Lectures by Will Crutchfield
Tuesday Morning Music Class
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Archives

Spring 2018
Mar 6  |  The Long Nineteenth Century  Almost all of the core operatic repertory (about 95% of it to go by ticket sales) was written between the 1780s and the 1920s.  What binds it together?  How and why did the form reach such a peak for such a specific period? 
 
Mar 13  |  Mozart’s Radical Opera  On the surface, everything in Così fan tutte resembles the conventions of the comic opera genre at the time. Under the surface, Mozart stirred up currents so radical that the opera was not widely understood until our own lifetimes.  (New Met production)
Related Performance: Metropolitan Opera / Così fan tutte on March 15, 20, 24, 27, 31(m), Apr 4, 7, 10, 13, 16 & 19
 
Mar 27  |  What Makes a Hero?  The Philharmonic is offering a linked pair of Beethoven:  the triumphal Eroica symphony and the tempestuous Third Piano Concerto. Beethoven made what is still perhaps the most exciting music in the world out of struggle and triumph. How and why?
Related Performance: New York Philharmonic / Salonen Conducts Beethoven's Eroica Symphony on April 4, 5 & 6

Apr 3  |  How Does a Countertenor Counter?  Fifty years ago there were about five of them making a living; now there are hundreds and the best ones are superstars.  Where did this new/old voice-type come from, and how does it work? 
 Related Performance: Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall / Robin Blaze Recital on April 11

Apr 10  |  Someday Her Prince Will Come  Massenet’s Cendrillon finally gets its Met premiere
Related Performance: Metropolitan Opera / Cendrillon on April 12, 17, 20, 24, 28(m), May 3, 7 & 11
 
Apr 17  |  Perfect as a Big Round Tear  That is George Eliot’s description of the lyrics of Heinrich Heine, which may have inspired more great songs than any other poet’s.  (Mark Padmore performs Schumann and Brahms settings of Heine at Tully Hall 4/19)
Related Performance: Lincoln Center's Great Performers on April 19

May 1  |  The Non-Progressives  In the age of Stravinsky and Schoenberg, Jean Sibelius and Edward Elgar went their own way. Conservative?  Some at the time thought so, but what we hear now is astonishing individuality of thought. 
Related Performance: New York Philharmonic Sibelius Violin Concerto on May 3, 4, 5, 8 & Elgar Cello Concerto on May 10, 11, 12

May 15  |  The Cantors in Opera  There is something about the cantorial tradition that has kept opera houses supplied with the voice-type that is always most urgently needed. Most of us know the singing of Jan Peerce, Richard Tucker, Neil Shicoff; we’ll hear them in the context of some stunning predecessors born as far back as 1860, among them Selmar Cerini, Hermann Jadlowker, Josef Rosenblatt, Gershon Sirota, Joseph Schmidt. 

May 22  |  Teatro Nuovo Preview with guest singer  Fun fact: Jennifer Rowley, who is now a star at the Met and Covent Garden, and who debuts the blockbuster role of Medea this summer for Teatro Nuovo, first met Will at the Union Club in 2008 when she sang illustrations for a lecture.
Related Performance: Teatro Nuovo / Purchase International Music Festival from July 28 to August 5 

Other Semesters

Spring 2019

Fall 2018

Fall 2017

Spring 2017

Fall 2016

Spring 2016

Fall 2015

Spring 2015

Fall 2014

Spring 2014

Fall 2013

Spring 2013

Questions? Please email WillCrutchfieldAssistant@gmail.com