I've loved classical music since before I knew there was any classification of music. My parents introduced me to all of the well known pieces and I'll always be grateful they did. But I found Sibelius 7th symphony myself 7 years ago when I was on a trip trying to find great symphonies I didn't know. And this piece of music has haunted me ever since. To me, it is close to perfection. Not a moment wasted. Grandeur, depth, beauty and all done in 22 minutes. The trombone parts are stunning but the ending chords just reduce me to tears. It feels like Sibelius stretched for eternity with his music and came as close as you can with this symphony. I will never tire of it.

Personally, without a doubt, I’d go to hear Chopin play the Nocturnes.

Since you all seemed to like the double bass trombone, here's another weird brass instrument - a Double Bell Euphomium by CG Conn - the serial number is tough to read on this one but I suspect it's from the mid 1940s.

From my Architecture In Music series

Hello everyone, here is another little musical experiment.

Born in Fengtian, Manchuria, Ozawa became one of Japan's most celebrated conductors. Three recordings I keep coming back to:

First, footage of him as a young conductor, introduced by Leonard Bernstein himself.

Second, a 1985 documentary by the Maysles brothers. The footage of Ozawa and Rudolf Serkin rehearsing a Beethoven piece together, and their warm exchanges, is something I genuinely adore.

Third, a 1990 live performance of Brahms's First Symphony with the Saito Kinen Orchestra — I used to own this on LaserDisc. From the first bar to the last, the orchestra and Ozawa are completely inside the music, building to a climax that feels like everyone on stage is burning through everything they have. I've heard a later performance from the same tour, recorded in Matsumoto, has even better sound, so that one is worth tracking down too.

Mozart, Overture to The Marriage of Figaro (excerpt): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3CGYWYp7T9w

Ozawa & Serkin rehearsing Beethoven (1985 Maysles brothers documentary): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2ImbjaXFlc

Brahms, Symphony No. 1, with the Saito Kinen Orchestra (1990): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQHz6F0sWvo

Pardon the provocative title. To be 100% clear, her advocacy for equity in the pit as well his advocacy on behalf of the victims of sexual assault in classical music is 100% great. She's doing god's work, as it were. I can only praise her for that.

But over the last six or so months, when she has presumably had a little down time, more of her social media posts have had nothing to do (as I see it) with being an advocate for women and more about random gripes. If her "brand" was "a leading advocate for women classical music," it seems to now be "what is Ms Needleman outraged by, today." I'm afraid that she undermines her own authority with her rants. (Unlike Anne Midgette, for instance.)

I apologize in advance for being long-winded. but I want to be very precise. (I have commented on Ms Needleman's social media - always respectively. She never made me the object of one of those 'calling out someone publicly' posts. She never accused me of being sexist in my comments. For that matter, I don't think she ever replied to a comment - not that I was looking for a reply. But she does seem to have blocked me from her FB page, now, so I presume she objects to corrections and dissent.)

The obituary posts:
First, I still can't understand the primary point. Is it criticizing the subjects of the obits for not hiring/helping more women? Is it criticizing the writers of the obituaries for overlooking the contributions of women. What, precisely, is the point?

Second, she types these in a way that it always seems as if she is trying to trap readers so that she can condescend. Anyone who follows these knows that she posts old obituaries and begins with "John Smith is dead." She doesn't say they died years ago until a few sentences in, so it is not visible in the FB preview of the post. So, routinely, some poor soul will comment that "I knew John Smith but he actually died in 2005." Which gives her the opportunity to reply with a "if you had the ability to read to the end..." comment. Maybe followed by "but what did you think of the accusations against Mr Smith that I pointed out?" It simply seems to not be fair-minded or reflect an interest in engagement.

The Limmie Pulliam outrage piece was over-the-top. Basically, she railed against the NYT for not posting an obituary for Mr Pulliam. The thing is, they DID post one - it just took a few days after he died, as his was an unexpected death. So it was such a swing-and-a-miss post.

She has also chosen some odd targets with the Obit posts. For instance, she "analyzed" David Allan Coe's obit which only mentioned one woman (outside of family), Tanya Tucker, who covered one of his songs. But if she was all that familiar with his songs, she'd be aware of the sexist and racist content. I can imagine there are a lot of women musicians who wouldn't have been caught dead covering his music. So what is the point?

Last week, she took apart the obituary of ZZ Top's Frank Beard. Why weren't there ANY women (outside of family) mentioned in the obit? Well, ZZ Top was a trio. They didn't collaborate with other artists. Their songs weren't generally covered by other artists. But then she went into the messages in their videos where she was simply factually inaccurate. She particularly sited the "Legs" and "Sharp Dressed Man" videos. Basically saying that they only treated women as sex objects who are rewards for "sharp dressed men." Now the thing is, both of those vids told stories that actually gave the protagonists comeuppance over those who would mistreat or objectify them. In "Legs," a beleaguered waitress comes out ahead (yes, with the help of the ZZ Top models). In "Sharp Dressed Man," the titular character is a parking lot attendant dealing with idiots who look down on him. These videos (from the heyday of MTV) use humor to teach actual positive lessons. But its just easier for Ms Needleman to rant.

Over the Independence Day holiday she gifted her readers not one but two "fuck the founding fathers" posts. We all know that some of the founding fathers were slave owners. The rant seemed childish and, also, showed a lack of awareness that we all know the history.

My personal opinion here is the desire to make this an identity politics issue. Which means that you check common sense at the door, rather than going against the tribe. The unhelpfulness of this approach is staggering.

A dozen years ago, Rolling Stone infamously published "A Rape on Campus," a completely fictional account of a gang rape in a frat house. After the story was determined to be false, there were still people who frowned on criticism of the story, as if we had to defend a made up character that represented an actual problem. This is not the way things work. False accusations undermine every true accusation that follows.

Similarly, every time Katherine Needleman makes it about whatever random thing makes her angry, she loses the plot and the actual victims of sexual assault in classical music and the actual musicians who are discriminated against become more distant and less important.

Just revisiting the Haffner symphony. It's an amazing work and I'm really impressed by the outer movements which are some of Mozart's best work. Personally I think the fourth movement is easily the best despite being much shorter than the first two movements. What do you guys think?

I'm reading a book (James Corey, The Faith of Beasts) which describes some aliens singing as:

It was like birdsong, melodies and harmonies weaving from one voice to the next. It was like the woodwind section of an orchestra coming to life and declaring its love. It was like prayer.

Which has made me want to listen to some woodwind music. Anyone have any favorites they'd recommend? Thanks!

Edit: Thanks so much for all the recommendations. Many hours of listenting ahead!

Hi, I’m trying to find pieces that will relax me. Preferably piano or cello and maybe even together. I think they are the most beautiful sounding instruments

I’m not a hardcore classical music listener, but Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 is a piece I deeply love and know well. I just heard Lukáš Vondráček play it with the BBC SO in London tonight, but I left feeling quite disappointed.
A few specific things stood out to me:

- Weightless & Out of Sync: The 1st movement lacked any deep emotional weight—it was played so lightly at the start, and he wasn't fully in sync with the orchestra early on.

- Dragged Out & Fragmented: The overall pacing felt unnecessarily slow and drawn-out. His erratic rubato chopped up the beautiful long melodies, destroying the natural flow.

- Thin Voicing & Phoned-in p: His touch was very clean, but his left hand virtually disappeared. His quiet passages didn't feel poetically soft, but rather careless and "phoned-in," lacking true romantic depth.

- Great Finale, But Unearned（?: He clearly has the technique—when he finally locked in for the big climaxes and the finale, he played brilliantly. But because the earlier emotional build-up was skipped, the grand ending felt unearned.

The crowd gave a huge applause at the end, but for me, Anna Fedorova's version remains my personal benchmark for its natural flow, deep warmth, and breathtaking long-line momentum.

Has anyone else experienced this dragged-out, elastic style in his recent live performances? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Hi everyone! I am in the middle of writing my thesis on the formal analysis of Gorecki's Third Symphony. There are very few sources I've been able to find particularly on that subject, since most of them are purely based on musicology and philosophical approach.

It would be preferable for the thesis to include different approaches and opinions on the structure, orchestration, harmonic language, polyphony etc.

So if you know of any such sources or maybe ones you have done yourselves, it would be of tremendous help!

Like the title says. I need some recommendations on obscure or rare classical music books. My boyfriend is a musician (mainly sings, choir, some opera, and plays the piano) and lover of books and thus I want to get him a unique gift that he may not have. Any advice is welcome.

During a musical trip with ORGANpromotion in April 2026, we had the privilege of discovering several of Paris's most beautiful pipe organs, including the one at Saint-Étienne-du-Mont, Maurice Duruflé's former organ loft! 🎶
David Cassan, the current co-titular organist and outstanding improviser, gave us a wonderful off-the-cuff presentation of the instrument through an improvisation "Homage to Duruflé"—a true specialty of his!

Hey im adventuring through classical music i do have some friends who love classical music but i just cant find many pieces that adhere to certain things i like La campanella is one of my favorite pieces as of right now altough i also like Czardas`s take on violin, Serenade - Schubert is also a beautiful piece but off these ones i cant find anything similar

… She’s going to play in my town next week but the concert was already sold out 😔😔. Do you think I should go there at the end of the concert to at least meet her?? They let you have an autograph usually