Archives for December 31, 2003

As you know, I’m headed for Chicago tomorrow via an Amtrak sleeper, there to see plays for The Wall Street Journal and revel in the company of Our Girl in Chicago, whom I’ve known and adored for years and years, even though she insists on living in another city, damn her. I probably won’t be posting again until I get where I’m going. OGIC has been fearfully busy with her day job, which is why you haven’t heard from her lately, but I’m hoping that she’ll take up some of the slack in my temporary absence. Once I arrive at her place on Friday, I expect we’ll have at least a few amusing things to report, but don’t be surprised if nothing new turns up in this space for the next couple of days.

To all those who read us regularly, I send our affectionate and appreciative regards. Much to my surprise, “About Last Night” has become one of the most widely read arts blogs in the world. You have made us so. We thank you most humbly, and we promise to do our best to be as readable in 2004 as we were in 2003.

May the New Year bring you joy and love. May it bring us all peace. And should it fail on either count, may you find comfort in the blessed world of art.

Next year in Chicago!

“Nobody has suffered more from low spirits than I have done–so I feel for you. 1st. Live as well as you dare. 2nd. Go into the shower-bath with a small quantity of water at a temperature low enough to give you a slight sensation of cold, 75 degrees or 80 degrees. 3rd. Amusing books. 4th. Short views of human life–not further than dinner or tea. 5th. Be as busy as you can. 6th. See as much as you can of those friends who respect and like you. 8. Make no secret of low spirits to your friends, but talk of them freely–they are always worse for dignified concealment. 9th. Attend to the effects tea and coffee produce upon you. 10th. Compare your lot with that of other people. 11th. Don’t expect too much from human life–a sorry business at the best. 12th. Avoid poetry, dramatic representations (except comedy), music, serious novels, melancholy sentimental people, and everything likely to excite feeling or emotion not ending in active benevolence. 13th. Do good, and endeavour to please everybody of every degree. 14th. Be as much as you can in the open air without fatigue. 15th. Make the room where you commonly sit, gay and pleasant. 16th. Struggle by little and little against idleness. 17th. Don’t be too severe upon yourself, or underrate yourself, but do yourself justice. 18th. Keep good blazing fires. 19th. Be firm and constant in the exercise of rational religion.”

Sydney Smith, letter to Lady Georgiana Morpeth (1820)

A reader writes:

A small request, hmmm? Howzabout, on 12/31, you (pretty please with sugar on top) mention Milstein on the blog? Something like: “Today is the 100th birthday of the greatest violinist of the 20th century – Nathan Milstein. So, get out there and buy one of his albums today!” You could also put in a plug for your upcoming article on Milstein and Kaufman (heh, heh).

I’m delighted to oblige. The “Milstein” in question is Nathan Milstein, whose name is now remembered mainly by aging violin connoisseurs–Jascha Heifetz got much better press–but who was, if not the greatest violinist of the 20th century, certainly one of the half-dozen greatest ever to make recordings. He never became as big a celebrity as Heifetz because his playing wasn’t as idiosyncratic: his tone was lean and focused, his interpretations poised and patrician, not exactly restrained but not exhibitionistic, either.

Such a musician isn’t for everyone, any more than a singer like Nicolai Gedda or a painter like Vuillard suits all tastes. Milstein lacked that slight touch of vulgarity–the common touch, if you like–that so often helps to bridge the emotional gap between artist and audience. Yet those who responded to his playing did so passionately, and there were more than enough of them for Milstein to have a long and satisfying career. He even wrote a wonderful memoir, From Russia to the West, in which he speaks with occasionally hair-raising candor about colleagues and contemporaries (among them his good friend George Balanchine, whose personality Milstein evokes with remarkable vividness).

Milstein made a lot of records, and most of the best of them have been transferred to CD and are fairly easy to find. If you want to jump in head first, The Art of Nathan Milstein,
a budget-priced six-disc boxed set, contains a good-sized chunk of his working repertoire. If you’d rather start with a smaller taste, I recommend a CD that couples his early stereo recordings of the Tchaikovsky and Brahms concertos, available from amazon.com for the preposterously low price of $3.98. (Both performances are also included in The Art of Nathan Milstein.) You might also try his superb remake
of Bach’s six sonatas and partitas for unaccompanied violin–the best complete set ever recorded, as far as I’m concerned.

As my correspondent notes, I’m planning to publish an essay about Milstein and Louis Kaufman in Commentary some time in 2004. But why wait? At the very least, give that Tchaikovsky-Brahms CD a spin. I don’t promise to refund your money, but if you aren’t won over by Milstein’s soaring performance of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto, I’ll be amazed.