iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 31/05/2026

This Week: A Final, Abbreviated Edition of "The Refuge": Including: A Word on Future Plans Some Housekeeping A Clip from an Upcoming Project The newsletter's archives - which include more than 400 individual pieces - are now free and open to all. therefuge.substack.com

130

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 24/05/2026

In This Week's Edition of "The Refuge": A Memorial Weekend Edition, Featuring: Elgar's Elegy for a Fading Empire Puccini Confronts Vienna An Odd Fit therefuge.substack.com Please Share and Subscribe!

010

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 17/05/2026

In This Week's Edition of "The Refuge": A View of an Italian Master in his Prime A Sad Anniversary Paganini Soaks the Brits therefuge.substack.com Please Share and Subscribe!

020

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 03/05/2026

In This Week's Edition of "The Refuge": Haydn, Unbound The Many Maladies of Musicians A Predictable Ending J.C. Bach, Skeptic therefuge.substack.com Please Share and Subscribe!

010

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

In This Week's Edition of "The Refuge": A Handy Analogy Commentary; On Classical Music and Snobbery An Unlikely Hoofer Rare Bird therefuge.substack.com Please Share and Subscribe!

041

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 11/04/2026

In This Week's Banner Edition of "The Refuge": AN ALL MAHLER EDITION! A Rare Portrait Coming of Age The Plague of Interpretive Profunditis Beethoven's Revenge therefuge.substack.com Please Share and Subscribe!

042

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

In This Week's Chock-Full Edition of "The Refuge": Brahms' Favorite Bar A Commentary on American Culture and Classical Music Bach and the Wonders of 18th Century Medicine A Severe Test of Patience therefuge.substack.com Please Share and Subscribe!

011

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

"Music is a science which should have definite rules; these rules should be drawn from an evident principle; and this principle cannot really be known to us without the aid of mathematics." - Jean Philippe Rameau (1683-1764)

072

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

George Gershwin, wondering why the hell you're interrupting him while he's trying to orchestrate "Porgy and Bess."

042

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

Shostakovich's 1st Symphony was the opening work on the New York Philharmonic program on Sunday, Dec. 7th, 1941, when Japan attacked the American Naval Base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Here's a snippet from the CBS Radio Network Broadcast of the concert:

143

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

A feature of American music during the Civil War era was the "monster concert". They were popularized by the virtuoso Louis Moreau Gottschalk, who'd cram 10 or more pianos and a couple of dozen pianists onstage to pound out transcriptions of orchestral classics and popular tunes.

021

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

187 years ago yesterday and more than a decade after the composer's death, Mendelssohn led the premiere of Schubert's 9th Symphony. The work had been in the library of the Vienna Society for the Friends of Music; which had rejected it as too long and difficult to perform.

031

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 22/03/2026

In This Week's Jam-Packed Edition of "The Refuge": A Portrait of the Father of Russian Classical Music Bartok's Triumph Glenn Gould: More than a Provocateur Somnambulism in Orchestral Leadership therefuge.substack.com Please Share and Subscribe!

010

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

"German symphonic development is just like German philosophy and soup; it's all systematized. Germans reason their way to a conclusion. We Russians start with a conclusion and then, perhaps, amuse ourselves with some reasoning." - Modest Mussorgsky

020

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

Beethoven once tried making dinner for friends. The results: "The soup recalled leavings given to beggars; the beef was half-done and could only gratify an ostrich; the vegetables floated in water and grease; the roast seemed to have been smoked in the chimney…barely edible.”

3190

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

Wagner - a committed socialist - had a fetish about wearing luxurious clothing; one tailor described receiving an order from him that was "a riot of velvet, silk and satin." This sort of indulgence - which he claimed was essential to his artistic inspiration - also included the use of perfumes.

021

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

96 years ago today, Bela Bartok's 4th String Quartet No. 4 was premiered in Budapest. Laid out in a 5-movement arch form (A-B-C-B-A) created by shared materials, movement lengths and character, the work's aesthetic rigor is typical of the composer's middle creative period.

020

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

"Finally, a fortissimo!" - Gustav Mahler, upon seeing Niagara Falls

020

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

The Finale of Dvorak's Cello Concerto is primarily a vigorous Rondo. Yet as it hurtles towards a triumphant conclusion, the vigor suddenly evaporates, and an Elegy commences. Why? While writing the movement's Coda, he found out that a past love - his wife's SISTER - had died.

010

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 19/03/2026

On this date in 1894, Dvorak's wonderfully eloquent Cello Concerto was premiered in London. Brahms considered the work a stunning creative achievement, saying "If I had known that it was possible to compose such a concerto for the cello, I would have tried it myself!"

020

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

"Music can have the power to produce a certain healthy effect on the moral character of the soul. And because of this, the young must be directed to music and educated in it.” - Aristotle, "Politics"

062

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Johannes Brahms, wondering if you're going to be eating that last piece of chicken.

010

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

The Well Temperament Bach employed in the WTC isn't the same as Equal Temperament (the standard since ca. 1800), in which the octave is divided into 12 equal half-steps. WT is actually a variety of temperaments in which some keys are more in tune than others, but all can be used.

020

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

Bach's "Well-Tempered Clavier" is a collection of two sets of preludes and fugues in all 24 major/minor keys. The term "Tempered" refers to how the keyboard should be tuned; fixed-pitch instruments can't be tuned without some of the note-relationships - intervals - being impure.

000

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

"The Mighty Handful" - Balakirev, Borodin, Cui, Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov - embraced the idea of basing their work on Russian folk materials while rejecting conservatory training as "Europeanizing". It was a view Rimsky eventually spurned as limiting.

000

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 18/03/2026

On this date in 1844, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was born. One of five Russian nationalist composers known collectively as "The Mighty Handful", his virtuosity as an orchestrator set him apart from his compatriots and yielded lasting contributions to the orchestral repertoire.

000

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 17/03/2026

In This Week's Edition of "The Refuge": Strauss and the Art of Auditory Torture On the Uneasy Pairing of Music and Identity Politics When the Packaging Makes a Difference A Composer Betrayed therefuge.substack.com Please Share and Subscribe!

010

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

"Music is the favorite passion of my soul, and yet fortune has cast my lot in a country where it is in a state of deplorable barbarism." - Thomas Jefferson (Image: Jefferson's violin)

110

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

John Philip Sousa, seen here hunting musicians who've shown a fondness for tempo flexibility.

010

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

Biographies of Beethoven often note that he sometimes "engaged in sharp business practices." Translation: he wasn't averse to ripping people off. Take that most spiritual of his works, his "Missa Solemnis"; "exclusive" rights to the piece were sold to no fewer than 5 publishers.

042

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

Zemlinsky is also remembered as the young Alma Schindler's lover at the time she met her future husband Gustav Mahler, then the Director of Vienna Court Opera, in November, 1901. Although he'd eventually marry (twice), his letters reveal that he never quite got over it.

011

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 15/03/2026

84 years ago today, the Austrian composer, conductor, and teacher Alexander von Zemlinsky died. Although he was an accomplished composer, his inability to convincingly synthesize the romantic and modernist strains within his artistic personality stifled the success of his music.

020

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

"Wagner's 'Parsifal' is the kind of opera that starts at six o'clock and, after it has been running for three hours, you check your watch and it says 6.20." - David Randolph

062

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

Speaking of Bruckner, I think there's a desperate need for a reset on the consensus approach to interpreting his music. Reflexively slow tempi and heavy textures obscure the essentially Austrian character of his work; a much greater sense of flow and "luft" is needed.

030

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

The Nazis' opportunistic appropriation of poor, innocent Anton Bruckner's music is often overlooked. As a native Austrian and an under-appreciated artist, he provided an ideal figure of identification for that other Austrian native and "under-appreciated artist", Adolf Hitler.

010

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

I previously compared Telemann's music with Bach's - unfavorably. That changed when I recorded his 12 Fantasias for Solo Violin (excerpt); it led me to realize that his perspective was utterly different. Bach summarizes the High Baroque; Telemann points towards Classicism.

150

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 14/03/2026

On this date in 1681, the German composer Georg Philipp Telemann was born. Likely the most prolific of all major composers, his all-encompassing output includes more than 3000 works, among them over a thousand Cantatas and at least 600 Instrumental Suites.

031

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

"Regarding Beethoven's 9th Symphony, do we really believe that if it had been written down by a Mr. John L. Tarbox of Sandown , NH, any decent conductor here or in Europe could be persuaded to program it?" - Philip Hale, Musical Record, Boston; June 1, 1899(!)

010

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto makes for such easy listening its ingenuity is often overlooked. Novel features include the almost-immediate entrance of the soloist, the embedding of the cadenza in the middle of the 1st movement and the work's continuous, through-composed form.

120

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

On this date in 1845, Mendelssohn's popular Violin Concerto was premiered in Leipzig. Ferdinand David (image), the concertmaster of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, was the soloist and dedicatee. Surprisingly, Mendelssohn struggled with the piece, taking 6 years to complete it.

032

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

"The reactions music evokes are not feelings, but images and memories of feelings." - Paul Hindemith

010

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

Igor Stravinsky: Rules for young composers 1. Work daily, regardless of your mood. 2. Plan your work in advance. 3. Eliminate distractions. 4. When struggling, take a break, perhaps including physical activity. 5. Tackle hard tasks first.

141

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 12/03/2026

92 years ago today, the three-movement symphony Paul Hindemith extracted from his opera "Mathis der Maler" was premiered in Berlin. This work about an artist who pursued his artistic vision in the face of political oppression would make his presence in Nazi Germany untenable.

020

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

"Stravinsky had that red-blooded, folkloric rhythm, that earthy groove since birth. Sometimes he denied it, but he had it, which is one reason why 'The Rite' and most of his other masterpieces will just gain in stature." - Ethan Iverson, jazz pianist

042

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

Giacomo Puccini, seen here tuning in to an early radio lecture called "Serial Infidelity: Strategies for Explaining Yourself."

050

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

Tales about Beethoven's wildly-demonstrative conducting - and the tragicomic moments created by his increasing deafness - are abundant. What's forgotten is that his mere presence was often resented; at the time, leadership of the orchestra usually came from within the ensemble.

030

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

On May 21, 1936, Cowell was arrested and charged with "homosexual conduct" (cropped mugshot attached). His decision to confess and plead for leniency proved disastrous; convicted and sent to San Quentin Prison for 4 years, he emerged devastated and far less daring as an artist.

020

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 11/03/2026

129 years ago today, the American composer, theorist, pianist and teacher Henry Cowell was born. A seminal figure of the avant-garde, his early experiments with atonality, polytonality, polyrhythms and electronics profoundly influenced the course of American music.

030

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

"Berlioz, musically speaking, is a lunatic; a composer only in Paris, city of quacks. His music is nonsense. He is a kind of orchestral Liszt, than which I could name nothing more disagreeable." - Dramatic and Musical Review, London; January 7, 1843

020

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

Sir Edward Elgar, enjoying the traditional English gentleman's custom of walking through the countryside with a chicken on his head.

041