My Wall Street Journal review of Kurt Jensen’s new Rouben Mamoulian biography takes stock of a unique near-genius, perhaps the least known and appreciated American theater and film director of consequence. I came to Mamoulian (1897-1987) while writing my book on immigrants in the performing arts: Artists in Exile. The juxtaposed magnitude of his successes and failures … [Read more...] about A New Biography Ponders the Controversial Director of “Porgy and Bess”
Mahler in Sioux Falls (with yet another glance at Klaus Makela)
I have just returned from a trip to Sioux Falls, where I heard Delta David Gier lead the South Dakota Symphony in Mahler’s Symphony No. 3. As readers of this blog know, I regard the SDSO as an American cultural institution that must be studied and emulated. When I arrived at my balcony seat I was addressed by a couple of young men sitting just in front of me. They had heard … [Read more...] about Mahler in Sioux Falls (with yet another glance at Klaus Makela)
Are the Arts Inimical to our Democratic Ethos?
The starting point of my new book The Propaganda of Freedom is the core tenet of the cultural Cold War as prosecuted by the CIA and the Kennedy White House: that only “free artists” in “free societies” can produce great art. And yet this is a risible claim, self-evidently counter-empirical; I’ve dubbed it the “propaganda of freedom.” An … [Read more...] about Are the Arts Inimical to our Democratic Ethos?
Mahler on Solo Trombone — Coming Up at Colorado Mahlerfest This May
Writing in The American Scholar, Sudip Bose said of David Taylor playing Schubert’s “Der Doppelgänger”: “Not in my wildest imaginings could I have envisioned such revelatory and shocking interpretations. . . . The pathos was unrelenting, almost too much to bear. . . . Taylor’s Schubert performances have been haunting me ever since. I cannot get them out of my mind.” It … [Read more...] about Mahler on Solo Trombone — Coming Up at Colorado Mahlerfest This May
Harry Burleigh’s “Deep River” of Common Humanity on NPR
If you’ve ever heard Marian Anderson sing “Deep River,” you’ve heard an immortal concert spiritual by Harry Burleigh. His name won’t appear on the youtube captions – and yet Burleigh’s “Deep River” isn’t a mere arrangement. I unpack the genesis of “Deep River” – its surprising origins as an obscure “church militant” spiritual, its indebtedness to Antonin Dvorak, its … [Read more...] about Harry Burleigh’s “Deep River” of Common Humanity on NPR