In his monumental six-part work The Oxford History of Western Music, Richard Taruskin begins the volume devoted to the 19th century with Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio, which debuted in Vienna in 1805 before its final revised version was staged there in 1814. Here we have an opus of searing intensity that signaled the arrival of Romanticism in music.
A Christmas-in-June-and-July Carol: The old DualDisc is as dead as a doornail. This must be distinctly understood, the Warner Music Group seems to be admitting, or nothing wonderful can come of an early gift for us: yet another new format. What will it be - humdinger or humbug?
