Music Website News

with KEITH BRAMICH

Language and pitch

A fascinating article in the New York Times explores language and pitch, and in particular a link between the phenomenon of 'perfect pitch' and tonal languages. If you haven't visited the NYT before, please note that you'll need to register before you can read the content.

Dutch links

A recent page from a website in the Netherlands - Klassieke Muziek Pagina NL - is crowded with lots and lots of classical music links, with especially good coverage of Dutch sites. Well worth a look to find out if there's anything you haven't seen before. The headings are all in Dutch, but the links have no descriptions to speak of, and most of them make sense to the English-speaking surfer.

Another site - www.music.com - has an area with classical features which may also appeal.

Who sings, prays twice

On our itinerary today is 'La Voix!' - the website of soprano Rebekkah Graves. Rebekkah will be singing music by Barber in Seattle next year. Her site also contains an audio area with music samples in MP3 and WAV formats.

Operabase

Now in six languages and with a partnership agreement with Opera America, Operabase is a huge database featuring schedules, 500 opera houses and festivals, reviews, resources, timelines and links to other sites in the opera world.

Bridge Records

The Washington Post referred to on-line CD store Bridge Records as a company with a highly selective and consistently excellent catalog. Bridge promise speedy international delivery and a free MP3 sample of each title. Follow the animated beckoning finger for more information on Bridge Records.

Movie Database

This one has been around for a while now (and is part of the Amazon empire), but we haven't mentioned it here before ... the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), consisting of more than 200,000 titles. Could be useful if you're interested in film music. Using composers' names in their search box often produces useful facts.

Aesthetic music in a drug-free culture

Founded 20 years ago in Hamburg under the name Eulenspiegel by Horst Tubbesing, the ARC Music label specialises in world and folk musics, and supplies Real Audio links to its new releases. They aim to cover all geographic areas of the world, with at least one recording from each area.

Bach and Prout

Kirk McElhearn claims to have links to the main J S Bach sites on the net and has subscription information for the Bach Recordings mailing list.

Ebenezer Prout (known for his performing edition of Handel's Messiah) has a rather mixed reputation these days. A page on the UK's Royal Holloway and Bedford New College site lists some of the silly rhymes for which Prout has become notorious ...