I've been listening to the Symphony No. 8 of Bruckner quite a few times lately. The main reason is that a performance of the piece by the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Riccardo Muti on August 15 is the finale of my visit to Salzburg this summer and I want to become really familiar with the work. And, if you are wondering, nope, no tickets are available, it is sold out. Yes, already. So don't tell me that classical music is dying--only in some places. I have always rather liked Bruckner ever since singing in the university choir in a performance of his Te Deum. Sure, I fell under the spell o ..read more

I taught myself how to write by writing letters to the editor of the Globe and Mail in Toronto. You had to address an issue of the day in pithy and original prose and not exceed 800 words. I got so that I could get quite a few letters published. And now, in the limited world of musical discussion on the Internet, I think I have achieved beatitude. Yesterday Rick Beato put up a particularly wacky video titled "What Is Wrong With Everyone?" Here it is: Assuming that the comments are sorted according to Top Comments the first comment you will see is this one, attributed to Speusippus: I was qu ..read more

I'm reading Edmund Husserl's book The Phenomenology of Internal Time-Consciousness right now and he is a turgid writer--one suspects that all phenomenologists have to attend a special class in inspissated prose. In any case, noticing that the Brave browser now has an AI component I decided to put it to the test so I asked: Summarize Edmund Husserl's phenomenology of time The reply: Edmund Husserl, a prominent philosopher, described phenomenology of time as a study of the structures of experience and consciousness. He believed that time is experienced as a continuous flow, which he called "i ..read more

This seems like a good thing: Brooklyn Museum Names Cellist Niles Luther First Composer In Residence Luther is kicking off his residency by composing three musical arrangements to accompany the exhibition Hiroshige’s 100 Famous Views of Edo (feat. Takashi Murakami), which opened today. The museum said, “While not aiming to precisely replicate sounds of 19th-century Tokyo (then Edo), Luther’s compositions deftly incorporate traditional Japanese scales, modes and techniques to evoke the era’s ambiance as reflected in Utagawa Hiroshige’s prints. Drawing on his own experiences in Tokyo ..read more

There is a kind of drumbeat of despair that accompanies the discussion of classical music in the public fora--at least in North America. There are so many voices: Ted Gioia, Greg Sandow, me in posts like this Classical Music's "Business Model" and a host of others. Let me offer some thought-provoking propositions: A certain model of society, in the US often called the "blue model" seems to be undergoing a severe disruption witnessed by people simply leaving: Chicago, New York, California. Unfortunately for classical music, these are also main cultural centers for classical music, but they ar ..read more

The other day I recommended three philosophy channels on YouTube and I want to start this post by re-recommending one of them. I just started watching Prof. Victor Gijsbers series of videos on epistemology and they are really great. Here is the third one:  You should get a couple of things from this clear, balanced and well-argued clip: epistemology, along with logic and ethics (and probably aesthetics as well) is a normative discipline, i.e. it is not about digging up knowledge so much as it is about discovering why you should be seeking knowledge. The other main point is that the sear ..read more

Because the Friday Miscellanea used to be a lot more light-hearted and then things got very dire. * * * Now back to our usual message of woe: Spotify officially demonetises all tracks with under 1,000 streams. See, this is why I don't stream (apart from YouTube). It is my conviction that much of the best art and music is found on the less-travelled paths, the less well-known artists. So the way the big corporations have stepped into our lives--oh and big governments too--has not been a blessing. According to a Spotify blog post, 99.5% of all streams on the platform are of tracks that ha ..read more

One of the great things about YouTube is that you can educate yourself--for free--in just about any area of life. Though I would stay away from the "guitar in ten easy lessons" clips. I have learned a great deal in the area of philosophy on YouTube, so here are some people I follow in philosophy. No particular order. First up is Jeffrey Kaplan a super bright and crisp thinker that has an elegant and clear presentation and teaches philosophy in the US. Can you figure out how he manages to write backwards so fluently? He has lectures on a myriad of subjects including why physicalism is not possi ..read more

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This is Kazuhito Yamashita playing his transcription of Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky for solo guitar. Yes, I know, it is impossible. But I saw him play it in Toronto in the 80s so, obviously not. I even used to own a copy of his transcription, published in Japan.   ..read more