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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for February 9, 2004

TT: Alas, not for sure

February 9, 2004 by Terry Teachout

I heard from two readers apropos of last week’s posting about the “Alas, not by Johannes Brahms” anecdote that inspired my “Alas, not by me” running head. I feared the story was apocryphal. Alex Ross of The New Yorker wrote to say not so:

“Leider nicht von Johannes Brahms” is unquestionably by Brahms! He wrote the words on the autograph fan of Alice Meyszner-Strauss, the composer’s stepdaughter, next to the first notes
of the Blue Danube.

I wrote back to ask for a source, but answer came there none (not yet, anyway). Shortly thereafter, though, I heard from Phil Wade, who blogs at Brandywine Books. Phil sent along an excerpt from the obituary of Brahms that ran in The Musical Times in 1897:

Brahms was incapable of any mean or underhanded action. He never indulged in newspaper controversy, but kept his views to himself. . . . The catholicity of his taste is sufficiently shown by his immense admiration for the genius of Strauss–in which he shared the views of Wagner and Von B

TT: Oh, the inequity of it

February 9, 2004 by Terry Teachout

A friend of mine who sings jazz for a living started painting for fun last month. Like most jazz singers who live in New York and its environs, she’s as poor as an unemployed churchmouse, so she asked if I’d like one of her canvases for a birthday gift. She delivered it on Thursday, a semi-abstract study in black, white, red, and three shades of blue, done with a palette knife

TT: Reading habits of highly neurotic people

February 9, 2004 by Terry Teachout

I’m reading a new biography of Glenn Gould, Kevin Bazzana’s Wondrous Strange: The Life and Art of Glenn Gould, which will be published in the U.S. this April by Oxford (it’s already out in Canada). Two passages caught my eye. The first is a list of Gould’s favorite books and writers:

He read classics of every denomination, from Plato to Thoreau, with a particular fondness for the Russians–Tolstoy and Dostoevsky in particular, but also Gogol, Goncharov, Turgenev. He was widely read in modern literature. His professed favourites included T.S. Eliot, Christopher Fry, and Franz Kafka, though he gave time to Borges, Camus, Capek, Gide, Hesse, Ionesco, Joyce, Malraux, Mishima, Santayana, Soseki, Strindberg, and much else….And at the head of the pack was Thomas Mann, especially Buddenbrooks, The Magic Mountain, Doctor Faustus, and the early story “Tonio Kr

TT: Almanac

February 9, 2004 by Terry Teachout

“These hinterlands are frequently, even compulsively, crossed at one time or another by almost all who practise the arts, usually in the need to earn a living; but the arts themselves, so it appeared to me as I considered the matter, by their ultimately sensual essence, are, in the long run, inimical to those who pursue power for its own sake. Conversely, the artist who traffics in power does so, if not necessarily disastrously, at least at considerable risk.”


Anthony Powell, A Buyer’s Market

TT: Look to the right

February 9, 2004 by Terry Teachout

No, this isn’t a political commentary: I just posted a new Top Five entry about “The Artist’s Eye: Wolf Kahn as Curator,” which went up at the National Academy of Design last Friday (my birthday!) for a two-month run. I’ll sound off at greater length about this show at a later date, but for the moment, take a peek at the right-hand column, click the link for more information, then go. Soon.

TT: Takeoff and climbout

February 9, 2004 by Terry Teachout

I made it through the whole weekend without posting anything (except for two almanac entries and a couple of links, which hardly counts). And yes, I definitely had a happy birthday. Among other things, three beautiful women sang “Happy Birthday” to me at Caf

TT: All is made manifest

February 9, 2004 by Terry Teachout

Courtesy of Byzantium’s Shores, a complete guide to taking (and faking) the Rorschach Test, including line reproductions of the actual inkblots used in the test.


What I want to know is how Mr. TMFTML interprets Plate VI.

TT: Alas, not by me

February 9, 2004 by Terry Teachout

More Lileks envy, this time inspired by his description of the slow movement of the Gershwin Concerto in F:

It’s the sort of music that used to say “New York” to people in Peoria. It has that “Chorine on the A train at 3 AM” feel – tired of being sophisticated, tired of the pose, tired of living up to its own dreams and expectations. But when the piano comes in it’s like Gershwin himself in a white suit entering an Automat painted by Edward Hopper – he pops the cigar out of his mouth and says why the long faces? This is New York, pal. Let’s go stand on the corner and watch it ramble past. Whaddya say? There’s no other city in America that can inspire these aural evocations – it’s not like anyone listens to Boston’s debut album and thinks I am so walking around Nob Hill right now. San Francisco to me is tied to the “Vertigo” score, but that’s a trick of fiction. Chicago has one song: one. It informs us that State Street is a Great Street, and we go along with the assertion because it rhymes. But all of Gershwin’s work is saturated with New York, and you know it. It’s the love that doesn’t have to say its name….

Read the whole thing here.

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Terry Teachout

Terry Teachout, who writes this blog, is the drama critic of The Wall Street Journal and the critic-at-large of Commentary. In addition to his Wall Street Journal drama column and his monthly essays … [Read More...]

About

About “About Last Night”

This is a blog about the arts in New York City and the rest of America, written by Terry Teachout. Terry is a critic, biographer, playwright, director, librettist, recovering musician, and inveterate blogger. In addition to theater, he writes here and elsewhere about all of the other arts--books, … [Read More...]

About My Plays and Opera Libretti

Billy and Me, my second play, received its world premiere on December 8, 2017, at Palm Beach Dramaworks in West Palm Beach, Fla. Satchmo at the Waldorf, my first play, closed off Broadway at the Westside Theatre on June 29, 2014, after 18 previews and 136 performances. That production was directed … [Read More...]

About My Podcast

Peter Marks, Elisabeth Vincentelli, and I are the panelists on “Three on the Aisle,” a bimonthly podcast from New York about theater in America. … [Read More...]

About My Books

My latest book is Duke: A Life of Duke Ellington, published in 2013 by Gotham Books in the U.S. and the Robson Press in England and now available in paperback. I have also written biographies of Louis Armstrong, George Balanchine, and H.L. Mencken, as well as a volume of my collected essays called A … [Read More...]

The Long Goodbye

To read all three installments of "The Long Goodbye," a multi-part posting about the experience of watching a parent die, go here. … [Read More...]

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