"TAKING ON THE VIENNA PHILHARMONIC"

Here's something I wrote for the highbrows, who will probably disagree: "The Vienna Philharmonic's discriminatory practices against women and people of color cast such a pall over its considerable artistic achievement that the orchestra has turned out to be the shame, not the pride, of Western civilization.

In "Art Is Just an Excuse," the first of several seminal essays, American composer and musicologist William Osborne contended that the Vienna Philharmonic's belief in male supremacy -- rooted in a historical rationale of national identity and cultural purity -- was gender bias of the worst sort.

With this argument, Osborne ignited a global debate in cyberspace. Classical music fans from New Zealand to Costa Rica traded thousands of e-mail messages, for and against; some suggested further action (a boycott of Vienna Philharmonic recordings by music libraries, for instance), while others dismissed the concern over gender bias as kowtowing to political correctness. The intensity of the debate was as striking as it was widespread.

Read the entire story.

October 21, 2003 5:57 PM | | Comments (0)

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Me Elsewhere

'WILD SIDE' STILL ROCKS 

Nelson Algren was one of the great American authors of the 20th century, it is no exaggeration to say, and among the most neglected. Consider his underrated classic, "A Walk on the Wild Side." The title -- popularized and co-opted as an idiomatic phrase by Hollywood and Madison Avenue (institutions Algren loathed) -- is familiar to most anyone who speaks English or knows Lou Reed's lyrics. But the novel itself? Hardly.

BUSTER KEATON REVISITED 
Buster Keaton: Tempest in a Flat Hat is not a biography. "This book is merely a fan's notes," Edward McPherson writes in the introduction, although his publisher ignores the disclaimer and calls it a biography on the cover. In fact, the book is a bit of both, a difficult combination to bring off unless you're David Thomson, who set the standard with Rosebud, his penetrating rumination on the life and career of Orson Welles, which was nothing if not a distillation of every obsessive thought he ever had about the myth and the man and all his movies.
LAUREN BACALL, STILL SALTY AT 80 
When Lauren Bacall writes that her singing voice ranges "somewhere between B minus sharp and outer space," she's being candid and funny. It's not every stage star with two Tony Awards for best actress in a musical whose vocal talent offers so little promise. (OK, Harvey Fierstein excepted.) Still less would one admit it.
THE STARS ACCORDING TO BOGDANOVICH 
Peter Bogdanovich's superb collection of movie-star profiles and interviews -- a sequel to Who the Devil Made It, his interviews of top film directors -- begins with an affectionate tale about Orson Welles that reminds us just how intimate the author's connection to Hollywood's greatest has been. But contrary to what we've come to expect from dime-a-dozen celebrities and celebrity interviews not worth two cents, the tale avoids bromidic egotism and journalistic platitudes.
HERMAN WOUK'S LATEST 
It's hard to say which comes off worse in Herman Wouk's latest novel, his first in a decade: the U.S. Congress or the American press. "A Hole in Texas" offers the choice between two emblematic stereotypes: a red-faced opportunist who heads the House Armed Services Committee and a mustachioed investigative reporter for the Washington Post.
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This page contains a single entry by Douglas McLennan published on October 21, 2003 5:57 PM.

STRIKING THE GONG was the previous entry in this blog.

LEVY, PEARL AND THE JIHADISTS is the next entry in this blog.

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