Monthly Archives: January 2015

Nine Symphonies

Earlier today I posted CK Dexter Haven‘s nerdy symphony challenge on Facebook. I wasn’t going to share my list publicly because my tastes feel so prosaic they didn’t seem worth writing about. (Plus, I know a lot more violin repertoire than I do symphonies.) But then Scott Chamberlain called me out in this entry and gah; hey, look what I wrote this evening.

If there ever was a time and place on the Internet for orch dorks to completely out-nerd each other, Here It Is: your chance to show off your music knowledge feathers like a displaying wild turkey.

Us

Us

The rules as stated by CK Dexter Haven:

If you had to pick nine symphonies — no more, no less — by different composers to include as part of a proverbial desert island survival kit, what would they be?  I asked myself this question just for grins over the recent Christmas & New Year’s break…

  • You can only pick one symphony per composer
  • You must choose numbered symphonies 1 through 9 only.  No Symphonie fantastique, Symphony of Psalms, Symphonic Dances, etc.
  • Once you choose a numbered symphony, you cannot choose another similarly numbered symphony by a different composer (i.e. no choosing both Beethoven’s 7th and Sibelius 7th).

So yeah. Here are my picks. What are yours? You don’t need to explain why, unless you want to. Just throw a list in the comments.

***

Continue reading

30 Comments

Filed under The Orchestra Business

Review: Mozart in the Jungle, Pilot

[Lots of discussion about sex follows, accompanied by screenshots. You’ve been warned! ~ E.]

***

Like many other people with an interest in classical music, I’ve often dreamed of writing an Emmy-winning TV show about an orchestra. This desire only intensified during the Minnesota Orchestra lockout as I watched increasingly crazy plot twists unfold in real life. Secret alliances, conflict between titans of industry, late night phone calls, political turmoil, a music director putting it all on the line for Art, deficits, even more deficits…and some unexpected romance. It’s like Downton Abbey but real. We’ve even got the tuxes.

Someone, however, got the idea of “orchestra TV show” before I did. Mozart in the Jungle is a new web series from Amazon which centers on the lives of the musicians of the New York Symphony and all the hot sex and drugs they get into. The pilot is available for free, and given the…intriguing reactions of various musicians to it, I thought I’d write up a blow-by-blow for those who don’t have the time to watch the show but do have the time to read 2000 words poking fun at it.

The first shot is of a tongue and an oboe accompanied by our protagonist saying: “It’s slightly easier with the lips wet.” Get it? Because classical music is so full of SEXXX! SEX EVERYWHERE! SEX!

Continue reading

11 Comments

Filed under The Orchestra Business