Showing 1-10 of 12 results
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For whom the Bell bows
Life, Harry Rolnick, Published on 06/08/2018
» When Joshua Bell plays a single work with an orchestra, tickets anywhere in the world are sold out within minutes. However, Bell, one of the leading lights in fiddle-playing, won't be playing a mere single piece with the Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra on Sept 4.
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150 years of Rossini
Life, Harry Rolnick, Published on 19/06/2018
» 'Opera would be absolutely perfect," said Giachino Rossini one day while cooking a gourmet meal in his Paris mansion. "If only we could get rid of those damned singers."
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Bangkok to hear Bartók's Viola Concerto
Life, Harry Rolnick, Published on 13/03/2018
» So many jokes have been written about the viola that it really should be pitied. Without a look of its own (the viola resembles an overweight violin), without its own sound quality (it shares three-quarter of the violin notes, three-quarter of the cello notes), stuck behind the violins in the orchestra, the poor viola is hardly singular. In fact, when Hector Berlioz wrote solo viola into the Harold In Italy symphony, Paganini refused to play it. And the conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, noting how the viola shared the looks and music of other stringed instruments, called the instrument "the hermaphrodite of the orchestra".
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A mix of musical temperaments
Life, Harry Rolnick, Published on 20/02/2018
» The three composers for the next Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra, on Feb 28, could not be more dissimilar personally — or more alike historically.
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Tremendous trombone
Life, Harry Rolnick, Published on 30/01/2018
» 'Never look directly at a trombone player," said the great composer Richard Strauss. "It only encourages them." Then again, the German composer was hardly being honest about an instrument which Felix Mendelssohn called "the most sacred and noble instrument in the orchestra".
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The music of James Bond
Life, Harry Rolnick, Published on 02/11/2017
» If you want to win a sure-fire bet, just ask any moviegoer, any fan of the James Bond films: "Who composed the theme that goes through every single James Bond movie? The one that goes dum di-di dum dum dum?
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Russian extremes and caviar dreams
Life, Harry Rolnick, Published on 18/05/2017
» 'I have every reason to go insane," said Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky in a typical mood, "except for music."
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Bringing out the Brahms -- and Mozart, too
Life, Harry Rolnick, Published on 23/03/2017
» 'The only reason I'm famous," said composer Johannes Brahms, the arrogant pride of Viennese music in the 1880s, "is because other people don't respect the very best things. Like Mozart's piano concertos!"
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Violin prodigy and the great Czech spirit
Life, Harry Rolnick, Published on 12/07/2016
» The entire concert of the Bangkok Symphony Orchestra on July 24 will be devoted to an interval of seven years and a single Central European country. But what emotional years they were! And what inspiration came out of what we now know as the Czech Republic.
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The power of harmony
Life, Harry Rolnick, Published on 29/07/2014
» Has any person in history ever had the solution to a world filled with bloodshed, chaos, violence and carnage?
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