The first two measures of Beethoven’s 3rd Symphony, as played by 57 orchestras, arranged chronologically. Two E-flat major chords, 57 times. Notice how different each one is in pitch, speed, envelope (particularly attack), sonority, voicing. Some give you a sense of forward motion, some a sense of static-ness. And people say that we’ve heard this [...]

OK, so a quick look at the pieces included in Mr. S-N’s first season as music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra looks like this: Total No. of Pieces:  76 No. of pieces written before the 20th century: 39 No. of pieces written in the 20th or 21st centuries:  37 No. of pieces written within the [...]

So the subscription brochure for the Philadelphia Orchestra’s 2012-13 season arrived last week – the first season under new Music Director Yannick Nezet-Sequin.  It’s very interesting.  He’s consistently referred to as “Yannick”.  I don’t think the word “maestro” appears once.  And they don’t have the traditional formal pose of the orchestra – the shot taken [...]

There’s a new recording of Rossini’s opera “William Tell” conducted by Antonio Pappano, and he’s on the cover.  Here it is: Pretty good visual pun.  It reminds me of the old Westminster Gold LPs of the 60s/70s, where they almost always had some kind of interesting (and sometimes a bit racy) visual comment on the [...]

As the purveyors of widgets get increasingly worried about the dwindling market for their product, they seem to spend more time and money figuring out how to increase the need for it. That seems like a pretty straightforward statement, certainly considering typical consumer products that get obsoleted by newer technology or just lose their usefulness. [...]

Welcome to the newly established blog for Note Perfect Notes. Here we discuss concert music (also known as “classical” music) and various aspects of writing about music. You’ve no doubt heard the oft quoted line “writing about music is like dancing about architecture,” attributed to Laurie Anderson, Martin Mull (!), and many others. (See http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/11/08/writing-about-music/ [...]