Some good classical music related articles: Andante has an interesting review of the new opera The Tempest by Thomas Adès. You may remember Adès from his previous opera Powder Her Face, about the sexual promiscuity of the Duchess of Argyll, which contained the notorious "fellatio aria". The Tempest sounds more promising, but in need of some revision. (Update: The Tempest no longer sounds promising.)

And here is an interesting article about recovered and reconstructed musical works. It discusses the recent performance of Grieg's juvenile symphony, which he had explicitly instructed "must never be performed." The article goes on to defend the practice of resurrecting buried compositions on the grounds that it has unearthed some very worthwhile material.

Without that practice, we wouldn't have the 10th Symphonies of Mahler, Schubert, or Beethoven — even if the Beethoven has not caught the public's imagination, the Schubert is underperformed, and the Mahler for many years suffered the wilful dismissal of numerous conductors...

We certainly would not have all of the formidable body of work by Sibelius the Destroyer, who made a bonfire of his aspirations and insecurities, including his Eighth Symphony, of which nothing survives, at least one version of his Fifth Symphony (though, mercifully, he either didn't have in his possession, or failed to burn, the orchestral parts for the amazingly original and innovative first version, which has been meticulously re-assembled and is available on CD for all to hear and marvel at). Nor would we have his complete scenic music for Karelia — not merely the famous three-movement flagship concert-opener of the Suite, but a 50-minute work of endless revelations into the thinking and working processes of Finland's greatest composer.

The only such work in my collection (revivals of forgotten Baroque repetoire aren't the same thing) is Schubert's Unfinished (MacKerras conducting) with a scherzo completed by Brian Newbould, and some entr'acte music from Rosamunde for the finale. I rather like the scherzo in and of itself; it does sound like Schubert to me, and is full of the sudden shifts to the major which lend the Unfinished much of its beauty. But frankly, I love the completed movements of the Unfinished for their shortness, their focus, the way they leave you feeling that not a note too many was played. But the Rosamunde finale ruins these proportions, and the piece itself has nowhere near the concentration of the first two movements. So a hit and a miss for musical forensics. Given the potential pay-off, I'll take those odds; I can't wait to hear the 50-minute Karelia.

And here (via Instapundit) is an excellent article on synaesthesia, an experience which I think many classical music fans can well imagine, if not undergo for themselves. Recent tests seem to confirm that synaesthesia is a real phenomenon, at least inasmuch as it works with enough consistancy to be meaningfully studied.