Email Author Mary Beth Crain

2012 Stories by Mary Beth Crain

• Reise and Shine

  published December 27, 2012

  When Franz Schubert was dying, at the untimely age of 31, you'd think he wouldn't have had the energy to compose what would become one of the... More >>

• It Paid the Bills

  published December 20, 2012

  Desperation is the source of inspiration, they say, and nowhere is this better illustrated than in the case of Handel's Messiah. In 1741,... More >>

• They Let George Do It

  published December 6, 2012

  George Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue was one of those game-changing works that was bound to elicit controversy. Composed in just a few weeks... More >>

• More Than a Feeling

  published November 29, 2012

  The great tragic love story Tristan and Isolde has provided inspiration for the widest range of artistic spin-offs, from Wagner’s... More >>

• You go, Claudio

  published November 15, 2012

  In the realm of choral music, there are few works more important or stunningly gorgeous than Claudio Monteverdi's Vespers 1610. Up until... More >>

• She'd Better Get Asked to Play

  published November 8, 2012

  In the 1930s, the famous British comedienne Gracie Fields had a hit song entitled, "I Brought My Harp to the Party, but Nobody Asked Me to Play."... More >>

• Alexei Lubimov

  published November 1, 2012

  Russian keyboard virtuoso Alexei Lubimov is one of those rare artists who’s equally at home with J.S. Bach and John Cage. He segues... More >>

• The Ultimate in Ultrasound

  published October 18, 2012

  Opening night of the Los Angeles Master Chorale's 2012-13 season promises to break the sound barrier with Organ Extravaganza, a musical feast of... More >>

• Ill-Tempered Schiff

  published October 11, 2012

  Whenever you get the chance to hear the dazzlingly perfect Andras Schiff, whose delicate touch, technical wizardry and otherworldly tone is enough... More >>

• Best Musical Heads

  published October 4, 2012

  Warning: Don't run to the Getty Museum's current exhibition "Messerschmidt and Modernity" if you think it's all about the WWII German fighter... More >>

• Company Man

  published September 27, 2012

  In 1937, Benjamin Britten was commissioned to create an oratorio on the subject of angels for the British Broadcasting System. Obviously the BBC... More >>

• Chika Inouye

  published September 13, 2012

  The saxophone has pretty much been a male-dominated instrument; if you Google "famous saxophone players," not even one woman comes up. But Chika... More >>

• Transfigured LACMA

  published September 6, 2012

  How many musicians win four gold medals in a lifetime — let alone in a single year? Here's one: Petronel Malan. In 2000, the young South... More >>

• Now Recording

  published August 23, 2012

  Once upon a time, before computers and synthesizers became portable, tape music concerts were the only way composers who were writing music on... More >>

• It's His Thing

  published August 23, 2012

  When I was growing up, one of my favorite items in my dad's collection of 2,000-plus classical albums was the 1965 Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos... More >>

• The White Bird of Poston

  published August 9, 2012

  When it comes to kids and opera, no one does it better than L.A. Opera. Every summer, they open their intensive two-week program Opera Camp to 50... More >>

• On a Hopeful Note

  published August 2, 2012

  What happens when 25 Oscar-, Tony-, Grammy- and Emmy-winning composers pool their talents to create a single work? A Symphony of Hope. This... More >>

• Gilles Apap

  published August 2, 2012

  There are violinists, and then there's Gilles Apap. "He seems incapable of playing a single note in a way that isn't fascinating," raved American... More >>

• Human Demolition Derby

  published July 26, 2012

  In Philip Roth's novel The Human Stain, pianist Yefim Bronfman is featured as a performer at Tanglewood, where he makes an indelible... More >>

• Alaev in the Family

  published July 26, 2012

  You could call them the Waltons of the music world. Or maybe Israel's version of the Von Trapps. They're the Alaev Family, and from Grandpa on... More >>

• First-Rate Ravel

  published July 19, 2012

  There are few concerti as multifaceted and downright exciting as Ravel's Piano Concerto in G major. The first movement is a continual surprise,... More >>

• Homeland Insecurity

  published July 12, 2012

  Music has gotten award-winning Syrian pianist and composer Malek Jandali into boiling hot water with the Syrian dictatorship. Last July, when... More >>

• Mystical Myrmyrings

  published June 28, 2012

  Their music is haunting, luminous, probing, a mixture of lyrical beauty and unearthly primal sounds, where cellos groan, violins weep,... More >>

• Make a Joyful Sound

  published June 21, 2012

  Albert McNeil began working in church music when he was 18 at the People's Independent Church of Christ in L.A., a mega-church with 5,000 members... More >>

• Raga on and Tala Ho

  published June 14, 2012

  That greatest of raga interpreters, Ravi Shankar, once observed: "There is a saying in Sanskrit, 'Ranjayathi iti Ragah,' which means, 'That which... More >>