#Bernstein Centennial

[jadedbirch]

Happy Centennial to La Divina!

December 2, 1923 was a blessed day for that was the day Maria Callas was born. Unmatched as an operatic diva, on and off stage, we are so fortunate to have many of her recordings to remind us of what we lost and for new generations of opera lovers to discover and become entranced with.

And now, the impossible task of picking my own personal top 5 Maria Callas roles.

5. Elvira (in Bellini's I Puritani)

Callas singlehandedly revived the bel canto repertoire and brought Bellini's operas (most not performed since the 19th century) back to the fore. Of all the operas in which La Divina got to excel in mad scenes, I chose this one because essentially the entire opera is one long mad scene for her character - Elvira - a young, Puritan girl who thinks that her beloved has abandoned her on the day of their wedding. Callas somehow finds an entire theatrical range of heartbreaks in this performance, and doesn't stop breaking your heart until the last (surprisingly happy) note of the opera.

Recommended: I would invest in the 1953 EMI studio recording with Giuseppe di Steffano and Rolando Panerai. But while I was fucking around, I also found this 1952 live recording from Mexico, that I'm excited to check out.

4. Leonora (in Verdi's Il Trovatore)

Callas was so famous for singing Verdi heroines, that it is almost impossible to chose one above others. I'm going to buck the trend and NOT choose Violeta from La Traviata, because that would be too easy. After all, Violeta is the focal point of La Traviata, and history has proven again and again that the public is wild for a consumptive courtesan. In contrast, Leonora is perfectly privileged and healthy, she is a lady in waiting to the Spanish Queen, whose one misfortune in life happens to be her questionable taste in men (as is often the case in Verdi's operas). Il Trovatore is known to be a vehicle for the tenor, but a good Leonora can steal the opera from under him, especially in the final act, and Maria Callas easily does just that.

Recommended: EMI's 1956 recording with di Steffano, Barbieri, and Panerai is really to die for. I have no notes! Here's a tasty snack to sample.

3. Medea (in Cherubini's Medea)

Some roles are so mythic that you need someone approaching demigodhood in order to pay them proper homage. Medea may have been a controversial figure in Greek mythology, but also an absolute badass and a powerful sorceress not to be fucked with. Callas imbued her with all the righteous rage that fueled her, but also with a keen humanity and vulnerability. I dare you to listen to any of her Medea recordings and not to come out of the experience rooting for those babies to be stabbed all the way dead. Hahahah just kidding. (Or am I?)

Recommended: Any of her studio or live recordings of Medea are great, but do yourselves a favor and listen to this 1953 LIVE recording conducted by Leonard Bernstein (yes that Bernstein). You will get the chills, I swear to all the gods. HER POWER!!!!

2. Tosca (in Puccini's Tosca)

This was my first complete opera recording that I purchased for what would later accidentally turn into my Maria Callas collection. I have listened to it more times than I care to admit, but in my defense, it was life changing. The way that Callas spits "ASSASSINO!!!" into Scarpia's face during the Act II torture scene. *chef's kiss* I get goosebumps to this day. The recording in question was was 1965, very late in her career, and by some accounts not when she was in her "best voice". But the sheer power of her artistry, the maturity with which every line is sung and acted, her understanding of the character far exceeds her early career interpretations of the same heroine. This was the Callas I fell in love with - the woman who made me realize opera could be about so much more than pretty singing.

Recommended: Lucky you, here's the full 1965 studio recording with Carlo Bergonzi and Tito Gobi. There are some live recordings available now on Youtube from the same year! But if you're looking for a "prettier" sounding Tosca, there's always her 1953 studio recording.

Norma (in Bellini's Norma)

Haha, how predictable, you might say, but listen - why fuck with perfection? Has anyone since her been able to come anywhere even close in this role? Some big names have tried. Some big names never even got the cojones to try. Some have flirted with recording the famous Casta Diva aria alone. But listen - she was incomparable, show stopping, life changing. When I listen to her sing Norma, I feel like I know what it's like to be in the presence of God.

Recommended: Do yourselves a favor and get the 1955 EMI studio recording. Although really any recording of her singing Casta Diva will make you see angels/fairies/unicorns if you haven't already.

[gautama-und-noise]

TAR: MAHLER, BERNSTEIN Y MUCHO FOUCAULT

(ADVERTENCIA: OBVIAMENTE ESTO TENDRÁ MUCHOS MEGA-SPOILERS DE LA PELÍCULA. SI DESPUÉS DE ESTA ADVERTENCIA NO TIENES PROBLEMA EN CONTINUAR, ADELANTE)

Cuando me enviaron el trailer de Tàr (Scott Field, 2022). Creé en mi cabeza una idea muy distinta de lo que era realmente el filme. Las tomas mostradas en la publicidad de la película daban la idea de que se trataba de un thriller psicológico sobre una prestigiosa compositora que se enfrentaba a alguna clase de vacío onírico mientras se preparaba para escribir y estrenar una obra propia que albergaba consigo una fuerte carga emocional. 

Sin embargo, la trama, a pesar de ser sobre música, dista de lo que yo les comenté anteriormente. Y admito que el hacerme una expectativa de una peli que no había visto antes fue un error mío. Sin embargo, una vez que dejé que la cinta se asentara en mi, me di cuenta de lo complejo de su mensaje y de lo que refleja. En realidad, la película no se trata solamente de la música, sino también de el poder en el sentido más Foucault de la palabra. Sobre que hacen las personas con poder, las personas que lo ceden, que lo otorgan y arrebatan. Si te gustó 'La Favorita' de Yorgos Lanthimos, identificarás un patrón muy similar en esta película.

La protagonista: Lydia Tàr (Cate Blanchett) es la directora de la filarmónica de Berlin, ex-discípula de Leonard Bernstein, con quien comparte la pasión por la música clásica de la tradición europea y sus más grandes exponentes (principalmente Gustav Mahler).

Lydia se nos presenta como un personaje de alguna manera invicto, o completamente intocable, y podemos apreciar que ella misma se ve como tal, al compartir en una entrevista para The New Yorker que 'No ha sufrido nunca discriminación alguna por ser una mujer en el ámbito laboral de la música clásica'. 

Las primeras escenas nos dejan muy en claro quien es Lydia como artista, pero su naturaleza como persona toma más tiempo en desenmascararse a medida que avanza el filme. 

Una escena de la cual no pude escapar a manera de spoiler antes de ver la cinta en cuestión, fue la infame masterclass en Julliard, en la cual Lydia advierte a un muy caricaturizado centennial pangénero racializado de los peligros de descartar a un compositor y a su obra en su totalidad por no alinearse con los valores del siglo XXI, y que si este es nuestro criterio para escuchar, apreciar y honrar la música; estamos perdiéndonos de todo el panorama. 

He de confesar que como una mujer, latina y centennial y que es atravesada de manera interseccional (como todo el mundo en este sistema) por diversas violencias y sus respectivas luchas contra ellas, aprecié de una extraña manera esta escena, debido a una serie de epifanías musicales que tuve durante el año pasado. Una de las que más me sorprendió fue que salí del armario como alguien que disfruta genuinamente la música del compositor Richard Wagner, el insufrible anti-semita, y megalómano inventor/patentador del leitmotiv aunado irremediablemente tras su muerte a líderes fascistas europeos, principalmente Hitler (gran admirador de la tetralogía de óperas de Wagner por su uso de la mitología nórdica-germana).

Dicho lo anterior puedo entender perfectamente por qué hay personas que deciden privarse por completo de la obra del compositor, y por qué se podrían levantar algunas cejas con respecto a mi confesión, considerando que hasta hace poco me declaraba hater de Wagner. No obstante, recordemos que el pico de la carrera de Wagner (y el período en el cual haría ciertas declaraciones antisemitas) fue durante y después de la Primera Guerra Mundial, que dejó a Alemania -antes Prusia- completamente en la ruina, herida de hambre y desesperanza. Sus habitantes, víctimas de su entorno, estarían claramente vulnerables ante los discursos peligrosos de replicar. 

Además de esto el compositor jamás apoyó activamente al partido Nazi (no así su colega Carl Orff).

Y estos entendimientos, que previo a ser discutidos me generaron aún algo de culpa y vergüenza, surgieron a la luz de conversaciones con los compositores mexicanos Pablo Chemor y Alejandro Varela en clases separadas. 

'Creo que estamos en una era en la cual lo más importante a la hora de revisitar a las figuras del pasado es ponerlas sobre la mesa y problematizar, más que cancelar o taxonomizar como 'Músicos que valen la pena' (o no) por qué tan alineados están a nuestra brújula moral. '

-P.C

'Incluso más allá de separar la música del músico, hay que separar al músico de la persona'

-A.V

Es una escena que puede servirnos como músicos, incluso a los que componemos o ejecutamos música contemporánea (u onanismo sónico epistémico según Tàr) para recordarnos que nuestras políticas tampoco son inamovibles, y que deben de ser también cuestionadas y problematizadas. 

Cuando vi el clip de la escena en internet, pude ver algunos de los comentarios ovacionando a Kate y al director de la película por que 'finalmente alguien alzaba la voz y contradecía a la maldita generación de cristal'.Pero estas personas, asimismo, perdieron completamente el punto de toda la película. Por que Lydia, a pesar de ser un personaje muy complejo, sirve ella misma como caricatura también durante este momento en particular al declarar que: 'Si quieres dirigir, tienes que deshacerte completamente de tu ego, disolver tu identidad y entregarte a la pieza.'

Tengan muy presente la parte de eliminar el ego, por que pronto veremos que la protagonista definitivamente no se ha deshecho del suyo, sino que rige muchas de sus conductas, vinculaciones y decisiones a lo largo de la película. Decisiones que no hacen más que acelerar la avalancha de intrigas, sospechas y denuncias que arruinan su carrera para siempre. 

Uno de los grandes detonantes de la gran catástrofe de Lydia, fueron sus dos becarias: Francesca Lentini (Noemie Merlant) y Krista Taylor, ambas también alumnas de la directora. Sin embargo, no veremos durante la película a Krista. Sabemos que existe por que ha muerto por su propia mano, y todo apunta a que Lydia tuvo cierta responsabilidad en ello. Algo que en seguida queremos racionalizar, poniéndonos en la piel de la autoengañada maestro. 'Era una persona inestable', 'otros factores', 'la presión académica puede agravar padecimientos mentales'... 

Pero la trama nos brinda una desagradablemente concisa pista de las conductas implícitas de Tàr con la llegada de Olga Metkina (Sophie Kauer), la nueva cellista del conservatorio. Olga me pareció un personaje muy interesante, por que en el conglomerado de sus características, resaltan muchas cosas que las personas más conservadoras en el medio odian no sólo de las mujeres en la música, sino muy específicamente de las mujeres de mi generación en el ámbito de la música 'elevada' o 'culta'. 

Olga no ingresó a un conservatorio a la edad de 5 años, como se suele o solía recomendar a quienes quisiesen ser músicos profesionales. Tampoco tuvo su epifanía musical a través de un concierto en vivo o un disco de vinilo del sello Deutsche Grammophon, sino por un video de YouTube a los 13 años y no intenta parecer seria, ni en su forma de interactuar con la gente ni en su forma de vestir. Sus esquemas de colores y sus atuendos más llamativos y alternativos la hacen destacarse del resto de los muy formalmente vestidos miembros de la filarmónica. Y ¡sorpresa! ninguna de estas características anula el hecho de que es una instrumentista sumamente talentosa, que muy pronto llama mucho la atención de la directora.

A partir del trato preferencial que Lydia empieza a tener por Olga, nuestras sospechas de difuminan por completo. Es evidente que todas las relaciones y vinculaciones de la directora, son más que nada jugadas estratégicas para poder mantenerse en una posición de poder. Incluso la relación con su esposa Sharon, más que parecer un vínculo erótico-afectivo, luce como una jugada muy bien planeada para garantizar su estadía permanente en Berlin.

Sin embargo, con la muerte de Krista Taylor, estos secretos, juegos y dinámicas empiezan a salir a la luz. Desencadenando protestas contra el conservatorio, escarmiento público en redes sociales y el latente declive en el prestigio y la carrera de Tàr. Incluso Olga parece ser parte de la conspiración, cuando vemos las conversaciones de su celular.

Entonces, acaso hay una fábula? Una lección que aprender para que no suframos el mismo destino que la anti-heroína de la película? Sí y no. La película no pretende aleccionarnos de cómo ser buenos músicos, ni buenas personas. Sino que expone la situación desde distintos ángulos. Y expone sobretodo, como la responsabilidad de mantener vigente un sistema con dinámicas de poder insanas que solapan abusos a la larga, es de todos nosotros, y que el poder cambia a las personas, independientemente de su posición social, económica o su género. No sólo en un ambiente de estudiantes, sino en ámbitos laborales musicales.

Mucha gente que ve la cinta se pregunta '¿Por qué escribirían sobre una mujer como esta?'. Personalmente he visto este comentario con otras películas como 'Not Okay' de Quinn Shepard. Y es que estos papeles -de personas déspotas y ególatras que llevan a límite el utilitarismo relacional- son todavía más socialmente aceptados cuando son hombres, no sólo en la gran pantalla, sino también en la vida cotidiana y son vistos como personas con 'preferencias' o 'humor pesado'. Ahora bien, qué debemos hacer con estas personas? Desterrarlas? Fusilarlas? Cuando cancelamos o reubicamos a alguien, no le estamos borrando del mapa, sólo le estamos mandando a seguir coexistiendo en otros ambientes [C. Morrigan].

La película no intenta advertirnos de los peligros de la cancelación, sólo nos dice que existe, y sucede fácilmente (más con las herramientas que nos brindan las redes). Nos invita más bien a preguntarnos: ¿Qué hacemos con las personas y el abuso de poder? ¿Debemos elegir el arte que consumimos por favorecer a quien creemos que lo merece como individuo? ¿Debemos permitir apertura a discursos y conductas que pueden a la larga dañar a un grupo determinado?

[larryland]

REVIEW: "A Quiet Place" at Tanglewood

REVIEW: “A Quiet Place” at Tanglewood

[cho-mingi]

why does my university symphony suck so bad lmao

[jerrylewis-thekid]

Jerry Lewis takes a break as he conducts the Tucson Symphony Jerry Lewis was not a stranger to Tucson. 

As the national chairman of the Muscular Dystrophy Association he came here several times and on at least two occasions to work with the Tucson Symphony Orchestra, first in 1991 and again in 1993. The first time was to lead the orchestra in Leonard Bernstein's Candide Overture, while performing in the Saguaro National Park West, among the cacti and the six snakes that had to be moved. They were there to videotape for that year's Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon to benefit the MDA. In the Star's story, the unusual scene was described as having "a backdrop of towering saguaro cacti and craggy outcroppings." The recording equipment was hidden beneath dried cactus and the video cameras were stationed overhead on hydraulic lifts. The purpose of the project was to produce a unique musical moment for the telethon and also capture the natural beauty that surrounds the city.  A couple years later Lewis returned to conduct the TSO in a less prickly setting, at the University of Arizona Centennial Hall. During several numbers Lewis conducted the orchestra, which also featured vocalist Maureen McGovern and jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis. In the Star's article Lewis said, "Tucson," which at the time was the national headquarters for the MDA, "served our purpose best of anywhere. Not only the climate and the whole ambience of Tucson, but the community of Tucson was so open to us, so warm." "We have such an honest, genuine feeling of affection for this city," Lewis said. He continued saying, the concert was not merely an MDA benefit, it was a thank you to Tucson.  Source (X)

[byneddiedingo]

Some Came Running (Vincente Minnelli, 1958) Cast: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Shirley MacLaine, Martha Hyer, Arthur Kennedy, Nancy Gates, Leora Dana, Betty Lou Keim, Larry Gates. Screenplay: John Patrick, Arthur Sheekman, based on a novel by James Jones. Cinematography: William H. Daniels. Art direction: William A. Horning, Urie McCleary. Film editing: Adrienne Fazan. Music: Elmer Bernstein. Like Douglas Sirk, Vincente Minnelli had a special touch with the movie melodrama, taking its often objectively silly elements seriously enough that you can actually believe in them. The James Jones novel on which the screenplay for Some Came Running was based is one of those semi-autobiographical books that writers seem to need to get out of their systems, but adapting it meant challenging the Production Code strictures, particularly on sex, at almost every turn. So the characters in the film are only as believable as the actors can make them. There's a lot of shorthand in the film about the relationships between Dave Hirsh (Frank Sinatra) and the two women in his life, the "schoolteacher" Gwen French (Martha Hyer) and the "floozie" Ginnie Moorehead (Shirley MacLaine). It's not immediately clear why Dave falls in love so swiftly with Gwen, who seems to want to mentor him as a writer more than she does to sleep with him, or why he stays connected with the illiterate and rattle-brained Ginnie, to the extent of marrying her on the rebound from Gwen. Fortunately, all three actors are adept at pulling characters out of the script, where they don't seem to have been fully written. Dean Martin was just beginning to show that he could act -- Howard Hawks would complete the process the following year with Rio Bravo -- and Minnelli helped give his career a boost by casting him as the alcoholic gambler Bama Dillert. And Arthur Kennedy completes the ensemble as Dave's go-getter older brother, Frank. Minnelli makes the most of these colorful performers, to the extent that MacLaine, Kennedy, and Hyer all received Oscar nominations. But he's also adept, as he would show in 1960 with Home From the Hill, at taking a real small town location and bringing it to full life, especially in the climactic scene that takes place in the carnival celebrating the town's centennial. The location gives the film a substance and reality that the script never quite supplies.

[rjsavagesayswhat]

JUNK FOOD: The Rite Stuff

As much as I’d like to embrace the season and lean into my “spring awakening,” it doesn’t come naturally. I like blooming flowers and burbling songbirds as much as the next guy, but I can’t help thinking about the violence and trauma that comes with real transformation: the new is often only possible at the expense of the old. The buds on the trees are encouraging, but because they fill in the starkly bare branches left vacant by the demise of their leafy ancestors. The chirp of new chicks is sweet, but belies the extreme trauma of hatching from an egg. So, yes, I like spring, but I guess it feels inappropriate to focus on the bright without considering the dark.

Which is probably why my preferred brand of springtime acknowledgement aligns so neatly with that of Disney’s 1940 Fantasia. Specifically, “The Rite of Spring” segment, which pairs Stravinsky’s challenging score with an animated highlight reel of prehistoric life on earth. The music has a strange sound – like early traditional songs mashed with the blares and bells of (early 20th c.) modern technology – but is married with sequences about the earliest life on earth, and all the roiling violence that it wrought. Sure, I mean the T-Rex, but also the gushing lava and jutting tectonics and boiling seas that uniquely combined into a primordial soup capable of supporting organic life.

The premiere of Stravinsky’s “Rite” is itself an infamous example of the combustion that can come with making space for the new. When the piece was originally performed as a ballet in 1913 the audience was so crazed by the newness of the sound that they rioted in the theatre. Literally. “Rite” had a violent, uncooperative sound but ushered in a new age in music; Leonard Bernstein later dubbed it “The most important piece of music of the 20th century.”

Likewise, Disney’s treatment of “The Rite of Spring” highlighted the indiscriminate destruction that facilitates real transformation. The evolution of the creatures on screen is mesmerizing and enchanting, but their progress is only possible through violence and destruction. And, spoiler alert: the dinosaurs all die.

I think I return to Fantasia’s dinosaurs time and again because the segment captures the awesome march from the cosmos to the cretaceous, without glossing over evolution’s inherent destruction. And the bombastic dissonance of Stravinsky’s “Rite” remains my springtime soundtrack. I usually hum along (even though it’s difficult) because I am moved with gratitude that at least I didn’t have to claw my way out of an egg to sing my song.

Happy Spring, y’all. (Here's an historic recreation of the "Rite" premiere, performed on its centennial in 2013.)

[sergeantmiller]

Here's pictures of some far-right White Supremacist mass killers.

Brenton Harrison Tarrant

Killed 51 Muslim worshippers at 2 different mosques.

John T. Earnest

Killed 1 woman & Injured Several others at the Chabad of Poway Synagogue.

Patrick Wood Crusius

Killed 22 People at a Walmart in El Paso, TX.

Stephen Baillet

Attempted to shoot up a Synagogue in Halle, Germany. He would kill 2 others in 2 different locations.

Claude Sinké

Injured 2 Muslim Worshippers in a Mosque in Bayonne,France.

Franz Fuchs

Murdered 4 Romani & injured 15 others in a series of bombings from 1993-1995 in Austria.

Eric Rudolph

Responsible for the Bombing of the Centennial Olypic Park in Atlanta, GA.The bombing itself killed one person, another victim had a heart attack & had died.He was also responsible for a bombing of an Abortion Clinic & a Lesbian Bar that injured 5.In Birmingham,AL, he was also Responsible for a bombing of a Abortion Clinic that killed a Police Officer.

Tobias R.

Kills 9 people at 2 different Hookah Bars in Haunu, Germany. He would later kill his mother then himself at his home.

James Harris Jackson

Killed one black man named Timothy Caughman in NYC.

James Alex Fields Jr.

Killed one, injured 19 after he drove his car into a crowd of protesters at the Unite The Right rally in Charolettesville, VA.

Richard Baumhammers

Shot & killed 5 people at different locations throughout the Pittsburgh Area.

Jeremy Christian

Killed 2 men who tried to stop Christian from verbally harassing 2 Muslim girls on a MAX Lightrail train in Portland, OR.

Philip Manshaus

After Killing his Chinese Step-Sister, he attempted to shoot up a Mosque. He failed after Mohammad Rafiq pinned Manshaus down & struggled to keep him down.

Dylann Roof

Killed 9 at a AME Church in Charleston, SC.Roof attempted to kill himself, but failed. Roof was captured the Next day in Shelby, NC.

Timothy James McVeigh & Terry Nichols

Committing the worst Domestic terror attack on U.S. Soil on April, 19 1995.

They filled a rented Ryder Truck with explosives & bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Building in OKC, OK. Killing 168 People.

Samuel Woodward

Killed Blaze Bernstein , a gay Jewish man, by stabbing him multiple times.

Anders Behring Breivik

Killed 77 total in a terrorist attack in Oslo & Utoya Island.A Van bomb killed 8 in Oslo, as he shot & killed 69 in Utoya.

Wade Michael Page

Killed 6 in a sikh temple in Wisconsin.

Richard Poplawski

Killed 3 cops in Pittsburgh, PA.

Luca Traini

Wounded 6 Nigerian immigrants in Italy.

Robert Gregory Bowers

Killed 11 Worshippers at the Tree Of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh, PA.

Scott Paul Beierle

Killed 2 women at a Yoga Studio In Tallahassee, FL.

Alexandre Bissonnette

Killed 6 at a Mosque in Quebec, Canada.

NOTE: I know, some either killed 1 or injured a few, but I included them in because they have influenced a few other people that are in the college.

(source: reddit)

[brillianttimbre]

We are living through a difficult time. We could all use something beautiful. Hence. . .

“Maria,” from “West Side Story.”  Music by Leonard Bernstein, Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim

Hugh Panaro and the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra.  “Bernstein Centennial Celebration,” 12 November 2017, Heinz Hall, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

[theresabookforthat]

Classical Music Month!

Did you know September is Classical Music Month? The commemoration was first proclaimed by President Clinton in 1994 to celebrate this “unifying force in our world.”  Having conducted a search for the best titles on classical composers and musicians, we invite you to discover an excellent ensemble for your reading and listening pleasure! (You can read Clinton’s entire, rhapsodic, proclamation here).  

 FOR THE LOVE OF MUSIC: A CONDUCTOR’S GUIDE TO THE ART OF LISTENING by John Mauceri

With a lifetime of experience, profound knowledge and understanding, and heartwarming appreciation, an internationally celebrated conductor and teacher answers the questions: Why should I listen to classical music? How can I get the most from the listening experience?

SCHUMANN: THE FACES AND THE MASKS by Judith Chernaik

A groundbreaking biography of Robert Schumann that promises to be the definitive account: drawing on previously unpublished primary sources, Judith Chernaik tells Schumann’s wrenching life story with the rigor of a scholar and the flair of a novelist.

LEONARD BERNSTEIN 100: THE MASTERS PHOTOGRAPH THE MAESTRO Foreword by Jamie Bernstein, Steve J. Sherman

Leonard Bernstein is internationally renowned as one of the greatest conductors, composers, musical inspirations, and creative minds of our time. He is also legendary for his extreme passion, raw charisma, and powerful convictions, with a brash, insatiable lust for life that became etched more clearly into the lines of his face with each passing year. To mark his centennial, curator and photographer Steve J. Sherman and Jamie Bernstein, Lenny’s eldest daughter, published this remarkable collection of 100 iconic images, which tell the Maestro’s life story through the unique vantage point of these image-makers and their revelatory (and sometimes never-before-seen) photographs.

THE INDISPENSABLE COMPOSERS: A PERSONAL GUIDE by Anthony Tommasini

An exploration into the question of greatness from the Chief Classical Music Critic of the New York Times. To make his case, Tommasini draws on elements of biography, the anxiety of influence, the composer’s relationships with colleagues, and shifting attitudes toward a composer’s work over time.

MAESTROS AND THEIR MUSIC: THE ART AND ALCHEMY OF CONDUCTING by John Mauceri

An exuberant, accessible, beautifully illustrated look at the art and craft of conducting, from one of our most celebrated conductors.

DEBUSSY: A PAINTER IN SOUND by Stephen Walsh

Here, Stephen Walsh, acclaimed author of Stravinsky, chronicles both the composer himself and the unique moment in European history that bore him. Walsh’s engagingly original approach is to enrich a lively biography with analyses of Debussy’s music: from his first daring breaks with the rules as a Conservatoire student to his achievements as the greatest French composer of his time.

THE CLASSICAL MUSIC BOOK: BIG IDEAS SIMPLY EXPLAINED by DK

From early devotional works to the great symphonies of the Classical and Romantic eras and the diverse and often challenging works of the modern era, The Classical Music Book looks at more than 90 key pieces of music and explores the salient themes and ideas behind each of them.

GONE: A GIRL, A VIOLIN, A LIFE UNSTRUNG by Min Kym

The spellbinding memoir of a violin virtuoso who loses the instrument that had defined her both on stage and off — and who discovers, beyond the violin, the music of her own voice

BACH’S GOLDBERG VARIATIONS by Anna Harwell Celenza, Joann E. Kitchel

Johann Sebastian Bach created some of the most significant music in history, including A Keyboard Practice Consisting of an Aria with Thirty Variations for the Harpsichord—commonly known as the Goldberg Variations. Goldberg is Johann Gottlieb Goldberg, a young musician in the court of Count Keyserlingk, a Russian ambassador living in Dresden. It isn’t known for certain why Bach’s difficult composition was named for the young man, but Anna Harwell Celenza gives us one possible story based on extensive research.

BERLIOZ THE BEAR by Jan Brett

What’s that strange buzz coming from the double bass? Berlioz has no time to investigate, because he and his bear orchestra are due at the gala ball in the village square at eight. But Berlioz is so worried about his buzzing bass that he steers the mule and his bandwagon full of magicians into a hole in the road and gets stuck.

 For more on these titles visit the collection Classical Music Month

[navigatethestream]

Although Black disabled people experience some of the same treatment of Black non-disabled people in many ways like lynching Emmitt Till (who had a speech impairment/stuttering) and Jessie Washington (who had a devolpmental disability) but in other ways their disability disappeared in history as we tell these stories. It was writtene that Emmitt Till’s mother taugh her son to whistle to deal with his stuttering and in Patricia Bernstein’s book, The First Waco Horror: The Lynching of Jesse Washington and the Rise of the NAACP (Centennial Series of the Association of Former Students Texas A & M University) taught me that Jesse Washington had a devolmental disability what was called back then mental retardation.   Also, Black disabled people were separated from non-disabled Blacks like the segregated schools in the Jim Crow South. How many Black disabled people lived and worked in freak shows and circus separating them from family and the Black community.?  In this history of separation came ways of surviving however, many times that meant exploiting or using their disability to make money or learning an art like singing, playing an instrument or even making things by hand and displaying their art, music and even body for public for donations. I’m not arguing that this separation was a good thing and helped produced art and music but connecting how Black disabled people had to live and the deeper question for today is; are Black disabled and non-disabled people still separated? Does the commonality in experiencing almost the same oppression from police brutality to the school to prison pipeline impact us?  My answer is yes and no.  Yes, Black disabled people experience almost the same racist injustices as our fellow Black non-disabled brothers and sisters however, because of our disability the injustices are compounded.

Separation From The Black Community Since Slavery:  Black Disabled Folks by Leroy Moore

[idahogreys]

Footlight brooklyn

#Footlight brooklyn movie#

#Footlight brooklyn full#

There are fascinating songs in this and it is highly recommended. While it was liked by many, it was not a typical Broadway musical as it was about the Americans’ Admiral Perry going to Japan. Pacific Overtures by Sondheim tried out at the Colonial in Boston and came into New York. There are a few nice songs but it was not Broadway worthy. Music Is, by Richard Adler, directed by George Abbot, started in Seattle and then played the Kennedy Center but closed quickly when it arrived in New York City. It closed opening night on Broadway but the version we have was of an early part of the tour and is quite interesting! The revised lyrics were written by Charles Burr and Forman Brown. It had a long tour because of Yul Brynner’s popularity but in California the show took a terrible wrong turn and was made into a farce… an unfunny farce. Home Sweet Homer by Mitch Leigh originally had lyrics by Eric Siegel and was called Odyssey (both titles, of course, alluding to Homer’s Odyssey).

#Footlight brooklyn full#

We sell the studio cast of the full original score. It was revised and remounted at the Goodspeed Opera House in 1976 but only played four performances then transferred to New York. Going Up by Louis Hirsch originally had a moderate run in 1919. It moved to Broadway and had a healthy run and was even done in London after that. I very much liked the Paul Sorvino version and made it into my first Broadway cast album which I am very proud of.īubbling Brown Sugar was a black revue originating from Rosetta LeNoire at her Harlem based amas repertory. Carol Demas was replaced by Patti LuPone and six months later Paul Sorvino replaced Topol. Topol did not want to keep the story true to the original Baker’s Wife plot because he felt no woman would ever leave him for a younger man.

#Footlight brooklyn movie#

Producer David Merrick was the last person who would give an actor ownership of his show so Chaim Topol, from the movie Fiddler on the Roof, was chosen. A part was originally offered to Zero Mostel, who said he would only do it if he owned a part of the show. The Baker’s Wife was a Stephen Schwartz and Joseph Stein show. It changed songs, directors, and even story lines… eventually limping into the Mark Hellinger Theatre and only lasting 7 performances. There were many problems in telling the story of being backstairs at the White House with the president and first ladies. 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue – this Leonard Bernstein and Alan Jay Lerner musical made to celebrate the centennial was a good idea but never really came together.

[tabloidtoc]

TV Guide, December 24-January 6

Cover: The Best Shows of the Year -- Ted Danson and Kristen Bell of The Good Place

Page 2: Contents

Page 3: Ask Matt Roush -- The Middles spinoff with Eden Sher, Bobby Bones and Dancing with the Stars, Your Feedback -- Law & Order: SVU, The Guest Book, Hinterland, Chicago Fire

Page 5: Who should win the Golden Globes

Page 6: First Look -- Billy Eichner and Fred Savage of Friends from College

Page 8: Travel -- Kellee Edwards on Mysterious Islands, Caribbean Life, Mediterranean Life, Bahamas Life

Page 10: America’s Most Watched 25 Top Shows, For the Record, Kathie Lee Gifford leaving Today

Page 12: Tastemakers --Anne Burrell of Worst Cooks in America -- please try a plant-based diet in the new year

Page 14: Seth MacFarlane and Adrianne Palicki of The Orville

Page 16: Streaming Made Easy

Page 20: The Roush Review -- Top 10 of 2018 -- The Americans, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel

Page 21: Killing Eve, The Kominsky Method, Bodyguard

Page 22: The Good Place and Forever, Barry, The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story

Page 23: Pose, One Day at a Time, More Staff Picks -- Atlanta, Better Call Saul, The Handmaid’s Tale, The Haunting of Hill House, Succession, Superstore

Page 25: What’s Worth Watching -- December 24-30, Extreme Cake Makers

Page 26: Monday, December 24 -- Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfram, Live with Kelly and Ryan, Days of Our Lives, Holiday Baking Championship, Christmas Eve Mass, Beauty and the Beast, NBA Basketball

Page 27: Tuesday, December 25 -- Erin Krakow on When Calls the Heart: The Greatest Christmas Blessing, Call the Midwife Holiday Special, Cowboys for Christmas

Page 28: Wednesday, December 26 -- The 41st Annual Kennedy Center Honors, South Park, Nova: Apollo’s Daring Mission, Vikings

Page 29: Thursday, December 27 -- Happy New Year, Charlie Brown!, I Feel Bad, Top Chef, NBA Basketball, Friday, December 28 -- Midnight, Texas, Z Nation, Great Performances: The Bernstein Centennial Celebration at Tanglewood, Extreme Love

Page 30: Saturday, December 29 -- The Fast and the Furious marathon, The Domestics, Patient Zero, Life of the Party, College Football, Brunch Weekend, American Gods

Page 31: Sunday, December 30 -- 10 highlights of The Twilight Zone marathon

Page 47: Stream It!

Page 48: Netflix -- Elisha Cuthbert on The Ranch, Watership Down, Get Shorty

Page 49: Diablero, Dogs, Alexa & Katie

Page 50: John Grisham on The Innocent Man

Page 52: Hulu -- The new Christmas classics -- Black-ish, The Goldbergs, Difficult People, The Mindy Project, 30 Rock

Page 53: Prime Video -- The Romanoffs

Page 54: New Movies, Leaving Soon

Page 57: What’s Worth Watching -- December 31-January 6, The Blacklist

Page 58: Monday, December 31 -- Chrissy Teigen on NBC’s New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Eve Live with Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen, Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest 2019, Fox’s New Year’s Eve with Steve Harvey: Live from Times Square, Marathons -- Firefly, Aerial America, Reno 911

Page 59: Tuesday, January 1 -- Love, Gilda, 130th Rose Parade, Doctor Who, Bad Chad Customs, NHL Winter Classic, college football

Page 60: Wednesday, January 2 -- The Masked Singer, Mythbusters Jr., Gordon Ramsay’s 24 Hours to Hell and Back, grown-ish, Project Runway All Stars, Criminal Minds

Page 61: Thursday, January 3 -- The Titan Games, Gotham, Surviving R. Kelly, 60 Days In

Page 62: Friday, January 4 -- The Hollywood Walk of Fame Honors, Tom Hanks triple feature, Saturday, January 5 -- A Quiet Place, Super Troopers 2, SuperFly, Molly’s Game

Page 63: Sunday, January 6 -- Catherine Zeta-Jones on Queen America, America’s Funniest Home Videos, The 76th Annual Golden Globe Awards, Down a Dark Hall

Page 80: Cheers & Jeers 2018 -- cheers to the reboots, fandoms, SNL vets, actresses who set the bar, jeers to big projects, ignoring the smaller shows, HBO for Game of Thrones waiting game

[larryland]

by Fred Baumgarten

The best way to appreciate Leonard Bernstein’s 1983 opera, A Quiet Place, is through the music. At Tanglewood last week, this infrequently performed work was given a spirited defense by the Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra and Vocal Fellows under the baton of Stefan Asbury, in a 2013 version with reduced orchestration. Legendary Bernstein protégé Michael Tilson Thomas was in the audience, a measure of the significance of the production.

Musically, the Tanglewood performance was a rousing success. The orchestra performed beautifully, and the singers were uniformly strong. Though often far less accessible than Bernstein’s beloved musical pieces such as West Side Story and Candide, the score to A Quiet Place reveals a composer at the height of mastery and maturity, a superb craftsman, confident in lyrical and dissonant styles alike. As theater, A Quiet Place is deeply problematic, and this Spartan production — a set consisting of some risers, chairs, and projection screens — did little to overcome its flaws.

The opera was written in collaboration with the young librettist Stephen Wadsworth, after a rather pronounced dry spell in the late seventies and early eighties, and thirty-two years after Bernstein’s successful Trouble in Tahiti, to which A Quiet Place is a kind of sequel. “Tahiti” is a spare and darkly humorous portrait of postwar consumerist America. An all-American, outwardly successful couple, Sam and Dinah, confront the emptiness of their lives and marriage, finding refuge in a fictional fantasy movie, called “Trouble in Tahiti.” Along the way, a number of characters are referred to but never seen, including a son, Junior, Dinah’s psychiatrist, and Sam’s business partners.

A Quiet Place joins Trouble in Tahiti’s Sam thirty years later, when Dinah has died in a horrific car accident (illustrated, as much in the production, by a desultory projection). At her funeral, we are introduced to Junior, a daughter, Dede, and her husband Francois, who is also Junior’s not-too-secret lover, along with the unseen minor characters from “Tahiti.”

The family is a rogue’s gallery of 1980s dysfunction, and Wadsworth, presumably with Bernstein’s blessing, layered the plot with intimations of madness, incest, homophobia, psychological intrigue and just plain dyspepsia. The libretto plods along with enigmatic pronouncements (“Cake and friends we choose with care”; “Lost time is never found”; etc.) and references to “Tahiti.” The title phrase, “a quiet place,” is from Dinah’s aria in the earlier work, where she dreams of an escape from her unhappy life. The dialogue is peppered with nonsense and Godot-like repetitions.

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Contrast this with Trouble in Tahiti’s lithe libretto and you begin to see the problem with A Quiet Place: It occupies an entirely different headspace from its predecessor, and the attempt to bridge the chasm feels forced. Small wonder that attempts were made to fold Trouble in Tahiti into A Quiet Place as a second-act flashback, in order to make more sense of the story, but those versions have largely been abandoned.

Despite the family machinations, as four alienated and disturbed people try to find a way forward, more visceral drama takes place in the Bernstein score – in his soul? – than in the opera. Essentially, how could Lenny not be Lenny? A man of deep passions and longing, self-doubt and grandiosity, Bernstein connected as a composer when he gave reign to his deepest feelings. It was difficult not to experience A Quiet Place as a struggle with himself.

The music is among the most difficult Bernstein ever wrote, frequently jagged and atonal, especially in the prologue and first act. As precise and technically brilliant as it is, it sounds like a million other composers of the last thirty-five years. One strains to hear a trace of Lenny.

Suddenly, as the opera progresses, the music loosens up and Bernstein reaches a sublime level of music-making. In particular, the orchestral interludes that close the second act and open the third are deeply affecting, while holding in check any excesses and retaining the contemporary musical vocabulary of the time. Several of the arias are haunting, too.

In the end, Lenny wins. A Quiet Place proves that authentic voice of Bernstein could not be held back, and it is what made the experience of hearing it special.

A Quiet Place, Opera in three acts. Music by Leonard Bernstein. Libretto by Stephen Wadsworth. 2013 adaptation with chamber orchestra. Reduced orchestration by Garth Edwin Sunderland. Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra, Stefan Asbury, conductor. Tanglewood Music Center Vocal Fellows: Elaine Daiber, soprano (Dede), Daniel McGrew, tenor (Francois), Dominik Belavy, baritone (Junior), Ryne Cherry, baritone (Sam), Olivia Cosio, mezzo-soprano (Susie), Kelly Newberry, mezzo-soprano (Mrs. Doc), Eric Finbarr Carey, tenor (Funeral Director), Alex Longnecker, tenor (Analyst), Edward Vogel, baritone (Doc), Thomas West, baritone (Bill), Robin Steitz, soprano (Mourner), Rebecca Printz, mezzo-soprano (Mourner), Chance Jonas-O’Toole, tenor (Mourner), William Socolof, bass-baritone (Mourner). Peter Kazaras, stage director, Adam Larsen, video designer, Mary Lauve, costume designer, Melissa Tosto, assistant stage director and stage manager. Performed Aug. 9 at Florence Gould Auditorium, Ozawa Hall, Tanglewood Music Center, 297 West St., Lenox, MA. Tickets for the 2018 Tanglewood Music Festival, celebrating the Bernstein Centennial, are available at www.tanglewood.org or SymphonyCharge, (888) 266-1200.

REVIEW: “A Quiet Place” at Tanglewood by Fred Baumgarten The best way to appreciate Leonard Bernstein’s 1983 opera, A Quiet Place, is through the music.

[sonateharder]

(via New York Today: A Leonard Bernstein Centennial - The New York Times)

[white-throated-packrat]

Vintage Movie Buff: “On the Town”

I went to see On The Town today, as the local arthouse is celebrating Leonard Bernstein’s centennial.

It was a lot of fun, though the museum dance sequence did not age well -- the dancing itself was fine, but the costuming and drums were pretty racist.

Otoh, it was quite hilarious to see how the two sailors not played by Gene Kelly (meaning Jules Munshin and Frank Sinatra (playing a naive young sailor, wtf?)) were basically scooped up by their respective girls and probably ridden like ponies in the several hours before they met up at the Empire State Building.

I mean, when Claire (who is studying anthropology to get over her obsession with men; ‘is it working?’ ‘almost’) dips Ozzie into a kiss, that’s when the others show up to find them in a clinch, and Hildy the cab driver (who insisted Sinatra’s Chip sit next to her before she’d drive the others around) first line of dialogue to Claire is:

“Dr. Kinsey, I presume?”

This movie came out in 1949. Kinsey published Sexual Behavior in the Human Male in 1948. No one in the original audience would have missed that joke.

Also, Claire first notices Ozzie because he’s standing next to a caveman reconstruction, and looks quite like it. So she spends the rest of the movie calling him ‘Specimen’ and he seems quite all right with it.

One thing I love about Gene Kelly movies (besides the singing and the amazing dancing) is that while his characters tend to have a hard edge to them, they are never dicks to women. Even though Gabe winds up with Hildy’s disaster of a roommate for a while, he turns her down gently at the end of the night *and* gives her a pep talk about her finding the right guy eventually. And when it turns out the girl he has been pursuing all day is not the high-society girl he thought she was, but an aspiring dancer making ends met at as a ‘cooch dancer’ at Coney Island he really doesn’t care, because he likes her for her.