The Nightmare of Reason with Roger Rudenstein Musings on music, art and society

Henry Purcell lived in England during the 17th century period known as the Restoration. He was born just forty years after Shakespeare died and composed over 800 works many of which are sublime. He died at the age of 36.
In addition to history and analysis this podcast contains several examples of his music which you may not have heard. He composed just one opera, Dido and Aeneas, but he also created many “semi-operas” for the theater to be performed as part of plays including A Midsummer Night’s Dream (The Fairy Queen) and The Tempest of Shakespeare. These, plus his Odes to Saint Cecilia constitute a major achievement in music of all time.
The greatest recording of the Odes I have found is by The Collegium Vocale Gent and Phillipe Herreweghe. The best recording of Dido and Aeneas I think is by the Scholars who also have recorded a number of Purcell’s semi-operas all on original instruments. There is also a two volume compendium of Purcell’s operatic works by John Eliot Gardiner that is quite good and includes the bulk of his theater semi-operas and masques.
I also urge you to listen to John Blow’s Ode on the Death of Henry Purcell; Blow was Purcell’s teacher and his appreciation of the composer is spot on as well as being a superior piece of music in and of itself.






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Tar, which has won and been nominated for numerous awards, looks at the career of a fictional female, lesbian conductor who has made it big in the competitive world of the symphony orchestra. Like her mentor Leonard Bernstein she has won awards for conducting, classical compositions and musicals. However the seductiveness of her powerful position undermines her.
As a drama Tar succeeds well with an outstanding performance by Cate Blanchett as the eponymous protagonist. But this movie, a rare look at the classical music world, also provides a message about the state of classical music today. It is this aspect of that I deal with in this podcast. Hint: it’s not saying anything good.
To hear my music and learn more about me as a composer of modern classical music visit my revamped site: https://rogerrudensteinmusic.com





This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rogerrudenstein.substack.com

The Orville is a Star Trek type show produced by Seth McFarlane, the creator of Family Guy. In this look at the far future how did classical music fare? Not well I’m afraid. In this podcast I go over how the commercialization of music has affected classical music by preventing a viable succession to the music of the past (Beethoven, Bach, etc.) by perverting taste and denying a musical education to the ordinary citizen.
I also talk about what can be done about this situation today and provide some advice to those who are currently modern classical composers.
Please visit my newly renovated website at https://rogerrudensteinmusic.com for my musical bio and free examples of my music so you can see where I’m coming from.




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The saga continues. In this podcast I go into what atonalism and serialism are and how the ideology grew up around them designating these techniques as the future of classical music in the Twentieth Century. I talk about the philosopher/social critic Theodore Adorno and his still relevant critique of the commercialization of music which lead to the lionizing and exploitation of trivial music which he designated “bourgeois”. Unfortunately his antidote was to push intentionally ugly music that drove the audience out of the concert hall and stopped the forward momentum of a great art form.


This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rogerrudenstein.substack.com

Who would have thought that a nation founded to be a beacon of liberty and freedom would enter a period where the secret police would have a significant influence on cultural life? Starting in the nineteen fifties the CIA clandestinely began a cultural war with the Soviet Union in order to undermine its influence among leading intellectuals in the West. This podcast tells the story of what happened with an emphasis on how the CIA set out to extend its influence to the world of classical music, contributing to the fall of classical music as a dynamic developing art form.
Note: The music preceding and ending the podcast is new music composed by Roger Rudenstein and performed by the NOR Orchestra none of which has any relation to the CIA.



This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rogerrudenstein.substack.com

This podcast concerns arguably the greatest musical work ever created: The Mass in B-minor by Johann Sebastian Bach.
Surprisingly many classical aficionados have not listened to it.
The work could also be called “Bach’s Greatest Hits” as many of the sections had already been composed and some played prior to being assembled in the “Mass”. It is not a traditional mass as many sections such as the Kyrie are repeated with different music. It is thought to have been an attempt by Bach, a Protestant, to curry favor with the newly appointed Catholic officials in his part of Germany.
I also talk about Bach’s place in the musical firmament of his time (not big) and of his eclipse following his death not to be revived until late in the 19th Century by Felix Mendelssohn.
You can hear perhaps the best recording of this work free on YouTube by the Netherlands Bach Society utilizing period instruments in almost the right proportion (I talk about what the original instrumentation was in the podcast).
Here it is:
Coming up next on this podcast: The CIA’s Role in Classical Music.



This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rogerrudenstein.substack.com