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About Last Night

Terry Teachout on the arts in New York City

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Archives for March 13, 2020

Music, awake!

March 13, 2020 by Terry Teachout

Mrs. T opened her eyes this morning for the first time since her double-lung transplant surgery. She appeared to respond when I asked her to blink if she could hear my voice and understand what I was saying. We’re not sure whether that might have been wishful thinking on my part, but the doctors continue to be satisfied with her progress to date, and I’m not complaining.

I sat by her ICU bed for a couple of hours, talking quietly about what had happened during the past couple of weeks and making reassuring noises. I also played a piece of music on my laptop, a beautiful little piano solo by Aaron Copland called “Down a Country Lane” which we both love and which was performed thirteen years ago at our wedding. It struck me that if you were gradually coming out of a protracted coma, that might be a nice thing to hear.

We still have a dauntingly long row to hoe before we get back home again, much less to Sanibel Island—but Mrs. T took a giant step in the right direction today.

UPDATE ON SATURDAY MORNING: I just got a completely unambiguous I-hear-you eyeblink response from Mrs. T when I asked if she could hear me and knew who I was. Yesterday I wasn’t sure—today I am.

*  *  *

Aaron Copland’s “Down a Country Lane,” played by Leo Smit:

Replay: Sid Caesar “plays” the Grieg Piano Concerto

March 13, 2020 by Terry Teachout

Sid Caesar portrays a young pianist making his first concert appearance. This performance was originally telecast by NBC in March of 1959 as part of “Some of Manie’s Friends,” a posthumous TV tribute to Manie Sacks, the record producer and network TV executive:

(This is the latest in a series of arts- and history-related videos that appear in this space each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday)

Almanac: Benjamin Britten on “masterpiece syndrome”

March 13, 2020 by Terry Teachout

“All of us—the public, critics, and composers themselves—spend far too much time worrying about whether a work is a shattering masterpiece. Let us not be so self-conscious. Maybe in thirty years’ time very few works that are well known today will still be played, but does that matter so much? Surely out of the works that are written some good will come, even if it is not now; and these will lead on to people who are better than ourselves.”

Benjamin Britten (interviewed by Edmund Tracey, Sadler’s Wells Magazine, Autumn 1966)

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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