Essays, articles and reviews from The Musical Heritage Review.

From 40 years of our monthly column "Exploring Music" to essays on a wide range of topics, The Musical Heritage Review took the original concept of an "expanded and improved liner notes" idea and became a magazine that was published 18 times a year for 40 years. From wild esoterica to thoughts about the weather, these essays are all about the joy of exploring music.

  • Exploring Music

    Written for over a decade almost exclusively by editor David M. Greene, "Exploring Music" essays accompanied Musical Heritage Society's Featured Selections. Usually between 5 and 7 essays were written for each edition of The Review, and David occasionally veered WAY off topic and added his own opinions about just about everything.

  • Essays

    Professors and musicians from the East Coast music schools wrote often for The Musical Heritage Review. The new fields of early music on historically informed instrument practice was a favorite topic of discussion (yay and nay), as was the doings of the Metropolitan Opera and...oh yes, record labels, like The Musical Heritage Society.

  • Reviews

    Each edition of The Musical Heritage Review contained hundreds of reviews. We've included many of these reviews on the product pages of the recordings we sell here at the site, but we will also feature many reviews here as well.

EXPLORING MUSIC

Resurrecting America's Colonial Music

Resurrecting America's Colonial Music

David M. Greene

Readers of musical journalism will be aware that it is filled with a constant wailing and lamenting about how the contemporary American composer is ignored by opera companies, orchestras, soloists,...

Resurrecting America's Colonial Music

David M. Greene

Readers of musical journalism will be aware that it is filled with a constant wailing and lamenting about how the contemporary American composer is ignored by opera companies, orchestras, soloists,...

Read More
A Symphony Born of Rivalry

A Symphony Born of Rivalry

David M. Greene

With this record, Kurt Masur and the Leipzig Cloth-Hall Band complete their traversal of Schumann's mature orchestral works, and return the first symphony to the place where it was born,...

A Symphony Born of Rivalry

David M. Greene

With this record, Kurt Masur and the Leipzig Cloth-Hall Band complete their traversal of Schumann's mature orchestral works, and return the first symphony to the place where it was born,...

Read More
Daring and Remarkable - PETER MAXWELL DAVIES, Eight Songs for a Mad King

Daring and Remarkable - PETER MAXWELL DAVIES, E...

Paul Kresh

Before he went off to live in the Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland, where the austere air and the salt of the sea seem to have penetrated...

Daring and Remarkable - PETER MAXWELL DAVIES, E...

Paul Kresh

Before he went off to live in the Orkney Islands off the north coast of Scotland, where the austere air and the salt of the sea seem to have penetrated...

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The First American Born Composer

The First American Born Composer

David M. Greene

Hopkinson (or Frankie the Hop, as he was known on Market St.) is an interesting figure. Born in 1737, he became a successful lawyer, and a well-known writer and satirist....

The First American Born Composer

David M. Greene

Hopkinson (or Frankie the Hop, as he was known on Market St.) is an interesting figure. Born in 1737, he became a successful lawyer, and a well-known writer and satirist....

Read More
Devienne IS BACK! A Rediscovery

Devienne IS BACK! A Rediscovery

David M. Greene

Was Devienne significant? The Larousse La Musique des origins a nos jours (a present from Cathy 30 years ago!) notes him, in the operatic context, merely as "melodiste agreable." Baker's,...

Devienne IS BACK! A Rediscovery

David M. Greene

Was Devienne significant? The Larousse La Musique des origins a nos jours (a present from Cathy 30 years ago!) notes him, in the operatic context, merely as "melodiste agreable." Baker's,...

Read More
"Mister Franck! Time to do your symphony!"

"Mister Franck! Time to do your symphony!"

David M. Greene

What makes a man suddenly feel that a symphony is coming on? Since we think largely in metaphors and anal­ogies, I seem simply to sense some­thing like an alarm-clock sounding...

"Mister Franck! Time to do your symphony!"

David M. Greene

What makes a man suddenly feel that a symphony is coming on? Since we think largely in metaphors and anal­ogies, I seem simply to sense some­thing like an alarm-clock sounding...

Read More