Reviewing Sony Classical’s invaluable new Oscar Levant tribute in the current “Los Angeles Review of Books,” I write: “That Levant was what he seemed was doubtless a key to his appeal. His authenticity has never appeared more exceptional: no present-day mainstream media personality – not even our President -- is as heedlessly controversial as was Levant every time he opened his … [Read more...] about “Heedlessly Controversial” — Remembering Oscar Levant
A Vital New Book about Music and Race
Dale Cockrell's "Everybody's Doin' It: Sex, Music, and Dance in in New York 1840-1917" is a book that will bring to wider attention the scholarship of one of America's most original music historians -- someone whose work fearlessly challenges conventional wisdom. It was my pleasure to review this new Norton release in this weekend's "Wall Street Journal": On his first trip … [Read more...] about A Vital New Book about Music and Race
Re-Thinking Aaron Copland
How did Aaron Copland’s film music attempt to counteract the Hollywood influence of Erich Korngold? To what degree did he draw inspiration from the master Mexican populist Silvestre Revueltas? How did the Red Scare change Copland’s style in the 1950s? These were some of the questions tackled by “Copland’s America,” this summer’s festival-within-a-festival at North … [Read more...] about Re-Thinking Aaron Copland
Ferruccio Busoni: “A Fresh Gust of Air”
Preparing an August 15 Busoni/Schoenberg/Kandinsky program for The Phillips Collection in DC, I discovered myself newly entranced by one of the most magical figures in the history of Western music. Around the same time, Kirill Gerstein's revelatory new CD of the Busoni Piano Concerto turned up -- and I felt impelled to take stock. I wound up writing 4,500 words: On the … [Read more...] about Ferruccio Busoni: “A Fresh Gust of Air”
A Fidelio for Yesterday
Faced with a twelve-hour drive, with wife and dog, from Manhattan to the idyllic Brevard (North Carolina) Music Festival, I threw some CDs in the car. I chose Fidelio because I had been eager to re-experience Beethoven’s opera since encountering David Lang’s Fidelio-for-today, A Prisoner of State, premiered by the New York Philharmonic as a season finale concert opera. This … [Read more...] about A Fidelio for Yesterday