It all started when Sir Roger Norrington, an advocate of the “musical authenticity” movement, ordered that Elgar’s Land of Hope and Glory – nearly the de facto national anthem – be played without vibrato. This, for the Proms’ nationally revered final night on September 13…
Tag: 08.03.08
Can You Teach Taste To Kids?
“If we want to be part of our children’s aesthetic world, then why do we equivocate about bringing them into ours? We wall off grown-up culture behind a barrier of ratings, warning labels, and vigilant software. We leave it to educators to filter the arts for consumption by the allegedly innocent. We are terrified of exposing children to material they might not understand, whether because it’s too crude or too complex. In the process, we shortchange the kids we are trying to protect.”
ThePolitics Of I
“What effect has capitalizing ‘I’ but not ‘you’ — or any other pronoun — had on English speakers? It’s impossible to know, but perhaps our individualistic, workaholic society would be more rooted in community and quality and less focused on money and success if we each thought of ourselves as a small “i” with a sweet little dot.”
Who’s Figured Out The World? Magicians
“At a major conference last year in Las Vegas, in a scientific paper published last week and another due out this week, psychologists have argued that magicians, in their age-old quest for better ways to fool people, have been engaging in cutting-edge, if informal, research into how we see and comprehend the world around us.”
Words Reassert Themselves In Latest Indie Music
American music is enjoying a golden moment. Literary bands, with songs that revel in intricate language, complex narratives and cinematic plot twists, are on the rise.
A Computer Music Pioneer Has An Analog Epiphany
Paul Lansky had an important role in developing computer music. These days he’s turned to traditional instruments. “His conversion, in a sense, is a relinquishing of the need to control, the rejection of what he called an antisocial bent. What drives many creators of computer music is the desire to have total mastery over how a piece of music sounds.”
Oldtimers Rule – ABBA Tops The Charts Again
Legendary ’70s disco-pop group ABBA nabs another honor: their 1992-issued “Gold–Greatest Hits” compilation climbs up to the very top of the UK charts, the oldest album ever to reach that position.
Van Cliburn, 50 Years On
“Cliburn’s evergreen fame has had to be more than he bargained for, if only because it was unprecedented: No pianist before or since has had a ticker-tape parade in New York City. Such fortunes alighted upon what initially seemed to be an all-American boy, born in Louisiana and raised in Texas, who, as time went on, came to look more like a gifted, Deep South eccentric from an early Truman Capote short story.”
IM Pei’s Last Museum (And It’s A Good One)
“The Museum of Islamic Art, in Doha, the new national symbol of Qatar, is an understated Gulf icon. And it might just be the best new museum or gallery building anywhere. IM Pei, the Chinese-American architect behind the Louvre’s glass pyramid, agreed to undertake the project — his last, at the age of 91.”
A Proposal To Take Over A South Florida Music Institution
“The Concert Association of Florida had made an overture to the Arsht Center for the Performing Arts to, in essence, take over the financially troubled organization.” But will this solve the music presenter’s problems?