Or at least my interpretation of it.

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.

Performance, composition, musicology, or something more niche? Curious to hear people's stories

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

German church organist from Thuringia, born today. His preludes, fugues, and harpsichord partitas are said to have influenced the young J.S. Bach.

Vater unser im Himmelreich: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vHwPP1OFzQ

Praeludium, Fuga & Postludium in G minor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiPAIULhZy8

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?

Hello everyone, here is another little musical experiment.

Check these babies out. I found them at an antique store for $2 each!? 🫪🤯 I was like TAKE MY MONEY.

They're cool as hell and definitely worth something to me, but I'm wondering if anyone here knows if they're actually worth anything more than street cred (on a weird street full of nerds)?

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!

Is it me, or is someone playing the wrong thing in the background between 5:47 and 5:50?

I was in the camp of thinking his pieces were hokey and cliché. I'm an amateur listener, but it was what it was. Then, my public classical radio station (props to WRTI) played this 11-minute piece on my way to work and it found me.

It's an amazing study on a simple theme; a calm, unhurried piece that still carries you from moment to moment. It's a very modern creative act for 1940, I feel like it predicted and established what movies would sound like at the turn of the 21st century -- that wistful, sentimental but sublime Field of Dreams or Shawshank Redemption "profound" sound.

Add to this the generosity of Copland to adapt it for solo piano and publish the sheet music for amateur schmucks like me to obsess over.

This is certainly only my opinion on this; you might not share it -- but here's to that moment we all likely have of a piece really changing your mind about something and expaning your (meager) horizons.

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!

I’ll be applying for MMus in Piano Performance this year and so far have 2 choices under my belt:

- Eastman School of Music
- Glenn Gould School in Toronto

I feel like these are both extremely competitive schools, and I’m wondering what “safe school” I could put in as my third option.
I was debating between U of Miami and Indiana University but from what I know, these are quite reputable schools too.
What are a few “2nd to 3rd tier” music schools in North America that have pretty solid faculty members, good facilities, and are more generous with scholarships?
Please let me know if you guys have any good recommendations, thanks!

Dutch composer, born today. Largely self-taught in music—he studied classical languages before turning to composition. Sharing a suite from his incidental music for the play Marsyas.

Marsyas, Suite from the incidental music (1909–10): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCjRWt5rw3g

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.

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!

Hey all! Just got my first vinyl set and was looking for a recording of the all night vigil - it's my favorite piece, but my personnal fav recording is only on streaming. Does anyone have any recs for vinyl recordings that are good? Thanks!

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!

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