Classical Music Links

November, 2004:

Please note that the Villa-Lobos Website is no longer being updated.

This resource will remain on the RDPL server.

 Here are some interesting general links to classical music sites on the World-Wide Web.
 

"Dr. Duke & the Brazilian": in concert at the Red Deer Arts Centre	George Gershwin is in many ways the North American equivalent of Villa-Lobos.  Red Deer pianist and music educator  Duke Thompson is a Gershwin (& McDowell) specialist.  He's the taller half of "Dr. Duke & the Brazilian", with Ricardo Peres.  Check out Duke's new website, his excellent new Gershwin CD, and watch for upcoming essays by Duke and myself on the largely unexplored link between George Gershwin & Heitor Villa-Lobos
Jan Hanford and Jan Koster's J.S. Bach Homepage is superb. This site has depth and comprehensiveness. The Bach Picture Archive and Bibliography is a complementary site, just as well designed.  Every true web-savvy Villa-Lobos lover will eventually end up at these pages; Villa-Lobos certainly would have!
	Orpheus in Aix - an in depth survey and exposition of the music and life of Darius Milhaud. During World War I, Milhaud served for two years as secretary to the revered poet-diplomat, Paul Claudel, then ambassador to Brazil. His stay in Brazil left its mark on his music, especially in the popular Le Boeuf sur le toit and Saudades do Brasil.
The Edgard Varese website is an example of excellent web design. I especially enjoyed the picture of Varese with Le Corbusier in front of the Philips Pavilion at the NY World's Fair. Below is a picture from the Museu Villa-Lobos of Villa-Lobos with Varese in Paris in the late 1920s.	.
	Ed Hoornaert's excellent Albert Roussel Home Page shows the value of the World Wide Web in providing information and bringing together people of like minds and interests
Igor Stravinsky may indeed have said this: "Why is it whenever I hear a piece of music I don't like, it's by Villa-Lobos?"  Still, I like this site, by John Harrington: The Stravinsky Page
	The Legacy of Arnold Schoenberg is something more than the usual composer website, since Schoenberg was much more than just a composer. The paintings, designs, caricatures and reproductions of writings give this site alot of depth. I'm looking forward to spending more time there
Classical Online Radio is "an attempt to collect all the live-broadcasting classical radio stations on the Web."  This is the place to go for links to new stations in Iceland, Hungary and around the world.  A really useful resource from Peter Ribbens.
	The DSCH Journal is the most important website for one of the web's most popular composers.  Shostakovitch and Villa-Lobos are probably as different as any two composers can be, and yet their response to J.S. Bach was equally important for their music.
	Gramophone's website is billed as the "biggest classical music site online," and its GramoFile database of reviews probably makes it that.  This excellent resource provides free access (though you must register) to reviews going back to 1983.  I found 110 reviews of Villa-Lobos CDs.  (Search tip: use "Villa Lobos" rather than "Villa-Lobos", which the search engine doesn't like.)
Paul Geffen's Music Index has a wealth of resources on classical composers, performers, orchestras and record companies.
	Len Mullenger's Classical Music Web is a treasure-trove of really useful information.  Though there's a focus on British composers, there's also an excellent list of links to other composers, orchestra web sites, and some great information on film composers.  The great turtle cartoon is by Gerard Hoffnung, and is used here with permission - © Annetta Hoffnung 1997
NetRadio's Maestro classical music channels are excellent.  Bill Parker, author of the indispensible International Guide to Building a Classical Music Library, provides excellent programming for a broad range of streaming RealAudio format music as well as interesting and informative features.  Highly recommended!
	I like the music I've heard of two exact contemporaries of Villa-Lobos - both rather obscure.  Unfortunately, I've found no sites for Austria's Ernst Toch (1887-1964) and the Russian Shcherbacher (1887-1952).
ClassicalNet - The purpose of this home page is to provide a point-of-entry into a wide array of informational files about classical music, as well as links to other interesting web sites.