When I reminisce with pianists of my generation (born 1948), the perennial topic is Great Pianists of the Past. We tediously agree: in those days, famous pianists were great pianists – with their own sound, their own distinctive musical personality projecting into the far reaches of Carnegie Hall. No one could admire equally Arrau, Horowitz, Serkin, Michelangeli, Richter, … [Read more...] about A Great Present-Day Pianist
The Cultural Cold War Revisited — and Cultural Diplomacy in Africa Today
Leonard Bernstein at a USIA exhibit in Moscow in 1959 The vanishing presence of the arts in the American experience has implications for America’s reputation abroad, and for its pursuit of foreign policy goals. If the US is in fact embarking on a new Cold War, the cultural Cold War with the USSR is urgently pertinent. My latest “More than Music” program on NPR is “The … [Read more...] about The Cultural Cold War Revisited — and Cultural Diplomacy in Africa Today
Curating American Repertoire in South Dakota
The South Dakota Symphony concert I last wrote about in this space has now come and gone. In every way, it fortified my impression that this is an orchestra that deserves to be a national model. The program comprised Lou Harrison’s Piano Concerto and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade. That is: it introduced to Sioux Falls an American masterpiece that is … [Read more...] about Curating American Repertoire in South Dakota
A Saturday Night Livestream: Lou Harrison’s Piano Concerto in South Dakota
I have often extolled Lou Harrison’s Piano Concerto as quite possibly the most formidable concerto by any American. And I have often extolled the South Dakota Symphony as a national model. This Saturday night at 8:30 pm ET, the South Dakota Symphony performs the Harrison concerto – a concert that will be livestreamed (but not archived), if you … [Read more...] about A Saturday Night Livestream: Lou Harrison’s Piano Concerto in South Dakota
Mahler, Bernstein, and “The Marriage”
What did Gustav Mahler and Leonard Bernstein have in common? As is well known, Bernstein was a triumphant advocate of Mahler’s symphonies at a moment when they had yet to enter the mainstream repertoire. And both were outsiders – Mahler as a Jew in Vienna, and Bernstein as someone trying to resolve the oxymoron “American classical musician.” But in my NPR interview yesterday … [Read more...] about Mahler, Bernstein, and “The Marriage”