Leaving aside the problem that William Kentridge's spectacular production of The Nose at the Metropolitan Opera overwhelms Shostakovich's 1928 chamber opera, leaving aside that one departs the house with the questionable sensation of having seen inspired stagecraft inflicted on a weak work, I merely wish to observe a series of paradoxes. The Nose at the Met, with six … [Read more...] about The Nose, The Trojans, and Issues of Popularity
The Stokowski Conundrum
John Adams, on his blog "Hellmouth," has just posted a stirring piece in praise of Leopold Stokowski. These days Stokowski is by far the more fascinating phenomenon than his onetime rival Toscanini. John writes: "Anyone following [Stokowski's] career will be driven mad trying to cull the pearls from the swill." Consider his two recordings (live, studio) of Schoenberg's … [Read more...] about The Stokowski Conundrum
Rrecuperating from The Trojans
I'm still attempting to digest Berlioz's The Trojans, as performed by Valery Gergiev and his Kirov soloists, orchestra, and chorus at Carnegie Hall last week. The experience was humbling, overwhelming, enobling. A sentient listener can only shrink in the presence of Berlioz's masterpiece, an opera in two parts not wholly knowable. Its power, obviously, is archetypal (it sets … [Read more...] about Rrecuperating from The Trojans
The Greatest Present-Day Liszt Pianist
As readers of this blog may recall, I have twice (re: Vladimir Horowitz on Feb. 1; re: "Interpreting Liszt" on Feb. 18) written about Mykola Suk - in my experience, the most galvanizing present-day exponent of the piano music of Franz Liszt. My son Bernie, with whom I joust about such matters, has just apprised me that Suk's epic 2008 performance of the Liszt B minor Sonata at … [Read more...] about The Greatest Present-Day Liszt Pianist
Reconnecting with Spanish Modernism — and The Problem of de Larrocha
The incontrovertible premise of "Beyond Flamenco: Finding Spain in Music," recently presented at the University of Chicago, was that in the early twentieth century Spain produced formidably important music that is little known or understood. Few remember that Berg's Violin Concerto was premiered in Barcelona. Or that Schoenberg composed most of Moses und Aron there. Or that … [Read more...] about Reconnecting with Spanish Modernism — and The Problem of de Larrocha