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WEB MUSIC
August 28, 2001
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By Janos Gereben
The Music of the Web
Today's Web Music tip: Stay away from the "bleeding edge" and save money. When you use any of the major programs to play sound files — RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, etc. — you will have advertisements and reminders pop up with alarming frequency, urging you to upgrade to the latest version . . . and at a fee. Don't bother. The free, older versions are perfectly adequate and, significantly, they don't pose the problems some new upgrades do. Yes, we live in the Microsoft world of constant upgrades, but you don't have to do it, certainly not with media players. You may be forced to keep up with the Gateses when it comes to operating systems or word processors, but leave your trusty, old, free sound program alone.
All broadcast times listed here are Pacific Daylight Time.
KING-FM is broadcasting the Seattle Opera's new production of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen on the Web at www.king.org. Next up: Siegfried — a preview with Seattle Opera General Manager Speight Jenkins at 8 p.m., Friday, August 31, and the complete opera on Saturday, September 1, beginning at 4 p.m. Götterdämmerung is scheduled for 3 p.m., Saturday, September 8; Jenkins' preview is at 8 o'clock the night before.
The seventh week of the BBC Proms is coming up: daily live broadcasts begin at 11:30 a.m. at www.bbc.co.uk/radio3. Program information is available at BBC Proms Week 7. Before that, former San Francisco Symphony Music Director Herbert Blomstedt conducts the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra on Thursday, August 30, in a typically conservative program: Mendelssohn, Haydn, and Dvorák. Yes, the "New World" Symphony. On the other hand, the day before, August 29, Pierre Boulez will conduct a program typical for him: Schoenberg's Accompaniment to a Film Scene, Boulez's own Le visage nuptial, and Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle, with Michelle DeYoung and László Polgár.
Holland's Concertzender (www.concertzender.nl) has a fine mix of classical standards and contemporary works, a great deal of the latter. Although program information is in Dutch only, you can find way your around names of composers and performers on Concertzender_Info. Look for the midnight, August 31, European Broadcasting Union program of performances by orchestras in Kiev and Odessa.
Tape of a special concert by the Lindsay String Quartet in Wigmore Hall can be both seen and heard at www.onlineclassics.com — Haydn's "The Rider" Quartet, Tippett's Quartet No. 3, and Elgar's Quartet in E Minor, Op. 83. Note that Online Classics now requires registration for dialup (slow) transmission and paid membership or pay-per-view for broadband use.
Excerpts from concerts and recitals at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music can be heard at www.sfcm.edu.
Sure, Sony wants you to buy, but meanwhile you can get free information about hundreds of artists — and even some free samples — at www.sonymusic.com. Ditto for Naxos, at www.naxos.com. And note that site's Learning Zone category, which contains hundreds of free music excerpts. (Janos Gereben is arts editor of the Post Newspaper Group and technology editor for www.the451.com. You can contact him at janos451@earthlink.net.) ©2001 Janos Gereben, all rights reserved |