When authors are permitted to ask themselves a question and then also provide the answer, this is often more revealing than a long autobiography. Tobias Wenzel and Carolin Seeliger invited 77 writers to talk to themselves and recorded these soliloquies....
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At the New Year's concert in the Alte Oper in Frankfurt the audience's excitement was palpable. It was patently clear to all assembled that they were either about to witness the disgrace of one of the world's greatest living violinists, or the triumphant birth of a new piano virtuoso. By Arno Widmann
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Ligeti the gesamtkunstwerk, Ligeti the Socrates-Ligeti, Ligeti the volcano. Hungarian composer György Kurtág spoke at a memorial session of the Order Pour le Mérite in Berlin about his lifelong friend, György Ligeti, who died on June 12, 2006.
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Thomas Mann was enchanted by German classical music but was also wary of its seductive powers. In his novels, he anticipates its instrumentalisation by the Nazis, who used it as the gateway to bourgeois German hearts and minds. By Wolfgang Schneider
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Conductor Riccardo Muti describes rummaging through Naples' venerable music archive, where he discovered a number of slumbering opera manuscripts, among them Domenico Cimarosa's "Il ritorno di Don Calandrino," which opens the Salzburg Whitsun Festival tonight.
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After brilliant beginnings, bodybuilding pianist Tzimon Barto's career crashed as spectacularly as it started. Now the bizarre mixture of rancher, writer and keyboard collossus is back, with a fabulous new recording of Ravel. By Kai Luehrs-Kaiser
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The Mainz-based composer Volker David Kirchner is widely seen as one of Germany's foremost - and most popular - contemporary classical composers. He talks to Stefan Schickhaus about his love for chamber pieces, the holy trininty of the German music world and why it doesn't pay to write opera. (Photo © Stefan Schickhaus)
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The world's most famous string quartet leaves the concert stage after forty years. An encounter with the Alban Berg Quartet. By Volker Hagedorn
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Jörg Königsdorf interviews composer and conductor Pierre Boulez on his selective affinities for the works of Gustav Mahler. From April 2 to 12, Boulez will conduct Mahler's 9 symphonies at Berlin's Philharmonie, alternating with Daniel Barenboim. (Photo © Betty Freeman)
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A conversation with composer Wolfgang Rihm about productive solitude, the predominance of entertainment, and his new monodrama "Das Gehege" (The Aviary). By Thomas Assheuer and Claus Spahn
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With 23 premieres in 8 concerts over 48 hours, the Donaueschinger Musiktage is one of the major festivals for contemporary music. And for those who think that's a white elephant, think again. This year's edition was bursting at the seams. By Peter Hagmann
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German soprano Christine Schäfer is the star of this year's Salzburg Festival. In an interview with Wolfgang Schreiber, she talks about the irksomeness of marketing, the importance of listening to the music your kids listen to and the silliness of operatic gestures in jogging suits.
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Once one of most flamboyant, talked about musicians on the international scene, Croatian pianist Ivo Pogorelich withdrew from the public eye after the death of his wife and teacher, Aliza Kezeradze. Now he breaks a long media silence to speak of early fame, his lost love and late maturity. By Manuel Brug
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This summer, Christian Thielemann will conduct Richard Wagner's four-part "Ring of the Nibelung" opera cycle at the Bayreuth Festspiele. He talks to Christine Lemke-Matwey about the festival, Wagner's music, and the dark German sound: tyaaa-tyaaa-tyaaa-tyaa-tyaa-tyaa-tyaaa
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For a while, Sir Simon Rattle rode a euphoric wave at the Berliner Philharmoniker. Now critic Manuel Brug feels that his novelty is wearing off, fast.
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On May 5, the tone of John Cage's organ composition "As Slow as Possible" changed in the St. Burchardi church in Halberstadt. A major moment in a piece that will last 639 years. By Thomas Gerlach
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