Friday, January 31, 2020

Rachmaninov is the most innovative composer ...

... in 200 years, researchers reveal


Rachmaninov was more innovative than Beethoven, researchers say
Rachmaninov was more innovative than Beethoven, researchers say. Picture: Getty
By Maddy Shaw Roberts, ClassicFM London
3K
Beethoven might be considered one of the greatest composers of all time – but his music wasn’t as original as Rachmaninov’s, researchers claim.
Sergei Rachmaninov was the most innovative composer in classical music history, according to new research that puts the Russian giant just ahead of BachBrahms and Mendelssohn.
A study of more than 19 composers, published in the open access journal EPJ Data Science, showed that Rachmaninov’s music was the most unlike his predecessors’ across the BaroqueClassical and Romantic eras (c. 1700-1900),
His compositions were also judged the most original, compared to his earlier works.
Beethoven, whose music bridged the gap between the Classical and Romantic eras, was found to be the most influential composer in the later period. However, the study did not consider his music highly original compared to his previous works.
Similarly, Classical composers Haydn and Mozart were considered influential in their time, but their compositions did not evolve drastically over their lifetime. To carry out the research, a team from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea studied 900 classical piano compositions written by 19 composers between 1700 and 1900 – widely considered the two defining centuries in classical music history.
They calculated each composition’s influence (how it differed to predecessors’ piano music) and novelty (how it differed from previous piano works by the same composer).
Composers from the Romantic era, such as Brahms and Mendelssohn, scored greater overall for ‘novelty’.
Beethoven was considered the most influential composer in the Romantic period
Beethoven was considered the most influential composer in the Romantic period. Picture: Getty
Juyong Park, the corresponding author, said: “Our model allows us to calculate the degree of shared melodies and harmonies between past and future works and to observe the evolution of western musical styles by demonstrating how prominent composers may have influenced each other.
“The period of music we studied is widely credited for having produced many musical styles that are still influential today.”
The authors cautioned the results might have been different if works other than piano compositions had been included in their analysis.

Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’ is currently topping...

... the iTunes singles chart



André Rieu’s version of Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’ is currently topping the iTunes singles chart
André Rieu’s version of Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’ is currently topping the iTunes singles chart. Picture: Getty

By Rosie Pentreath, Classic FM London
Ahead of the UK leaving the European Union on Friday, Remain campaigners are buying and streaming Beethoven’s seminal work – while Leavers champion Dominic Frisby’s ‘17 Million F***-Offs’.
Classical music is making a rare appearance at the top of the iTunes UK singles chart in the form of Dutch violinist André Rieu’s version of Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’.The final movement of Beethoven’s seminal Symphony No. 9, ‘Ode to Joy’ was originally written for symphony orchestra and chorus – a rarity in symphonies written in the Romantic period (and still now). The version currently moving around the top spaces of the iTunes chart features Rieu leading the Johann Strauss Orchestra.
Rieu’s singles chart entry has occurred as people on the Remain side of Brexit are buying and streaming ‘Ode to Joy’. A version of the piece is the organisational anthem of the European Union, and with it Remainers are sending a political message ahead of the UK leaving the EU this Friday (31 January).
People on the Leave side of Brexit are similarly buying and streaming ‘17 Million F***-Offs’ by Dominic Frisby to also send a political message ahead of Friday.
Classical music rarely makes it into the iTunes or other popular music charts, such as the UK Official Singles and Album charts.
Rare exceptions include the cellist Sheku Kanneh-Mason, whose ‘Elgar’ album made history earlier this month when it jumped into the UK Official Album Chart Top 10, landing at No. 8 – just behind Ed Sheeran, Harry Styles, Billie Eilish and Easy Life, and ahead of Post Malone.
Other songs currently hovering around the top spots of this week’s iTunes single chart include The Weeknd’s ‘Blinding Lights’, Lewis Capaldi’s ‘Before You Go’ and Tones and I’s ‘Dance Monkey.’

Thursday, January 9, 2020

'No Time To Die'

Hans Zimmer steps in at last minute to score Bond film ‘No Time To Die’


Hans Zimmer to score the latest Bond instalment No Time To Die
Hans Zimmer to score the latest Bond installment No Time To Die. Picture: Getty / YouTube / Eon Productions
By Sian Hamer, ClassicFM
705
The legendary film composer is taking over from Dan Romer as a last-minute replacement – just three months before the Bond movie is set to be released.
The score to the new Bond film No Time To Die will now be produced by Hans Zimmer.
Zimmer, who has been drafted in as a last-minute replacement, is taking the reins from composer Dan Romer who was originally set to score the film.
According to Varietythe Beasts of No Nation composer was dismissed over “creative differences” with the film’s production company, Eon Productions, last month.
We’re sure the score to the highly-anticipated action movie is in safe hands with Zimmer, whose track record in cinematic music includes the instantly recognisable sounds of the Pirates of the CaribbeanGladiator and The Da Vinci Code.
But taking on this job is no small task, especially considering Zimmer is already scoring three big movies this year – Wonder Woman 1984, Dune and Top Gun: Maverick.
Zimmer is an 11-time Oscar nominee, who won the Best Score award in 1994 for The Lion King.
Back in 2015 we spoke to Daniel Craig, ahead of the release of Spectre, about the importance of music throughout the Bond franchise – particularly when it comes to those iconic motifs.
“It’s so emotive that sound, and if you use it at the right point in the movie then everyone remembers, ‘Yes, we’re in a Bond movie.’”
We’re excited to see what Zimmer produces in this latest instalment – especially considering he’s got less than three months to do it.

Eight of the world’s 100 top conductors are now women ...

... compared to just one in 2013

7 January 2020, 11:30 | Updated: 7 January 2020, 12:31

Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Marin Alsop, Simone Young, Susanna Mälkki and JoAnn Falletta
Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Marin Alsop, Simone Young, Susanna Mälkki and JoAnn Falletta. Picture: Getty

By Maddy Shaw Roberts, ClassicFM
0
New research into classical music in 2019 shows progress for female composers and conductors, as more women take up space on the concert stage than ever before.
Female conductors, including Simone Young and CBSO’s Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, now make up eight per cent of the world’s top 100 maestros.
The figures, which come from classical music website Bachtrackreveal that in 2013 there was just one woman – the great American maestro, Marin Alsop – in the top 100.
There’s also progress for female composers, as the study finds 24 of the top 100 contemporary composers are now women – that’s double the figure of 2017.
London-born Cecilia McDowall, known for her great choral works including Now May We Singen and O Oriens, was 2019’s most performed female contemporary composer – followed by Judith Weir, Anna Meredith and Jennifer Higdon.
“There is much interest in choral music nowadays which is so encouraging,” McDowall says. “It seems in good health.”
Elsewhere in the study, Latvian maestro Andris Nelsons was found to be last year’s busiest performer, conducting a total of 132 concert and opera performances (that’s more than one every three days).
As the classical music world prepares to celebrate the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, the research revealed over 13 per cent of all classical concerts featured a work by Beethoven.
Beethoven was the top concert composer – closely followed by Mozart and J.S. Bach – while his Symphony No. 3 ‘Eroica’ was the year’s most performed concert piece.
Mozart was also popular in the world of opera – he was the third most performed composer, beaten only by Verdi and Puccini.
Bachtrack’s research also reveals a surge in appreciation for Clara Schumann’s work. In 2019, a year that celebrated the 200th anniversary of the great 19th-century pianist and composer’s birth, Schumann was the 44th most performed composer – after being ranked at No. 94 the year before.

Thursday, January 2, 2020

Mozart: Coronation Mass/Krönungsmesse - Radio Philharmonic Orchestra & N...

Ten ways the 2010s changed classical music forever


2010s changed classical music
2010s changed classical music. Picture: Getty / Elbphilharmonie Hamburg / Classic FM
By Kyle Macdonald, ClassicFM
In a decade of change in music, we’ve selected 10 moments that reflect the altering course of classical music history.
  1. Eric Whitacre’s Virtual Choir

    21 March 2010
    The early 2010s were very much about virtual everything, as the arts world started to discover a whole host of new connections and collaborations that could take place online.
    The decade began with a project from composer and conductor Eric Whitacre who created a user-generated choir, taking video recordings from webcams around the world. His Virtual Choir made its debut in 21 March 2010. Eric has gone on to head up four other projects, with thousands of choral participants and millions of views.
    iTunes Festival: Eric Whitacre Performs At The Roundhouse
    iTunes Festival: Eric Whitacre Performs At The Roundhouse. Picture: Getty
    The graphics of that Virtual Choir No. 1 definitely now look 10 years out of date, but it was a moment of classical music finding new ways to assemble, collaborate and create in a new digital age.
  2. Cuts and decline in music education

    20 November 2012
    The 2010s have seen profound changes in music education in the UK, with funding challenges and changing education policy having serious impacts in schools across the country.
    The English Baccalaureate (or EBacc) was brought in by the coalition government in 2010, focusing on pupils’ performance in English, maths, the sciences, a language and geography or history. However, the EBacc has also meant fewer students taking GCSE music and other arts subjects, and the number of pupils taking GCSE music has been steadily declining since 2007.
    In November 2012, a group of prominent classical artists decided to intervene. Sir Simon Rattle, Sir Mark Elder, Sir Andrew Davis and Sir Colin Davis, violinists Nicola Benedetti and Tasmin Little, and cellists Steven Isserlis and Julian Lloyd Webber put their names to a letter concerning the marginalisation of creative subjects in the English Baccalaureate qualification.
    Concerns have deepened since. In 2018, the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL) warned of cuts on lesson time, staff and facilities in A Level music of 39 per cent. Outside of secondary schools, the Musicians’ Union has raised concerns about funding cuts across the UK and the impact this has on professional musicians. With many community music and education projects struggling for local government funding, these issues will continue to shape the future of music into the next decade and beyond.
  3. Joyce DiDonato’s crowd-sourced anthology

    26 August 2013
    Crowdfunding and crowdsourcing was one of the trends of the decade, from keeping local pubs open and social campaigns to life-saving medical treatments. Classical artists and ensembles, of all profiles and sizes, have turned to crowdfunding over the last 10 years as a way for resourcing recording tours, projects, concert halls and more. It's also proven to be a great way of creating and engaging new online support bases.
    This important trend is nicely illustrated by star mezzo Joyce DiDonato who, in 2013, invited her online fans to produce her album. Fans suggested names, selected the anthologies pieces and provided quotes and photos, including the cover photo. The album, ReJOYCE, represents this fundamental change in how projects were conceived and delivered in the 2010s.
  4. Ray Chen, TwoSet Violin and social media

    19 May 2014
    Classical music’s move to social media was one of the trends of the decade. Now, orchestras, artists and music venues around the world share live performances, curated playlists, explainers and masterclasses across platforms which themselves have defined the 2010s: Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter.
    This revolution has been profound and broad, but we're going to zero in on what happened in 2014 when Ray Chen and TwoSet Violin started sharing short, entertaining musical skits (back when Instagram videos were the mind-bending length of 15 seconds...).
    Ray Chen's videos were fun, delightfully geeky, and grounded in something uniquely classical. In the 21st century, classical music has been finding its voice away from the formality and detachment of the past, and engaging a new audience of a digitally-savvy generation.
    Around the time of Chen's first snaps, young Australian violinists Brett Yang and Eddy Chen established the social media channel TwoSet Violin. It has been outrageously entertaining and has now reached over 1.93 million subscribers and 377 million views on YouTube alone.
  5. Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla and the (still rather slow) rise of women conductors

    4 February 2016
    In early 2016, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra named young Lithuanian conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla as its new music director, succeeding Andris Nelsons.
    American maestro Marin Alsop had already shattered the long-in-place glass ceiling at major orchestras when she was appointed Principal Conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra in 2002. But still, 29-year-old Mirga's appointment in Birmingham felt like a significant moment in the slow and long-overdue ascent of women conductors on the podiums of the world's great orchestras.
    Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla conducts the Juilliard Orchestra
    Mirga Grazinyte-Tyla conducts the Juilliard Orchestra. Picture: Getty
    Gražinytė-Tyla's performances with the CBSO have been met with acclaim. Over the last 10 years, many other women have taken up top spots in orchestras around the world: Susanna Mälkki as Chief Conductor of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, Elim Chan at the Antwerp Symphony Orchestra, and Simone Young at the Sydney Symphony, to name just a few.
    Presenting Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla
    Lithuanian conductor Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla makes her Deutsche Grammophon debut with a survey of orchestral works by Mieczysław Weinberg. She conducts the combined forces of Gidon Kremer, the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and the Kremerata Baltica Chamber Orchestra. Listen here: https://DG.lnk.to/MirgaWeinberg
    Posted by Deutsche Grammophon on Friday, 19 July 2019
  6. Du Yun wins the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Music

    10 Apr 2017
    In 2017, for the first time in The Pulitzer Prizes’ history, all three finalists for the music award were women.
    Shanghai-born composer Du Yun took home the top accolade that year for her eclectic operatic work, Angel’s Bone. The board called it "a bold operatic work that integrates vocal and instrumental elements and a wide range of styles into a harrowing allegory for human trafficking in the modern world".
    It marked another moment in the 2010s when a woman composer gained recognition within a long male-dominated institution.
  7. Hilary Hahn and #100DaysOfPractice

    4 May 2017

    The 100 Days Project, where artists share their daily progress on their work, had already been around for a couple of years – but American violinist Hilary Hahn had the idea of setting the trend to a musician's daily creative act: practice. For the duration of her project, she shared iPhone moments of her practice and rehearsals.
    It was flaws-and-all sharing of the struggles and successes that every musician encounters in their daily practice routines. #100DaysOfPractice came to trend among musicians on social media, with others, of all stages and abilities, joining Hahn in openly sharing their progress.
    Musicians practising is, of course, nothing new. But the openness, honesty and positivity of this project speaks of a new approach to music-making in the digital era.
  8. Classical music and #MeToo

    December 2017
    Two months after the New York Times and the New Yorker broke sexual abuse allegations against film producer Harvey Weinstein, classical music began its reckoning with the #MeToo movement and sexual harassment.
    In December 2017, the Associated Press broke allegations of sexual abuse made against two of the world's most prominent conductors: former music director of the Metropolitan Opera, James Levine, and Charles Dutoit, artistic director and conductor of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
    In 2019, Spanish opera singer Plácido Domingo was accused by multiple women of sexual harassment spanning three decades, leading to the singer's resignation as general director of the Los Angeles Opera.
    The waves of the #MeToo movement continue to reshape every workplace and industry. Classical music hasn't always been the most progressive in confronting issues of sexual harassment and abuse and now orchestras, opera houses and educational institutions are having to adapt to a new era and change rapidly.
  9. Sheku Kanneh-Mason plays at the Royal Wedding

    19 May 2018
    A spring day in 2018 saw a moment that propelled a young cellist to international stardom.
    The wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle at St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle was historic and memorable for all sorts of reasons, not least thanks to a 19-year-old soloist, who serenaded the congregation at the height of the service. His name was Sheku Kanneh-Mason, and he’s just one of an extremely musical family of seven siblings.
    Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Isata Kanneh-Mason Perfor at Carnegie Hall's Weil Recital Hall
    Sheku Kanneh-Mason and Isata Kanneh-Mason Perfor at Carnegie Hall's Weil Recital Hall. Picture: Getty
    His playing and sartorial style immediately created quite a sensation around the world, with #CelloBae trending on social media. His debut album featuring the Shostakovich Cello Concerto also shot to the top of the US iTunes pop chart.
    Kanneh-Mason won the 2016 BBC Young Musician of the Year award, becoming the first black musician to win the award since its launch in 1978. He has made acclaimed recordings on the Decca label and is establishing himself as one of the classical world's finest soloists.
    However, it was the moment Sheku played at St George's Chapel for Harry and Meghan that the beauty of his playing touched so many around the world.
  10. 100 million streams of Yo-Yo Ma's Bach

    The 2010s changed the ways in which we listened to all music, including classical.
    CD sales declined further (but didn't disappear entirely), and the fad of downloading slowed. In its place rose streaming services, from giants like Spotify and Apple Music, to classical specialists like Primephonic.
    Streaming meant that the breadth of classical works and great recordings were available to the widest audience ever.
    The growth and accessibility of streaming was illustrated when Yo-Yo Ma’s first recording of the Prelude from Bach’s Cello Suite No. 1 hit 100 million worldwide streams on Spotify, with Sony Classical announcing him as the first core classical artist to reach that number of streams with one track.