Category: people

Charlton Heston’s acting career may not have been possible were it not for the time he fell and broke his nose, giving him that rugged, stoic look. And that look seems to served him well in his station as president of the National Rifle Association. “To the NRA, it must be like having the backing of all the heroic, righteous characters that Heston has played – not only Moses, Michelangelo, Ben-Hur, Thomas More, Richelieu, Mark Antony and three American presidents, but also astronauts, sports stars, saints and even God himself.” – The New Statesman

Van Cliburn is 66 and making still another comeback, with a concert at Tanglewood. “Mr. Cliburn gives the impression of being utterly content now and not too inclined to excavate the past afresh. He lets on at one point, as if revealing a deep family secret, that he’s thinking about performing Bach again, the E minor Partita, maybe, and he floats a program for a scheduled Chopin recital in Boston that is so preposterously long that it sounds like a fantasy of a young pianist in the first flush of success – as if, no matter how stressful the stage may have been all those years, it is still the locus of his imagination.” – New York Times

GRACE UNDER PRESSURE: That he’s retained these qualities through some pretty tough times is a remarkable personal achievement almost as great as his win in Moscow more than 40 years ago. – Boston Herald

“Deeper than George Gershwin, more disciplined than Charles Ives, more accessible than Elliott Carter, more prolific than Leonard Bernstein, more varied than Samuel Barber,” Aaron Copland was the giant of 20th Century American music. He would have been 100 this year, yet no one seems to be paying attention. Why is that? – Chicago Tribune

Surely Leonard Bernstein is the most-promoted of all dead conductors. A new Sony project gathers up all of his recordings for another grand compilation. – New York Times

— a $17 million settlement with Italian tax collectors, ending a nasty four-year battle. – CBC

— dies in New York at age 83. – New York Times

— Wednesday at age 76. One of France’s most popular filmmakers, he directed more than 30 features and won the Oscar in 1978 for “Une Histoire Simple.” – CBC

Is the larger world ready to appreciate the late great Sergiu Celibidache? “Little did anybody at that time know to what extent Celibidache lacked a cordial relationship with the real world. At one point, he wanted to fire the entire Berlin Philharmonic. He demanded extravagant amounts of rehearsal time, declined to perform with American orchestras until a 1984 engagement with the Curtis Symphony Orchestra, and, most curious of all, refused to record.” – Philadelphia Inquirer

Libeskind’s proposal of a crumpled spiral addition between the thoroughly Victorian buildings of London’s Victoria and Albert Museum was something of a scandal when it was unveiled in 1996. Now it looks like it may compete with the Bilbao Guggenheim for attention.” – The Telegraph (UK)

“The Italian tenor died nearly 80 years ago. But the music that fills the Enrico Caruso Museum in a small New York City house endures around the world, too – and still stirs controversy.” – Chicago Sun-Times