Mahlerman returns with a post celebrating the exceptional soundtrack to the film Shutter Island, one of many successful collaborations between Martin Scorsese and Robbie Robertson... The time was Thanksgiving, 1976. The place was the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco, and the last performance of the Canadian-American rock group The Band. It ... Read More...
About Author Profile: Mahlerman
Mahlerman celebrates a quartet of great English composers once dismissively described as the 'cow-pat school'... My default position when asked, as I am from time to time, how one 'gets into' serious music, is to suggest tuning in to Classic FM. I don't tune in myself however, as I don't like music ... Read More...
This Sunday Mahlerman revives four masterful symphonies that have 'somehow slipped through the net of recognition and lie, unknown and unloved, on the coroner's slab'... If, unlike Igor Stravinsky, you accept that symphonic music is capable of 'saying something', you would probably agree that the high point of symphonic music was ... Read More...
Richard Wagner was 'about as detestable as it is possible for a man to be'. And as for Cosima Wagner... Never thinking for a moment that I would ever use my Sue Ryder Loyalty Card, what did I discover there a few weeks ago but the first volume of Cosima Wagner's ... Read More...
'His need to be appreciated, admired and loved was borderline paranoid,' says Mahlerman, as he asks: 'Who was Leonard Bernstein?'... Rummaging through a shortlist of Ukrainian musicians for my post a couple of weeks ago, I briefly considered the inclusion of the great musical polymath Leonard Bernstein, as both his parents ... Read More...
With the world's eyes on the Ukraine, Mahlerman considers the musical history of that troubled region... Unlike the 85% of Americans that apparently cannot locate Ukraine on the map, I know where it is and what it means to me, and it is rather more than 'a country in South Eastern ... Read More...
To mark his one hundredth Dabble, Mahlerman selects four pieces to provide unexpected pleasure... Glancing languidly at the post-scorecard the other day, I noticed that this would be my one-hundredth essay for Lazy Sunday*, and armed with that uninteresting fact I determined to give myself a treat and, instead of casting ... Read More...
From the madness of the Great War came great music, says Mahlerman... ….the old lie: dulce et decorum est pro patria mori Wilfred Owen, 1917-18 Well, the sentiments expressed by Owen ('it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country') are not almost one hundred years old, but were coined in an Ode by ... Read More...
Mahlerman brings to light four composers whom he considers criminally underrated... In my last post here I discussed the Olympian position currently occupied by J S Bach, a claim that few could reasonably challenge; but the sun did not always shine upon this redoubtable genius. Remind yourself of his achievements and ... Read More...
Mahlerman stands well back and attempts to grasp the full scale of J S Bach's achievements... There is something mythical about Johann Sebastian Bach - for how else can we account for his superhuman mastery of form and substance? Beethoven alone bears comparison, but we are always aware of the struggle ... Read More...
