Archives for 2005

I doubt that many people under the age of forty remember Victor Borge, the comedian-pianist who died in 2000 at the miraculous age of ninety-one. He was a star for a very long time, first on radio, then TV, and Comedy in Music, his 1953 one-man show, ran for 849 consecutive performances on Broadway, a record which so far as I know remains unbroken. From there he went on the road and stayed there, giving sixty-odd concerts in the season before his death. Borge spent his old age basically doing Comedy in Music over and over again, which never seemed to bother anybody. I reviewed it twice for the Kansas City Star in the Seventies, and loved it both times. His Danish-accented delivery was so droll and his timing so devastatingly exact that even the most familiar of his charming classical-music spoofs somehow remained fresh, as you can see by watching any of the various videos of his act.

It’s hard to imagine that there was a time when so popular a comedian started out as a serious musician, much less one who became popular by making witty fun of the classics. Such a thing could only have happened in the days when America’s middlebrow culture was still intact and at the height of its influence. Back then the mass media, especially TV, went out of their way to introduce ordinary people to classical music and encouraged them to take it seriously–which didn’t mean they couldn’t laugh at it, too, as Borge proved whenever he sat down to play.

Borge’s act resembled a straight piano recital gone wrong. He’d start to play a familiar piece like Clair de lune or the “Moonlight” Sonata, then swerve off in some improbable-sounding direction, never getting around to finishing what he started. Yet he was clearly an accomplished pianist, though few of his latter-day fans had any idea how good he’d been (he studied with Egon Petri, Busoni’s greatest pupil). He usually made a point of playing a piece from start to finish toward the end of every concert, and I remember how delighted I was each time I heard him ripple through one of Ignaz Friedman’s bittersweet Viennese-waltz arrangements, which he played with a deceptively nonchalant old-world panache that never failed to leave me longing for an encore. Alas, he never obliged, and in later years I found myself wondering whether he’d really been quite so fine as my memory told me.

This story has a happy ending. I saw Borge on an old What’s My Line? episode the other day, which inspired me to look him up on the Web. Within a few clicks I’d made my way to a YouTube video consisting of unpublished recordings on which he tcan be heard playing (surprise) Friedman waltzes. Nowadays I know a whole lot more about golden-age piano playing now than I did back in the Seventies. Among other things, I’ve gotten to know Friedman’s own recordings, including his marvelously mercurial performances of three of the same waltz arrangements that Borge liked to play. Could he possibly have been up to the standard set by Friedman? I played the video with some trepidation, only to discover that my youthful ear hadn’t played me false: Borge, it turns out, could play with the utmost stylishness and sensitivity whenever it suited him to do so. You’ll never hear more elegant piano playing–not even from Ignaz Friedman himself.

I can’t tell you how glad I am to know that. It would have been too sad to find out long after the fact that Victor Borge’s playing had been no better than adequate. Life is hard enough without having to suffer purely gratuitous disillusionments. What joy, then, to discover that some things in this world really are as good as they’re cracked up to be.

– Commissioning fee paid to Martha Graham by the Alice M. Ditson Fund of Columbia University in 1946 for choreographing Cave of the Heart: $500

– The same amount in today’s dollars, courtesy of Inflation Calculator: $5,134.32

(Source: Barbara B. Heyman, Samuel Barber)

“The critic has to educate the public; the artist has to educate the critic.”

Oscar Wilde, letter to the editor of the Scots Observer (1890)

As you may recall, I took the last few days off, during which I tinkered extensively with the right-hand column (result: four fresh Top Five picks and several new blogs in the “Sites to See” module) and rummaged through my overflowing basketful of accumulated links. Here’s a snootful of what a bunch of other interesting people have been writing in recent weeks.

I really should do this more often….

– Ms. Critical Mass takes a cold-eyed look at the effects of the spread of adjunct teaching on academic freedom:

Almost half of all college teachers are entirely unprotected by the vaunted “academic freedom” that is so often touted as the philosophical mainstay of academic life. Add to the number of adjuncts the number of grad students and non-tenured assistant professors who are also teaching college courses in the absence of job security, and you get a picture of an academic world where very, very few people actually have the freedom to speak, write, research, and teach as they see fit (by “see fit” I don’t mean to defend those teachers who abuse their positions to proselytize, or who are incompetent in some way; I mean to defend those who might have legitimate reasons for pursuing unorthodox pedagogical methods and scholarly topics, as well as those whose politics might endanger their professional positions, if known). The picture is one of an academic world in which “academic freedom” is the privilege of the tenured few; it is thus not a “freedom” at all, but the special privilege of an increasingly small group of academic elites….

Read and ponder.

– Says Eric Berlin:

I’m no music critic. So I can’t write 500 words on why Fiona Apple’s song Extraordinary Machine is so wonderful. All I know is, it’s unlike anything else I’ve ever heard–certainly unlike any pop song–and you should go find a way to listen to it right now. That is all.

I could probably write those 500 words, but I won’t. I’ll just say that I must have listened to “Extraordinary Machine” (the song, not the album) at least a couple of dozen times since Ms. in the wings first drew it to my attention, bless her. It’s that different–and that cool.

– Mr. American Scene is in a true-confession mode when it comes to important books he’s never read. (Henry IV? Yikes!)

– Are drama critics getting dumber? Is that even possible? Michael Coveney thinks so:

Instead, too many theatre reviews do little more than describe something as “great” or “awful.” Even when the writing is stylish, reviews will often lack the knowledge that was taken for granted a generation ago. And increasingly, editors are sending in the critical clowns in the true joke spirit of contemporary journalism….

– Mr. Modern Kicks disagrees with me about Jed Perl’s New Art City: Manhattan at Mid-Century. I loved it, he didn’t. While he failed to change my mind, he made me think–without raising his voice. Smart, civilized disagreement…what a concept.

– Anna L. Conti waxes amusing on art gallery postcards:

The image on the postcard always sells. In my experience, this is not an absolute law but it happens more often than not. In the past, I’ve sometimes poked fun at the people who come in, give the entire show a 30-second glance and then say, “Where’s the one on the card?” And boy, are they upset if it’s sold already. At some of my shows, I’ve had people call as soon as they receive the card (before they’ve seen anything in person) and want to put a hold on the painting they saw on the card. Once, at an opening, I saw two people get into a fight over who was going buy a particular painting (naturally, it was the one on the card.)…

Which reminds me of one of my own corollary propositions to Murphy’s Law: Don’t even bother looking for a postcard of your favorite painting in a museum.

– The Museum of Modern Art is deaccessioning (i.e., selling off) an important late oil painting by Milton Avery. In case you’ve been wondering what MoMA doesn’t think worth hanging onto, much less hanging, this is what it looks like.

– You like Top Ten lists, big boy? Mr. Modern Art Notes obliges with an annotated list of his ten favorite American cities in which to see art.

– Incidentally, did you know that the FBI’s Art Theft Program has a Web site…

– …or that you can take an online test to see whether you know enough about the United States to become a naturalized U.S. citizen?

– And have you ever wondered why The Complete New Yorker: Eighty Years of the Nation’s Greatest Magazine is so damn cumbersome to use, lovely and amazing though it is to have all of The New Yorker on DVD? Go here for the answer.

– Speaking of lawyers (which we were), allow me to remind you yet again bloggers get sued, for all sorts of reasons. Mr. BuzzMachine has a hair-raising list of recent anti-blog litigation. Read it and take cover.

– Finally, here’s the scoop on that $100 student laptop you’ve been reading about. (No, you can’t buy one. Sorry.)

• I just added a new piece to the Teachout Museum, an 1892 etching by Edgar Degas called “Dancer Putting on Her Shoe.” Degas is one of my favorite artists, and I’ve long wanted to own a work of art that had something to do with dancing. This particular work isn’t rare–the copy I bought is a posthumous impression from the cancelled plate–but the cancellation marks are unobtrusive and the image extraordinarily beautiful, as you can see by going here.

It’s also extraordinarily simple, especially by comparison with the increasingly complex pastels of dancers that Degas was producing around the same time. That’s one of the things I love about etching as a medium: it encourages the artist to concentrate on essentials. Color is still what I love best about painting, but looking at etchings taught me to understand and appreciate the importance of pure line–and, eventually, to love it as well. Whenever I look at “Dancer Putting on Her Shoe,” or my copy of Milton Avery’s March at a Table, it makes me want to write more simply, to strip away everything superfluous and be content with what remains.

• In case you were wondering, I very much enjoyed my Thanksgiving dinner at Good Enough to Eat. I’d never eaten out by myself for Thanksgiving, and I feared the prospect of being part of a salon des refusés, but the atmosphere turned out to be cheery and companionable, and the food was delicious. It was fascinating to see who else showed up. I counted more or less the same number of all-male parties and extended families with children, which tells you something about my neighborhood. (I only spotted one other singleton at the two o’clock sitting, though, and I’m not sure what that says.)

Incidentally, the background music consisted of tangos by Astor Piazzolla, which went surprisingly well with cornbread stuffing and roasted Brussels sprouts.

November 2003:

In a perfect world, everybody would experience art without first having it explained: no program notes, no wall labels, no interviews with the author, and–above all–no reviews. You’d go simply because you were interested, because you made a habit of going to see new things. Then, after the immediate experience, you’d seek out further information to help you put that experience in perspective (or, as my correspondent remarks, simply for fun). I think it’s hugely important to make a serious and sustained effort to come to new works of art this way. But in order to do so, especially when you’re talking about Broadway shows, you’ve got to have (A) a lot of spare time and (B) a lot of spare money. Otherwise, it’s essential to call your shots, if only to avoid bankruptcy, and good reviewers can help….

(If it’s new to you, read the whole thing here.)

– Advance paid to Flannery O’Connor by Harcourt, Brace in 1955 for The Violent Bear It Away: $1,250

– The same amount in today’s dollars, courtesy of Inflation Calculator: $8,588.02

(Source: Library of America, Flannery O’Connor: Collected Works)

“The Gods are dead, poetry alone is left to us, the last star in the night of chaos.”

Edgar Degas (quoted in Jeanne Fevre, Mon oncle Degas)