A full 23 or 24 hours after the initial airing seems pretty average. But many appealing events – by some of the most prestigious organizations and individual performers in the world — will be available for the entire duration of the coronavirus pandemic.
You also get concise notes about the performers and the programs.
Today and tonight, for example, you could take in productions by the Berlin State Opera, the Zurich Opera and Ballet, the Metropolitan Opera (below) and the Vienna State Opera.
You could also take in the historical performances from the ongoing Cliburn Watch Party from the Cliburn International Piano Competition, and the twice weekly concerts by the six musically talented children in the acclaimed Kanneh-Mason family in England, now dubbed “The Von Trapp’s of classical music.” (Below is cellist brother Sheku Kanneh-Mason performing at the royal wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle.)
And you could listen to award-winning cellist Alisa Weilerstein (below) will also discuss and play all 36 movements of the six solo cello suites by Johann Sebastian Bach that she recently recorded and just released.
The guide lists some of the more outstanding paid websites such as Medici TV but also lists events that took place much earlier but are still available for free watching and listening.
The guide has a link so that organizations can submit their own events for listing or users can make suggestions.
In short, the Musical America guide is extremely useful. You should probably bookmark it if you are planning to listen to a lot of musical events online through streaming.
But don’t take The Ear’s word for it. Take a look and check it out for yourself.
Here is a link: https://www.musicalamerica.com/news/newsstory.cfm?storyid=44766&categoryid=1&archived=0
What do you think of it?
Do you find it useful and think you will?
Do you see any major shortcomings or overlooked events?
Recommendations of your own?
The Ear wants to hear.
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Classical music: Rediscovering the music of composer Florence Price is a great way to start the celebration of Black History Month
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IF YOU LIKE A CERTAIN BLOG POST, PLEASE SPREAD THE WORD. FORWARD A LINK TO IT OR, SHARE or TAG IT (not just “Like” it) ON FACEBOOK. Performers can use the extra exposure to draw potential audience members to an event.
By Jacob Stockinger
February is Black History Month.
There are a lot of African-American performers and composers to emphasize during the month. Check out this exhaustive listing – conveniently organized into categories such as composers, conductors and pianists — in Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:African-American_classical_musicians
But this year one of the best ways to mark the event is to rediscover the composer Florence Price (below, in photos from the University of Arkansas Libraries).
Much of her work was until recently hidden in 30 boxes in her abandoned and dilapidated summer home located 70 miles south of Chicago.
A good introduction to Price (1887-1953) – who was famous in her day and was the first African-American woman composer to be performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra — can be found in the Deceptive Cadence blog of National Public Radio (NPR).
https://www.npr.org/2019/01/21/686622572/revisiting-the-pioneering-composer-florence-price
Here is a link to an excerpt from a new Albany recording of her two violin concertos:
And if you want to hear more of what her music sounds like check out the YouTube video at the bottom that has excerpts from the new Naxos recording, in the American Classics line, with her Symphonies Nos. 1 and 4.
You can also find quite a bit more of Price’s music, including a piano concerto, a piano sonata and orchestral suites, on YouTube.
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