Simone Dinnerstein, Something Beautiful Being Played

Simone Dinnerstein hears voices. To be more specific, she hears a “powerful narrative, a vocal element” in the instrumental music of Bach and Schubert. Her new album, Something Almost Being Said (the title comes from Philip Larkin’s poem “The Trees”), features Bach’s First and Second Partitas and Schubert’s Four Impromptus, Op. 90—and in her performances the melodic lines do indeed sing. Dinnerstein spoke with Ariama editor Craig Zeichner about Bach, future plans, balancing career and family, and why she’s been listening to Led Zeppelin lately.

“Both Bach and Schubert were composers who were very comfortable setting texts to music,” says Dinnerstein. “Most of their music was vocal, and Bach’s music has the added dimension of being spiritual in a sense, even the music that’s considered secular. I think everything he wrote said something that was meaningful in a spiritual sense for him.”

New Album Review: Canadian Brass Takes Flight

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The Canadian Brass has been on the scene for over forty years and the formula for their success hasn’t changed much. You can always count on them to program a couple of barn-burning showpieces, a few Baroque tunes, a smattering of chestnuts and a ragtime or jazz rave-up. Canadian Brass Takes Flight proves that nearly a half-century of a good thing can continue to be a good thing.

Canadian Brass Takes Flight is what Daniel Guss calls in his effusive liner notes, “a kind of state of the union address by the group.” A cynic might say that means the overlying concept behind the dozen and a half selections is to serve as a showcase for what this talented quintet can do. If you think of Canadian Brass Takes Flight as a brilliantly played and smartly packaged greatest hits album you will not be disappointed.

Eleven Number 1’s

Today is November 1, 2011 or 11/1/11. Music and numerology sometimes go hand-in-hand. The number nine seemed to be the cut point for symphonies. Beethoven, Bruckner, Schubert and Dvorak all got to nine and then wrote no more. Rossini apparently suffered from triskaidekaphobia (the fear of the number 13). Rossini also was worried about Fridays and ironically died on a Friday the 13th. He was also born on a leap year, so the numbers were always against him.