Archive for March, 2009
Thomas Beecham: An Obsession with Music by John Lucas
Thomas Beecham: An Obsession with Music by John Lucas Boydell Press, Melton, Woodbrige, Suffolk, Rochester, NY, 2008: 384 pages The inimitable Beecham. A London impresario who competed with him called him ‘the bold bad baronet.’ Toscanini was more pithy and called him ‘pagliaccio,’ a clown. In return Beecham dubbed him ‘Toscaninny.’ At the turn of [...]
John Harbison, Winter’s Tale (1974, rev. 1991)
John Harbison is a composer of international importance and deserves, and gets, performances and honors everywhere. But it is especially appropriate that Boston honor him, on this the occasion of his seventieth birthday, because he has given so much to the city as teacher, founder and leader of musical groups, promoter of music’s importance, encourager of young musicians, and, yes, composer. Boston’s many musical organizations, including the Boston Symphony Orchestra, have turned to Harbison over the years for new pieces and been supplied with plenty that have meant a great deal to audiences here—chamber ensemble works, vocal works, symphonies. In the concert of March 20th, the formidable Boston Modern Orchestra Project, led by Gil Rose, presented in concert version Harbison’s early opera Winter’s Tale, based on the Shakespeare play. And though at the end the audience reception was very warm for all concerned, the greatest applause went to the composer.
Alice Tully Hall Opening Nights: Coming Home – Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center
Any one who did not experience the Upper West Side in the late 1960s, when Lincoln Center was nearing completion, or who has forgotten, might read Saul Bellow’s Mr. Sammler’s Planet. There was an apocalyptic feeling in the air—more palpable than anything the Bush administration tried to conjure up— as one negotiated panhandlers, muggers, hippies, and refuse, as one made one’s way up and down Broadway. These public phenomena have not vanished, but New York had reached a peak of dysfunctionality, and western civilization seemed to be self-destructing at a fierce boil: cities were decaying around the country, reading and writing seemed doomed to obsolescence, tv was king, and a lot of people were worried about the cultural partnership of drugs and music. In a few sentences, Bellow conjures up what all this felt like on the street.
Martin Kippenberger: The Problem Perspective – Museum of Modern Art, New York, March 1 – May 11, 2009
Pretty funny guy, for a German. The curators who put together the current large retrospective of Martin Kippenberger, knowing that his name will be new to almost every visitor, have emphasized that he’s funny. Or, to use their choice of words, hilarious, absurd, all over the map. Without prompting, I doubt that many viewers would think [...]
William Douglas Home’s Lloyd George Knew My Father
Lucas Miller reviews this revival of William Douglas Home’s 1972 play at the King’s Theatre in Edinburgh.
Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, Bridge Project at BAM
I had to wait impatiently until the final day of The Winter’s Tale to see it. After my eager anticipation, was it my fantasy that a good part of the audience had seen it once or twice before and were coming to bid this magical, but imperfect production a fond farewell. My imagination was probably only exaggerating, but there were probably enough recidivists there to create the atmosphere I sensed. There was something else, however.
Picholine
It didn’t take long for Picholine, after it opened in October 1993, to acquire the reputation and aura of an institution. Its original decor included old master paintings and tapestries or reasonable facsimiles of them, chandeliers, and heavy moldings—which made it look as if it had been there forever. While this interior may have conjured [...]
Uncle Vanya, Classic Stage Company, NYC
Uncle Vanya Maggie Gyllenhaal and Denis O’Hare in Uncle Vanya by Anton Chekhov Translated by Carol Rocamora Directed by Austin Pendleton Classic Stage Company, New York, January 17, 2009—March 8, 2009 Cast Marina – Cyrilla Baer Astrov – Peter Sarsgaard Vanya – Denis O’Hare Serebryakov – George Morfogen Telegin – Louis Zorich Sonya – Mamie [...]
Paul Griffiths, The Substance of Things Heard – Writings about Music
For most of its history music criticism has been almost as fleeting as music itself. If a person, for whatever odd reason, wanted to read a review of some past concert, it would have been necessary to consult a newspaper archive in a library, hardly a Herculean task, but an effort in comparison to the instantly-available databases we’ve become accustomed to in recent years. And, now that print journalism seems to be dying out, and publications like our own Berkshire Review for the Arts maintain permanent access to all published articles (and there is a readership for some of them long after the event they record) it is easier than ever.
Entries(RSS)