In 1942, Edith Ives, age 28, wrote her father a 1,700-word letter for his 68th birthday -- decades after Charles Ives had ceased composing. It read in part: "Dear Daddy, "You are so very modest and sweet Daddy, that I don't think you realize the full import of the words people use about you, 'A great man.' "Daddy, I have had a chance to see so many men lately -- fine fellows, and no doubt the cream of our generation. But I have never in all my life come across one who could measure up to the fine standard of life and living and you believe … [Read more...]
Rachmaninoff in Texas
July 6, 2011 by
In Twentieth Century Music, an admirable and much-used survey written in 1974, Eric Salzman devotes 13 pages to Stravinsky, 11 to Schoenberg, and 6 to Berg versus 2 for Ravel, 2 for Shostakovich, 1 for Sibelius, and 1 for Richard Strauss. To Sergei Rachmaninoff, he allots a single sentence, consigning him to the "older Romantic tradition" of Russian music. Today, 37 years later, Rachmaninoff is an expanding twenty-first century presence. Shunned by modernists for deficits in originality and influence, he is newly admired alongside other … [Read more...]
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