Sunday, November 3, 2013

The New York Times on Counterpoint

I am often, or usually, quite critical of music journalism because it tends to misinform the reader/listener. But there are exceptions. I just ran into an excellent one at the New York Times site. I hesitate to link, because it is to a video clip that is preceded by a brief commercial and it will also automatically go on afterwards to another video. But in this case I think it is worth it. Here is the New York Times' classical music critic Anthony Tommasini, who is also a pianist and not a bad one, giving us a short, but good, course in counterpoint.

And on that note, here is Zuzana Ruzicková playing the first six Bach two-part inventions on harpsichord:


5 comments:

Augustine said...

Beautiful! I've watched all the Tommassini videos and they're all so thoughtful and informative. Check this one out: http://www.nytimes.com/video/arts/1248069334479/the-vienna-four.html On Mozart and Haydn. The little sketch he makes on the Mozart sonata is quite brilliant!

Rickard said...

Very interesting indeed. Great that he showed many degrees of counterpoint and for example how counterpoint can be mixed with homophonic lines.

Bryan Townsend said...

Yes, that was an excellent little survey of ways counterpoint is used! Now I'm inspired to put up a post on the relationship between counterpoint and harmony...

And thanks, Augustine, for pointing out another excellent video by Tommasini.

Augustine said...

Yes, please. I vote for a post on counterpoint and harmony.

Bryan Townsend said...

Done!