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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for October 20, 2008

TT: In one piece

October 20, 2008 by Terry Teachout

Orpheus600.jpgI’m up in Connecticut with Mrs. T, writing captions for the thirty-odd photographs that will be reproduced in A Cluster of Sunlight: The Life of Louis Armstrong, about which more later in the week. I was, alas, out of town when the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra gave the premiere of Paul Moravec‘s Brandenburg Gate at Carnegie Hall last Thursday night, but the composer was on hand to take a well-deserved bow. When not busy composing operas, Paul also writes instrumental music of tremendous distinction and individuality, and Brandenburg Gate, an homage to Bach’s Brandenburg Concerti, is one of his very best pieces. He called me in Connecticut on Friday morning to report that it was a hit, which didn’t surprise me in the least.
WNYC broadcast the concert live in New York and has since archived the program on its Web site. You can listen to it, as I did, by going here. The program also includes Haydn’s “Fire” Symphony, Jacques Ibert’s Hommage à Mozart, and the Saint-Saëns G Minor Piano Concerto, performed by Jean-Yves Thibaudet. To listen to Brandenburg Gate, skip forward to the thirty-minute mark in the playback. The performance is followed by an interview with Paul that was taped earlier in the day.
The announcers made public something that I’ve been keeping more or less under wraps until now, which is that Paul suffered a mild stroke in August. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you how scary that was, but the stroke, as you’ll hear when you listen to Paul talking about Brandenburg Gate, had no effect whatsoever on his mental processes (except that his e-mails were full of misspelled words for a week or so!). I’m delighted to say that he’s been spending the past few weeks orchestrating The Letter, which is, like A Cluster of Sunlight, moving steadily toward the finish line.
If you’d like to celebrate with us, check out Brandenburg Gate. I think you’ll like what you hear.

TT: Almanac

October 20, 2008 by Terry Teachout

“Politics in a literary work is like a gun shot in the middle of a concert, something vulgar, and however, something which is impossible to ignore.”
Stendhal, The Charterhouse of Parma (trans. Jeri King)

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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