Classical Music Forum

Tim Page is the chief classical music critic for The Washington Post and the author or editor of a dozen books, including "Dawn Powell: A Biography," "The Glenn Gould Reader," "The Unknown Sigrid Undset," "William Kapell: A Documentary Life History of the American Pianist" and the forthcoming "Tim Page on Music" (Amadeus Press). He won the Pulitzer Prize for criticism in 1997 for his writings about music for The Post.

He has also worked as an artistic adviser (the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra), a radio host (WNYC-FM in New York), a record producer (BMG Catalyst) and, in his younger days, a rock musician and cocktail pianist. A graduate of Columbia University, he lives in Washington with his wife, Julieta Stack.

A transcript follows.

Editor's Note: Washingtonpost.com moderators retain editorial control over Live Online discussions and choose the most relevant questions for guests and hosts; guests and hosts can decline to answer questions.

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Tim Page: Good afternoon -- and it feels good to be back in the D.C. area. I'm actually living up in Baltimore now -- simply couldn't afford D.C. proper anymore -- and am just settling in to this new life as we speak.

This morning, I caught a 6:20 MARC train, was in at the Post by 7:40, and I'm now back home again, having gone through my mail, the schedule and written a long memo about fall coverage. I find that I like it very much in Baltimore -- although I suspect I'll be cursing the midnight commutes sometimes!

I'm sorry to say that my boxes are still mostly unpacked, so I won't have the library available to me that I like to have when I do these programs. Still, I'll do my best -- and I find that my readers are extremely helpful when I don't have an answer handy.

It promises to be a good season -- a lot of interesting concerts coming up in and around the Washington area. (The Baltimore Symphony becomes a major player in the capital area when Strathmore opens up early next year, giving the NSO a regular weekly rival, which will probably be good for both orchestras.)

I'm going up to New York next week to catch the Manhattan staged premiere of Richard Strauss's "Daphne," an opera I've loved (on disc) since I was a child. The music is ravishing; the dramatic action is rather difficult to pull off (the heroine turns into a tree in the final scene, as per the old myth). We'll see how New York City Opera pulls this one off.

We have a few questions in hand -- could always take some more. I'll do my best to get to as many of your queries as I can today.

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Arlington, Va.: Enjoyed your article on Slatkin. As a former St. Louisan, Slatkin's interest in being a good local citizen always impressed me and raised his profile in St. Louis. I noticed he recently helped record a new version of the Redskins fight song, thus his involvement seems to have remained. Can you imagine other top-tier conductors doing something as frivolous, but oddly sweet, as this?

Tim Page: Thanks very much for the nice words on the Slatkin piece. It seemed a good time to take a long look at what he's done, where he's been, where he might be going.

I didn't know about the Redskins song! In general, I'd say that Slatkin's profile is not as high here as it was in St. Louis, but then again Washington is a much busier place -- especially two months before an election.

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New York, NY: I snatched up a copy of the new translation of Adorno, Essays on Music, at the Strand recently. Have you read this? I haven't read Adorno before, any thoughts on whether it's a good place to start, or on what is?

Tim Page: I must say I'm not really an Adorno fan. Practically every theory he had about music strikes me as spurious -- whether his antipathy toward popular culture, his frothing gush about the "historical inevitability" of the second Viennese school (as Lawrence of Arabia -- or Peter O'Toole, anyway -- used to say: "NOTHING is written"), his hostility toward Sibelius, his weird notions the one that suggests humming a Brahms symphony is somehow "fetishizing" it, and so on.

I have no idea why capital-I "Intellectuals" tend to be such wretched music critics. Edward Said was another such moonlighter; although he was said to be a stimulating, if controversial, figure in his field, his music criticism is mostly dross, and not particularly well-written dross at that.

That said, Adorno has his cult. Virgil Thomson admired him somewhat -- said that Adorno combined both the best and the worst aspects of Germanic pedagogy.

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Washington, D.C.: This is a frivolous question but what do you consider the worst piece that is regularly played in our concert halls? "The Four Seasons"? "Carmina Burana"?

Tim Page: I happen to admire both of the pieces that you mention. To be sure, they have been overplayed but I think they are both enormously effective in their fashion.

Hmmm...a really BAD piece? Well, I confess a marked dislike for the Prokofiev Sonata for Violin and Piano (also playable on the flute), Op. 94. Trite melodies, ersatz naivete, aggressive Soviet hardness...

I don't much want to hear the Rachmaninoff Second Symphony -- too darned long! -- or either of Elgar's essays in that field (much as I love other works by these composers). I wouldn't necessarily call them bad pieces, though.

There are some famous stinkers by great composers -- Beethoven's "Wellington's Victory" is probably the most celebrated -- but they are rarely performed.

This sounds like a fun parlor game for the afternoon. I leave it to you, gentle readers -- nominate some pieces the repertory could do without. I'll try to print as many as I can.

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Adorno: Oh, thank you for your opinion on Adorno!; I'm a current PhD student in Musicology and many of my classes have dealt with his writings. It's nice to hear someone else has a similar opinion to mine!;

That said, it is valuable to read Adorno to get his opinions as long as you take what he says with a grain of salt. I prefer Dahlhaus.

By the way, I use your list of the best classical music for my music appreciation students who want to explore beyond their book. It's a great resource for them!;

Tim Page: Thanks very much. I know my opinion is a heretical one, but I have come by it honestly. I have read most of what has been translated, and he seems to me wrong about practically everything.

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Alexandria, Va: I had the immense pleasure of hearing the Vienna Symphony when I visited that beautiful city several years back and thoroughly enjoyed it. I have read that "pound for pound" it has been rated the best. I wonder how the NSO and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra are rated. I always enjoy your chats.

Tim Page: Do you mean the Vienna Symphony or the Vienna Philharmonic? Both are fine orchestras, but the Vienna Philharmonic is generally considered the better of the two. Then again, I thought that the visit it paid to the Kennedy Center a couple years back was one of the most disappointing concerts I've ever heard, but mostly blamed that on the conductor (Harnoncourt -- playing, of all things, Strauss waltzes!).

I'm just getting to know the Baltimore Symphony and have no detailed knowledge of it yet. In general, I have found the present-day NSO to be a more virtuosic ensemble (particularly the brass section, which has struck me as Baltimore's weak spot) but advocates tell me that the Baltimoreans are capable of a deeply individual and impressive intensity.

I'm going to be listening to both orchestras a lot this year -- it should be a lot of fun.

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Classical Guitar: I recently began to appreciate classical guitar. So far, I've stuck to the basics (Essential Guitar, Spanish Guitar) but I would like to branch out a little and maybe get to know some new artists. Any suggestions for new CDs? Thanks!;!;

Tim Page: I'm afraid I don't know as much about the classical guitar repertory as I should. Let me open this question to the floor.

You'll certainly want to investigate the lute works of Dowland and Byrd. Mauro Giuliani's music is a lot of fun. And there are many Spanish composers who have written well for the instrument.

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Lancaster, CA: What do you think of Placido Domingo's singing? Is it less robust than it once was?

Tim Page: Less robust? Maybe just a little; after all, Domingo is in his 60s now. But his musicianship is undiminished and I generally find him something of a miracle. Just wish we got to hear him more often.

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University Park, MD: Pieces we could do without: Ravel's Bolero, which is fine the first 10,000 times you hear it. After that... Ditto Pachelbel's Canon.

Tim Page: Yes, it's amazing how I burned out on the Pachelbel. I loved it when I first heard it some 30 years ago -- and a good, up-tempo, unsoggy performance can still make me sit up -- but generally I could go without having to hear it again.

I still find a truly excellent "Bolero" exhilarating, but I have a high threshold for repetition.

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Fairfax, VA: Correction from last time Re: Celibidache. His recording of Brahms Violin Concerto with Ida Handel is with the London Symphony, not the London Philharmonic. I apologize for my error.

Tim Page: Thank you for the correction. I sometimes get those groups confused, too -- especially their old recordings. The LSO has become quite extraordinarily good lately, though -- and I'm so glad that Colin Davis has been re-recording his Berlioz with them.

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Fairfax, VA: In my opinion, the Baltimore Symphony is the better orchestra and it also has the advantage of the acoustically superior Meyerhoff Hall. The NSO may indeed be more muscular, and that's a plus in a Mahler symphony, but the Baltimore Symphony is more refined with a more transparent string sound. Just my opinion...

Tim Page: I know many listeners who agree with you. I'm looking forward to comparing and contrasting this year.

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Washington D.C.: What are you thoughts about music schools in the Washington, D.C. area. There doesn't seem to be a Curtis, Peabody, or Juilliard.

Tim Page: The Levine School and Catholic University of America both offer valuable training. Still, I think it is fair to say that neither institution can yet be compared to Curtis, Peabody, Juilliard -- or, for that matter, to New England Conservatory, Mannes, Manhattan, Eastman, Oberlin or Indiana. But both schools are serious and ambitious --and who knows what the future might hold?

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Columbia, SC: Tim,

Sheherezade (sp.?) may not be the worst piece regularly played in today's concert hall, but I heard it excessively on my local college station in the 1950s. The station seemed to own two records; one was Sheherezade and the other wasn't. I haven't heard it on radio or in concert halls in years, which is fine with me.

Tim Page: Funny thing about "Scheherezade."

I actually admire the piece quite a lot -- Rimsky was a glorious craftsman -- but it has certainly been played to death on the radio. In fact, it has been played so often on the radio that, paradoxically, you don't hear it much in the concert hall anymore. Because I don't listen to the radio much, it has remained fresh for me in a way that other works have not. I take out a recording and play it once a year and like it fine. I'd feel very differently if I was subjected to it regularly on radio or in the concert hall.

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Alexandria, Va: It was the Vienna Philharmonic and I plan to hear both the NSO and BSO in the near future.

Tim Page: The Vienna Philharmonic, on a great night, strikes me as one of the very finest orchestras in the world -- up there with Berlin, Cleveland, the Concertgebouw and maybe Philly at its very best.

Let's share our thoughts on the NSO and the Baltimore Symphony as we listen.

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Chicago, IL: A classical guitar suggestion: There's a four-CD set called "The Segovia Collection," on Deutsche Grammophone. It contains a wide variety of guitar works, some for guitar specifically, others are transcriptions.

Tim Page: That's a great idea. There was also a good set of Julian Bream discs on RCA a while back.

Anybody new?

I should really follow the field more carefully...

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Park Forest, IL: I understand 2006 is the centennial of the birth of Shostakovich. I'd love to hear his music played with great frequency, but are music directors and those involved with programming mostly annoyed by requests for seasonal themes, like Summer of Shostakovich?

Tim Page: I'll put on my music administrators hat for a moment and suggest that I'm not sure a "summer of Shostakovich" would sell all that well. Summer tastes tend to be satisfied by gentler, more affirmative music. This is not to suggest that Shostakovich is "bad" music (except for some of his choral works and film scores) -- only that this would more likely appeal to a music director and maybe an orchestra than it would to a typical audience. I'm afraid that goes for the winter, too.

Still, every composer's stock rises during a centenary year, and I predict we'll hear a LOT of Shostakovich in 2006.

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Burke, VA: Tim,

I am very sad to hear Hans Vonk passed away. His recordings of Mozart with the Dresden Staatskapelle are wonderful. You have worked with him in St. Louis and mentioned an unforgettable Bruckner 8. Can you tell us more about your work with Vonk; did he program a lot of Dutch music etc.

Thanks!;

Tim Page: Hans was a wise and sensitive musician, and I was enormously fond of him. He brought a near-priestly devotion to the music he loved. He was sometimes difficult to work for, because he knew exactly what he wanted to do and then went ahead and did it, without being unduly open to suggestions. (I had been hired to provide such suggestions, so this was sometimes difficult for me.) But he was always kind to me -- and funny, and a simply magnificent musician in the repertory he loved most.

I'll always be grateful that I got to hear him so often -- and with such a wonderful orchestra.

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Tim Page: Well, we got to almost every question today. I'll look forward to continuing our discussion two weeks from now -- on September 15. Thanks so much for tuning in.

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