Category Archives: Books & Literature

Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique & the fork in the recreational road

Posted on September 19, 2018 by barczablog

I’m responding as much to the serendipity of timing as anything else. Recreational marijuana becomes legal in Ontario next month. The Toronto Symphony are about to begin their 2018-19 season with Berlioz’s Symphonie Fantastique. Is there a connection? I think … Continue reading →

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Liszt’s Winterreise

Posted on September 8, 2018 by barczablog

After experiencing the 24 man deconstructed Winterreise from Tongue in Cheek Productions, I’ve had all that Schubert rattling around in my head the past couple of days. Given that I had to return a couple of books anyway, to the … Continue reading →

Posted in Books & Literature, Music and musicology, Personal ruminations & essays, Popular music & culture | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Exploring: Liszt and the Symphonic Poem

Posted on August 22, 2018 by barczablog

Serendipity leads me in my choices at the library. Sometimes I get lucky. There is so much more to Liszt than his abilities as a pianist, or his virtuoso compositions for piano such as the Hungarian Rhapsodies. Did you first … Continue reading →

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Oxymoronic Gould Transcriptions

Posted on July 29, 2018 by barczablog

It seems like a lifetime ago, back when Glenn Gould was still alive. I’d first learned of him in my childhood as the one who showed us a new approach to Bach, a famous performer who had then abandoned live … Continue reading →

Posted in Books & Literature, Music and musicology, Opera, Personal ruminations & essays, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Opera: Passion, Power, and Politics

Posted on June 1, 2018 by barczablog

There it all is, everything a boy or girl could want in one headline. Now in fact that’s the title of a big beautiful book that I’ve been reading.  And what good is a book if it doesn’t push your … Continue reading →

Posted in Art, Architecture & Design, Books & Literature, Music and musicology, Opera, Politics, Popular music & culture, Reviews | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Laird’s new Leonard Bernstein biography

Posted on May 27, 2018 by barczablog

2018 is the centennial of Leonard Bernstein’s birth, as I’ve mentioned in reviewing recent commemorative performances of Candide by TIFT, TOT and the TSO.  Anniversaries usually trigger a flood of books as well.  I’ve just read one of them cover … Continue reading →

Posted in Books & Literature, Music and musicology, Popular music & culture, Reviews | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Frisch takes us Over the Rainbow

Posted on February 2, 2018 by barczablog

Sometimes we read a book to learn something, to discover answers to questions. And sometimes we read simply to get lost in the conversation. Walter Frisch is taking me on one of those latter sorts of journeys in his 2017 … Continue reading →

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Martin Geck: Beethoven’s Symphonies

Posted on November 8, 2017 by barczablog

Sometimes the release of books and records seems serendipitous.  If I look closer at the process I might start to feel cynical. I will cling to the positive magic implicit in serendipity, naive though it may seem.  For instance, here … Continue reading →

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Simon Callow Being Wagner

Posted on October 13, 2017 by barczablog

I’ve just devoured a new book, Simon Callow’s Being Wagner.   The University of Toronto’s excellent music library just acquired it, a new book with a 2017 copyright. The cover shows the sub-title “Triumph of the Will” which is likely apt, … Continue reading →

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What Happened: deja vu

Posted on September 30, 2017 by barczablog

As I’ve been reading Hillary Clinton’s What Happened, her bestselling memoir, I experienced a curious and disturbing feeling. That I’d been here before. That I had felt these feelings not so long ago, concerning events here in Canada.  I am … Continue reading →

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