Showing 1 - 10 of 24
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".
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".
Invention meets perfection
Life, Harry Rolnick, Published on 13/02/2017
» The rare, the popular, the ancient, the modern.
Variations for Valentines
Life, Harry Rolnick, Published on 23/01/2019
» Not slushy or sloppy or kissy-kissy, but three faces of real love will be presented by the Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra for St Valentine's month offering at the Thailand Cultural Centre on Feb 8. The first face is the tragedy of love, the second face is the love of beauty, and the third is one of the most emotional offerings of love to humanity in general.
Brahms, Schumann and a royal tribute
Life, Harry Rolnick, Published on 06/07/2017
» On July 15, the Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra will feature two giants of 19th century musical history and one world premiere tribute to Thailand's late monarch.
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!"
Summoning the masters by cello
Life, Harry Rolnick, Published on 31/08/2017
» The great cellist Pablo Casals gave the second-best description of the cello. "The cello," he said, "is like a beautiful woman who has not grown older but younger with time, more slender, more supple, more graceful." The greatest description of the cello contained no words at all, and this wordless description is what Bangkok will experience on Sept 2.
Valentina Lisitsa's outspoken words, outgoing music
Life, Harry Rolnick, Published on 12/12/2017
» Wonderful news for music lovers who hate Tchaikovsky symphonies. On Friday, the Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra (RBSO) will be performing a Tchaikovsky symphony.
Taiwanese pianist Weiyin Chen returns to play with RBSO
Life, Harry Rolnick, Published on 03/04/2018
» Few names in classical music are as dreaded and venerated as New York Times reviewer Anthony Tommasini. The lanky writer, expressionless, tieless, inevitably seated on the aisle in Carnegie Hall or Lincoln Center, gives little indication of his thoughts during a performance. But within 24 hours, his printed judgements will have reached millions. And like a Roman Emperor signalling "up" or "down" to a gladiator, his opinions to a young artist can mean professional life or death.
A rare piece of Tchaikovsky
Life, Harry Rolnick, Published on 27/04/2017
» So you thought you knew everything about Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky? His morbid Pathetique? His romantic Romeo And Juliet? His warmongering 1812 Overture? Well, think again. Royal Bangkok Symphony Orchestra is offering on Friday a major work by Tchaikovsky which is rarely played these days -- but counts, in its original form, as one of the most celebrated works in the history of music.