Score columns for The Boston Globe

April 2, 2020: Charpentier, the Plague of Milan, and the sound of collective isolation
February 27, 2020: Lukas Foss and Everett Titcomb, building houses
January 30, 2020: Han Young-Suk, bringing the world Korean dance
January 2, 2020: Boston’s Symphony Hall and the virtues (and vices) of the shoebox
November 27, 2019: Verdi and the scala enigmatica
October 6, 2019: Euridice, The Jazz Singer, and technology
September 8, 2019: Benno Sachs and the Verein für musikalische Privataufführungen
August 1, 2019: Amy Beach and American dreams of Ireland
July 3, 2019: Dr. Samuel J. Hoffman’s moon-bound theremin
May 30, 2019: Anne Bracegirdle and the Resotration mad song
May 2, 2019: Liberace’s FBI file
April 4, 2019: Xenakis, Aroura, and the origins of Athens
February 28, 2019: Remembering Henry Wood
January 31, 2019: Charles-Marie Widor and technological progress
January 2, 2019: Humphrey Jennings and the polyphony of British life
November 29, 2018: Nino Rota’s recycled youth
November 1, 2018: Gubaidulina’s 4th String Quartet—and her 1st
October 4, 2018: Remembering Felix Arndt
August 30, 2018: Respighi, Botticelli, and Mussolini
August 2, 2018: Bernard Herrmann, Moby Dick, and the movies
June 28, 2018: K. 595 and the Neapolitan monarchs
May 31, 2018: “I Get Around” and the car as muse and malady
May 3, 2018: William Harris, Faire Is the Heaven, and the pity of war
March 29, 2018: Britten, swimming in Bridge’s Brook
March 1, 2018: Maurice Duruflé in devout retreat
February 1, 2018: Lachenmann’s dialectic, mimetic Kinderspiel
January 4, 2018: Esquivel’s mid-century modernism
November 30, 2017: Handel’s Messiah and the American experiment
November 1, 2017: Ligeti’s oblique Bagatelles
October 27, 2017: William Billings and Jeremiah Ingalls
October 20, 2017: Lutosławski’s 3rd and Solti’s pencil
October 13, 2017: On Goblin and Suspiria
October 6, 2017: Thelonious Monk and “April in Paris”
September 29, 2017: Liszt and the fountains at the Villa d’Este
September 25, 2017: Coleridge-Taylor Perkinson’s indiscriminate excellence
September 15, 2017: On Isang Yun
September 1, 2017: Remembering François Rilhac
August 25, 2017: “The Housatonic at Stockbridge” in word and note
August 18, 2017: Razumovsky, Beethoven—and Sweden, and Verdi
August 11, 2017: On Louis Andriessen’s Workers Union
August 4, 2017: Pulsars, spun into music
August 2, 2017: Pavel Haas’s summer getaway
July 21, 2017: Remembering (and selectively remembering) Jāzeps Vītols
July 14, 2017: Goethe, Schubert, and Ein Gleiches
July 7, 2017: Xaver Scharwenka in America
June 30, 2017: R. Murray Schafer and the seascape’s soundscape
June 23, 2017: George Herriman, Krazy Kat, and syncopated identities
June 16, 2017: Elliott Carter’s Epigrams
June 9, 2017: Lost and found music from Georg Philipp Telemann and Glenn Miller
June 2, 2017: Dean Martin’s subversive subterfuge
May 26, 2017: A brief history of the Unda Maris
May 18, 2017: Morton Feldman and the painters
May 13, 2017: Kepler, Bruckner, and the young Mahler
May 5, 2017: Felix Weingartner’s Boston stopover
April 28, 2017: On William Grant Still’s Afro-American Symphony
April 21, 2017: Takemitsu, Tarkovsky, and Nostalghia
April 14, 2017: Charles Dancla and the French cavalcade
April 7, 2017: On Ronald Stevenson
March 31, 2017: Gaspar Cassadó and musical technology
March 24, 2017: The bombing of Lübeck and Buxtehude’s organs
March 22, 2017: Zelenka’s real or imagined Hipocondrie
March 10, 2017: Days and nights with Patrice Contamine de Latour and Erik Satie
March 3, 2017: The Brockes-Passions and Baroque anti-Semitism
February 24, 2017: Mendelssohn’s op. 12 and (professional and personal) passions
February 17, 2017: On Bartók’s Sonata for Solo Violin
February 10, 2017: A confounding copyright cut-off at 45
February 3, 2017: On Florence Price
January 20, 2017: A short history of six sharps
January 13, 2017: Schumann, Barthes, photography, and time
January 6, 2017: Mozart, K. 590, and Frederick William II
December 30, 2016: For Country Joe McDonald at 75
December 23, 2016: Carl Ludwig’s kymograph and its musical lineage
December 9, 2016: Prokofiev’s op. 34 and a Zionist ensemble’s American landings
December 2, 2016: Remembering Jean Carignan
November 24, 2016: Josaphat, the Buddha, and Richard Wagner
November 18, 2016: Charles Theodore Pachelbel’s fragmentary life
November 11, 2016: The exacting world of piano wire
November 4, 2016: Ray Conniff and Billy May at 100
October 29, 2016: Rosemary Brown and her famous (dead) collaborators
October 21, 2016: William Merritt Chase—an American Impressionist’s instruments
October 14, 2016: Tristan Murail’s Vampyr!, deep inside distortion
October 7, 2016: On Huillet and Straub’s Chronik der Anna Magdalena Bach
September 30, 2016: The funeral march’s public and private origins
September 26, 2016: Leonce de Saint-Martin and the liberation of Paris
September 19, 2016: Musicians and Erdős numbers
September 2, 2016: D. W. Griffith, Joseph Carl Breil, and Intolerance
August 26, 2016: Willi Ninja, the Ballets Russes, and couture
August 19, 2016: Saint-Saëns in Egypt
August 15, 2016: Stravinsky’s Octet and Eugène Minkowski
August 5, 2016: Beethoven’s op. 11 (and Joseph Weigl)
July 29, 2016: George Butterworth, composer and casualty
July 22, 2016: Remembering Justin Holland
July 15, 2016: Air-conditioning Symphony Hall
July 10, 2016: Bernhard Crusell and flipping clarinet reeds
June 30, 2016: Joe Mitchell Chapple’s national anthems
June 24, 2016: Air guitar, embodying an idealistic identity
June 17, 2016: Cage’s Apartment House 1776 and the American experiment
June 13, 2016: Koussevitzky, bassist
June 3, 2016: “Tetris” and “Korobeiniki”
May 27, 2016: Clementi’s pianism, Clementi’s pianos
May 23, 2016: Brahms, at the close
May 9, 2016: Milton Babbitt’s biblical film career
April 29, 2016: Beethoven’s “Polonaise,” playing politics
April 22, 2016: For Johanna Beyer
April 9, 2016: Finding the words for Aretha
April 1, 2016: Schoenberg and Busoni
March 25, 2016: Antonio Squarcialupi’s unlikely renown
March 17, 2016: Peter Maxwell Davies, in memoriam
March 11, 2016: Copland’s topical ukulele
March 4, 2016: On Germaine Tailleferre
February 25, 2016: Samuel Barber’s “Commando” stealth
February 21, 2016: Jackie Gleason, mood-music tycoon
February 12, 2016: Jean Epstein’s cinematic Fauré
February 5, 2016: Dvorak and Othello
January 22, 2016: The harpsichord’s psychedelic sojourn
January 19, 2016: Ben Johnston’s amazing grace
January 12, 2016: Berio’s tenuto marks
January 1, 2016: Stringing Justinian’s corporate espionage
December 19, 2015: Remembering Jackson C. Frank
December 12, 2015: Messiaen’s late birds
December 5, 2015: Ada Lovelace, computational musician
November 21, 2015: St. Cecilia and Syrian emigration
November 14, 2015: On Joe Hill
November 7, 2015: Gordon Lightfoot’s twin shipwrecks
October 31, 2015: Finzi’s apples
October 24, 2015: Wolf’s “Michelangelo-Lieder” and the weight of fame
October 17, 2015: Boethius the martyr, Boethius the philosopher
October 10, 2015: Nono’s dialectic
October 3, 2015: The R101 and Iron Maiden
September 26, 2015: Beethoven’s WoO 3 and Carl Meisl’s science fiction
September 19, 2015: Gibbons’s “Cries of London”
September 5, 2015: Forming the Boston Musicians’ Union
August 29, 2015: Taxes and the taille
August 22, 2015: Vote Dizzy!
August 15, 2015: Copland’s “Symphonic Ode”
August 8, 2015: Kurtág’s semiotics
August 1, 2016: The testing (and tested) repertoire of the Paris Conservatoire
July 24, 2015: The “Ghost” Trio and Macbeth
July 21, 2015: Tchaikovsky’s Italian holiday(s)
July 12, 2015: Do the Hucklebuck!
July 5, 2015: Sousa and Horowitz, declarations and assimilations
June 28, 2015: On Dudley Buck
June 21, 2015: Schumann, Bizet, Debussy, and the chock of canon
June 14, 2015: John Cage’s Etudes Australes
June 7, 2015: Nicholas Metropolis and Monte Carlo composition
May 31, 2015: John Taverner’s Dum transisset Sabbatum in light and shadow
May 24, 2015: Sounding out the origin of “Taps”
May 10, 2015: Blanqui to Benjamin to Ferneyhough, rewound
May 3, 2015: Remembering Thomas O’Brien Butler
April 26, 2015: On Varèse’s Déserts
April 19, 2015: The Shepherd on the Rock and the political pastoral
April 4, 2015: Earl Kim and Nagasaki, Now and Then
March 29, 2015: Bach’s Passions, fluid and frozen
March 22, 2015: Percy Grainger and The Power of Rome and the Christian Heart
March 15, 2015: Ends and beginnings, from Machaut to Babbitt
March 8, 2015: J.C.R. Licklider, through pitch perception to prophecy
March 1, 2015: On Hugo Distler
February 22, 2015: Yoko Ono and Stefan Wolpe, exiles in sympathy
February 15, 2015: Milhaud’s Création at the point of possibility
February 8, 2015: Xenakis, Kottos, and the politics of myth
January 25, 2015: Rhapsody in Blue and its guises
January 18, 2015: Berlioz’s Le Corsaire, heartbreak, and memory
January 11, 2015: Jacques Duphly’s 300th
January 4, 2015: Rzewski’s Les Moutons de Panurge
December 21, 2014: Schnittke’s “Silent Night”
December 14, 2014: Versailles, Esterháza, and Haydn’s 35th
December 7, 2014: William Byrd, recusant
November 30, 2014: Charles B. Fisk, building organs and atomic ordnance
November 16, 2014: On Ivor Gurney
November 9, 2014: Richard Strauss’s contractual obligation album
November 2, 2014: Britten’s Russian Funeral, politics, and pacifism
October 25, 2014: Édith Piaf and Poulenc’s Improvisation no. 15
October 18, 2014: John Cage’s Williams Mix
October 11, 2014: Michael Tippett and Boyhood’s End
September 28, 2014: R. Larry Todd and lost-and-found Mendelssohn
September 20, 2014: On Erard Pianos
September 13, 2014: Remembering Lindsay Cooper
August 30, 2014: “Bread and Roses,” the labor movement, and feminism
August 23, 2014: On Gil Mellé
August 16, 2014: Pius X and Lorenzo Perosi
August 9, 2014: R. Nathaniel Dett and The Chariot Jubilee
August 2, 2014: On Foss’s The Prairie
July 26, 2014: The Gadfly, via Voynich and Shostakovich
July 19, 2014: Erskine Hawkins’ 100th
July 12, 2014: William Albright’s ragtime
July 5, 2014: Edward Kilenyi, Sr. and Gershwin’s Lullaby
June 28, 2014: Hanns Eisler and the Red Scare
June 21, 2014: James Cruze’s Old Ironsides
June 14, 2014: Casiotone glories (and the Fuck Buttons)
June 7, 2014: Janáček’s 1.X.1905 (and Roman Jakobson)
May 24, 2014: Robert Johnson and Shakespearean music
May 17, 2014: Mussorgsky, Jesus Navin, and Russian Orientalism
May 10, 2014: The New England Phonographers Union and historical water music
May 3, 2014: Anton Raaff’s 300th
April 27, 2014: On Jonathan Harvey
April 20, 2014: Danny Elfman and Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure
April 13, 2014: Brahms’ op. 34, in all its guises
April 6, 2014: Mozart and the mechanical clock
March 30, 2014: On Albi Rosenthal
March 23, 2014: Michael Gordon’s Rushes
March 16, 2014: The rise (and fall) of Marie Jansen
March 9, 2014: The politics of The Ruins of Athens
March 2, 2014: Vilmorin, Poulenc, and “Il vole”
February 23, 2014: The HMHS Britannic and the Welte Philharmonic organ
February 16, 2014: William Byrd and “Will Yow Walke the Woods Soe Wylde”
February 9, 2014: On Toshiro Mayuzumi
January 26, 2014: Berio, Lévi-Strauss, and O King
January 19, 2014: Tosca, Bernhardt, and Escoffier
January 12, 2014: Copland’s Vitebsk and Joel Engel
January 5, 2014: The Atari 2600 and the Phrygian mode
December 22, 2013: Paul Whiteman’s last “Experiment on Modern American Music”
December 15, 2013: On Walter Marchetti
December 8, 2013: Britten’s Ceremony of Carols and Sir Hans Sloane
December 1, 2013: On John Knowles Paine
November 17, 2013: JFK memorials, from Bernstein to The Beach Boys
November 10, 2013: Mozart and Salieri, again
November 3, 2013: The upkeep of “Ein’ Feste Burg”
October 27, 2013: Jonathan Swift, musical malcontent
October 20, 2013: Marie Fel’s 300th
October 13, 2013: On Mauricio Kagel
October 6, 2013: On Jehan Alain
September 29, 2013: Gozzi and The Love for Three Oranges
September 22, 2013: The Legendary Pink Dots
September 15, 2013: Henry Brant’s 100th
September 1, 2013: Frederic Fradkin, Boston Symphony striker
August 25, 2013: Duck That! and other avian noisemakers
August 18, 2013: Hitchcock’s Waltzes from Vienna
August 11, 2013: Joseph Schuster and musical misattribution
August 4, 2013: Carter and Nancarrow
July 28, 2013: Cardinal Francesco Barberini, patron and Vatican insider
July 21, 2013: Schubert and Schnabel
July 14, 2013: John Jacob Astor, piano man
July 7, 2013: On the Lyricon
June 30, 2013: Francis Hopkinson, songwriter and signatory
June 23, 2013: The Apollonian origins of musical competition
June 16, 2013: Arnold Dolmetsch and Ulysses
June 9, 2013: John Cage’s Variations III
June 2, 2013: Bach multiples, for multiple Bachs
May 26, 2013: Mozart’s 40th and its Bollywood moment