This is a loosely sorted and lightly annotated catalogue of through the music posts on this blog — meant to be browsed the way you’d flip through a record collection at a friend’s apartment. I write about classical music when life gets hectic, so if you notice a cluster of posts, that’s me running on caffeine and Tchaikovsky. Here’s the map.

I. The Romantics and Their Restless Hearts

The Romantic composers feel like me — dramatic, inconsolable, and occasionally insufferable in the best way. Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff take up the most space here, probably because their music never quite lets me go. Chopin appears when I need elegance; Brahms and Schumann, when I want something tangled and human.

Tchaikovsky — always Tchaikovsky:

Rachmaninoff — the beautiful and tortured soul:

Chopin — insomnia but in style:

Brahms, Schumann & Schubert — the inner circle:

And a few more Romantics passing through:

II. Evenings Out — Concert Notes & Live Music

Notes from evenings in Chicago, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and a few other places where the seats were worth the ticket.

Shanghai & Guangzhou:

Chicago — CSO and friends:

YouTube, bilibili and Medici (so, when will UChicago subscribe to BPO Digital Concert hall?)

III. Stage Creatures — Ballet & Opera

Ballet music is not light music. I’ve argued this at length. When a piece is written for the stage — for bodies, for breath, for an arc that spans three acts — it carries a kind of weight that concert music sometimes only gestures at. These posts live at the intersection of music, choreography, and storytelling.

Swan Lake — the obsession:

The Nutcracker — a divertissement series:

More ballet:

Opera:

IV. Beyond Classical

Film scores, musicals, pop crossovers, the economics of AI composition

Film & screen:

Musicals & pop crossovers:

Music, ideas & culture:

V. Deep Cuts, Small Joys & the Cabinet of Wonders

Everything else — and honestly, some of the best stuff. Pieces I stumbled across and couldn’t stop thinking about. Performers who changed how I hear things. Baroque Bach next to a farting Haydn bassoon. The flute posts live here too, because the flute is always a little bit on the margins, and that’s where interesting things happen.

Performers & recordings:

The flute corner:

Impressionists & early moderns:

Shostakovich — a world apart:

Curiosities & assorted pleasures:

This list will keep growing — probably fastest during deadline season. If you’d like the flat, no-frills version, the original catalogue is still there, and updated.