“Where did the big set pieces of Porgy and Bess originate? With Rouben Mamoulian, it seems,” writes Steven Suskin in his copious Playbill.com review of my new book “On My Way” – The Untold Story of Rouben Mamoulian, George Gershwin, and “Porgy and Bess.” Well, thank you, Mr. Suskin. As a book has no fixed meaning, it’s often informative (and sometimes not) to discover how … [Read more...] about How Did “Porgy and Bess” Originate?
“Bring My Goat!” — Who Wrote the Ending of Porgy and Bess?
"Bring my goat!" Porgy exclaims in the final scene of Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess. Bess has left for New York City and he’s determined to find her. When his request is met with astonishment -- New York is a great distance from Catfish Row -- Porgy remains undaunted. He mounts his goat-cart and leads the community in an ecstatic finale, "Oh Lawd, I’m on my way." Stephen … [Read more...] about “Bring My Goat!” — Who Wrote the Ending of Porgy and Bess?
The Great American Symphony
Tom Huizenga, who presides over Classical Music for National Public Radio, recently initiated a discussion thread on “The Great American Symphony” – and invited me to contribute something about early lineage. Keying on a superb new Naxos recording of John Knowles Paine’s Symphony No. 1, on my idiosyncratic enthusiasm for Dvorak and Chadwick as quintessential “American” … [Read more...] about The Great American Symphony
Humanizing Stravinsky
To my ears, the most sublime music Igor Stravinsky ever composed is “The Land of Eternal Dwelling” -- the Epilogue to The Fairy’s Kiss. The 1928 ballet itself, possibly Stravinsky’s most emotionally naked music, is a confessional love letter to the homeland he excoriated in his Norton lectures and elsewhere as “anarchic” and inimical to artistic fulfillment. That he … [Read more...] about Humanizing Stravinsky
A Status Report on City Opera
The current issue of the Times Literary Supplement (UK) includes my review of the City Opera season just past, as follows: Now is a tough time for American orchestras and opera companies. Many are cutting back. Some – including opera companies in Baltimore, Hartford, Orlando, and Orange County, California – have shut down. Others – including the Minnesota Orchestra, which is … [Read more...] about A Status Report on City Opera