This month’s issue is one fantastically rich chord. The piano is really more than an instrument; it is also an archetype for music. Whether deeply involved in music or not, most people will find the …

I’m filled with torment. Is the question this month really whether there is such a thing as neo-romanticism in contemporary music? Does such a term refer to composers who are openly and proudly reactionary, led …

“I dream of instruments obedient to my thought and which with their contribution of a whole new world of unsuspected sounds, will lend themselves to the exigencies of my inner rhythm.” – …

It’s July and we’re again celebrating that quintessential and sometimes amorphous sense of American independence. And another perennial activity that we always need to be doing in the music world is examining how individual or …

It is hard for me to read this month’s issue and its consideration of composers thinking big for large ensembles, without the back of my mind drifting to the well-publicized troubles of our symphony orchestras. …

We are all familiar with those program or liner notes that are a step removed from generalized music theory and are about as stimulating to read as a legal brief or a software manual. When …

To 19th Century composers such as Wagner, opera had the potential of being a “total art,” integrating drama, dance, visual art and design, philosophy, and poetics within the grand embrace of music. And then along …

The 20th Century gave us a deeper understanding of the relativity of perception in matters scientific as well as cultural. We saw further into outer space as well as further into psychological inner space and …

One of the most interesting aspects of this month’s discussion concerning the historical assessment of American music, is how this concern has its own deep history, a history which has played a considerable role in …

Reading this month’s issue, I wonder how many of you, like me, find resonance with elements of the expatriate sensibility, all the while making your home in the United States. Even as resident citizens, I …