Lee Hazlewood: Writer Gave Music Biz the 'Boots'

Lee Hazlewood, the reclusive songwriter and producer behind a slew of hits by Duane Eddy, Nancy Sinatra, Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin in the 1950s and 1960s, including Ms. Sinatra's No. 1 smash "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'," died on Saturday in Henderson, Nev. He was 78.

To listen to a remembrance of Hazlewood from NPR's Felix Contreras, click HERE

To read the entire New York Times obituary, click HERE

Tanglewood Festival: Male Singers Need Not Apply

In case you missed this in the New York Times' ArtsBeat the other day...One new twist at Tanglewood’s Festival of Contemporary Music is the involvement of a scholar in residence, to put the festival’s composers and music in perspective. This year's scholar in residence, Judith Tick, drew animated audience discussion, including comments from several composers, with a surprising statistic to the effect that some 70 percent of contemporary vocal music is written for the female voice.

To read the complete article, click HERE

“Alice in Wonderland” in Munich

"The labyrinthine fantasy of Lewis Carroll’s “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” begins in deceptively lulling tones, with the idyllic phrase “All in the golden afternoon.” Unsuk Chin’s opera “Alice in Wonderland,” which recently had its première at the Bavarian State Opera, in Munich, opens in distinctly more ominous fashion...
Chin, who was born in Seoul in 1961, and has been living in Berlin since 1988, has a knack for binding together seemingly irreconcilable extremes. A youthful enthusiast of the late-twentieth-century European avant-garde, she studied in the eighties with György Ligeti, a pioneer of alien soundscapes."

To read Alex Ross's complete article from The New Yorker, click HERE

Igor Stravinsky: The Recorded Legacy

The Library has just acquired a box set collection of Igor Stravinsky's recorded legacy. "...in terms of archival importance,[Stravinsky's] discography, especially the Columbia recordings now reissued on Sony Classical, is the greatest landmark in the history of recorded music from the classical tradition." The New York Times, June 1999
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A Hypnotic Collaboration

The notion of Philip Glass and Leonard Cohen collaborating seems so natural that it’s strange that Mr. Glass’s new “Book of Longing” brings them together for a full-length work the first time.

For “Book of Longing,” which had its New York premiere at the Rose Theater on Saturday evening, July 14th, as part of the Lincoln Center Festival, Mr. Glass chose 22 poems from Mr. Cohen’s 2006 compilation of the same name. Mr. Cohen’s drawings are used as well, arrayed on a gallerylike wall behind the ensemble, with a central video screen showing a continually morphing selection.

To read a review of this performance from the New York Times, click HERE

Bach and Beethoven -- Complete Works

The Library has recently acquired two exciting new additions to our Sound Recording Collection:
The Complete works of J.S. Bach, issued on the Brilliant Classics label. This box set includes 155 cds, new recordings by prominent Bach performers such as The Sixteen, La Stravaganza Köln with Andrew Manze, cellist Jaap ter Linden and Musica Amphion.
This edition was first issued in 23 installments to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the death of J.S. Bach. It contains every piece of his known to exist at the time.

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In addition we have just received the Complete works of Beethoven, issued by Cascade Medienproduktions:

This is the first comprehensive Beethoven Edition available on the market, and includes 748 works on 87 CDs. This edition was compiled on the basis of the renowned "Beethoven Compendium“ by Barry Cooper (Thames & Hudson Ltd., London 1991). The recordings are characterized by high-quality performances presented by renowned conductors, orchestras and soloists.

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Beverly Sills, 1929-2007

Beverly Sills, the acclaimed Brooklyn-born coloratura soprano who was more popular with the American public than any opera singer since Enrico Caruso, even among people who never set foot in an opera house, died on Monday, July 2nd, at her home in Manhattan. She was 78.

To read the entire New York Times obituary, click HERE