Early in our careers, it is natural to think, “If I were in charge, I would do things differently.”

A first-year music major may feel ready for a major audition. A new faculty member may feel confident about how they…

From time to time, while editing old scores or preparing repertoire from the nineteenth century, I find myself wondering what the great cellists of the past might say if they could address players today.

We often encounter them only through…

Gaspar Cassadó: Improvisation on The Blue Danube by Johann Strauss II
Yuriy Leonovich, cello
Kristin Leonovich, piano

Gaspar Cassadó composed and arranged a remarkable amount of music for the cello, but many of his works remain almost entirely unknown outside…

Teaching music produces an interesting side effect. Over time, certain short remarks begin to appear in lessons again and again. They are rarely planned. Most of them arise in the middle of a rehearsal or practice discussion when a musical…

Our cooking photos sometimes remind me of a familiar type of concert photograph: a violinist playing very high on the fingerboard with an intensely concentrated expression. The image is impressive. The posture is dramatic, the bow arm is extended, and…

One common narrative in music history claims that major stylistic change occurred roughly once every hundred years before the twentieth century, whereas the twentieth century brought dramatic shifts with each passing decade. There is some truth to this idea, particularly…

Recently, I have been visiting several high schools and working with student orchestras. Sitting in those rehearsals reminded me of something that is easy to forget if you spend most of your time in one corner of the musical world.

…

Spend enough time around classical music discourse, and you will eventually encounter a familiar divide.

On one side stands the “art song.” Elevated. Composed. Serious.
On the other stands the “popular song.” Commercial. Ephemeral. Mass produced.

The boundary often feels…

I have loved Henryk Wieniawski’s music for a long time. His music has fire, elegance, lyricism, and a kind of theatrical brilliance that immediately appeals to string players. Even when the writing is dazzlingly virtuosic, there is usually a singing…

If you have ever opened a modern scholarly edition of a concerto or chamber work, you may have noticed something curious.

Behind the cleanly engraved score often sits a critical commentary. Sometimes it runs a few pages. Sometimes it runs…

Music does not usually begin in the classroom. It begins in use: in churches, theaters, homes, streets, courts, clubs, ceremonies, and communities; in imitation, repetition, apprenticeship, and shared habit. People make music long before they theorize it. Only later do…

For generations of American string players, International Music Company (IMC) editions were simply the editions. If you studied the Lalo Concerto or Popper’s High School in the United States in the latter half of the twentieth century, there is a…