“The Great Composer You’ve Never Heard Of” – the most recent “PostClassical” broadcast via the WWFM Classical Network – spends two hours exploring the astounding achievements of Silvestre Revueltas (1899-1940). The show also reveals how Revueltas’s colleague Carlos Chavez – a lesser composer, but with more institutional clout – suppressed Revueltas’s music. It’s all here. As … [Read more...] about “The Great Composer You’ve Never Heard Of” — and how he was suppressed by Carlos Chavez
Leonard Bernstein at 100: An American Archetype
My 5,000-word piece on the Leonard Bernstein Centenary, in The Weekly Standard this week, begins with a story you’ve never heard before: “In 1980, at the age of 62, Leonard Bernstein undertook the composition of a formidable full-scale opera, commissioned jointly by La Scala, the Kennedy Center, and Houston Grand Opera. He called it A Quiet Place. It’s the story of an … [Read more...] about Leonard Bernstein at 100: An American Archetype
THE FUTURE OF ORCHESTRAS — Part Five: Kurt Weill, El Paso, and the National Mood
“Wherever I found decency and humanity in the world, it reminded me of America.” Kurt Weill wrote those words after returning from a visit to Germany in 1947. I read them aloud at least a dozen times during the Kurt Weill festival in El Paso last week. Every time I invited my listeners to consider whether or not they still apply. Because Weill was an exemplary immigrant, … [Read more...] about THE FUTURE OF ORCHESTRAS — Part Five: Kurt Weill, El Paso, and the National Mood
“The Art and Alchemy of Conducting” — and Mahler’s Fourth
As all Mahlerites know, the opening of the Fourth Symphony is both magical and mutable. A preamble of chiming sleigh bells and flutes dissipates to a cheerful violin ditty that coyly retards as it ascends to the tonic G. Mahler writes “etwas zuruckhaltend” (“somewhat held back”). But really anything goes. The champion retarder is Willem Mengelberg, in a famous 1939 recording … [Read more...] about “The Art and Alchemy of Conducting” — and Mahler’s Fourth
Can Orchestras Be Re-Invented?
David Skinner, in his article in the current Humanities Magazine about the NEH-funded Music Unwound consortium that I direct, describes Delta David Gier, the exemplary music director of the South Dakota Symphony, addressing a room of university students and faculty: “He starts by asking everyone to reimagine an orchestra as a humanities institution – one that brings together … [Read more...] about Can Orchestras Be Re-Invented?