Barton Swaim just didn’t get it. So he made another pass at the composer’s 9th symphony. “Mahler’s achievement, if I’m right, was to translate the things that make human life by turns fulfilling and painful, elegant and stupid—the tawdriness, the chaos, the dignity and comedy and splendor—into exquisitely beautiful works of art. They are overpowering and outrageous in their scope, but beautiful all the same. Six months ago I didn’t see the point of Mahler’s music. Now, as I write, I hear the jokey pulsations and majestic horn trills of the Ninth’s second movement in my head, and it’s hard to see the point of anybody else’s.”
Tag: 09.17.16
Newly-Discovered Beethoven Manuscript Goes Up For Auction
“A newly-discovered sketch leaf by Beethoven for one of his greatest works, the ‘Emperor’ concerto, is heading for auction at Sotheby’s. The manuscript is one of the earliest for this piece, possibly containing Beethoven’s first draft of its famous themes. It is undocumented, unpublished, and new to auction.”
The Giant Film Festival That Ate Toronto
“Toronto is now so big – 290 features and 110 short films in 2016 – that it is a festival of festivals. You could attend TIFF and happily spend 10 days at a European art-house festival, a documentary festival or a short-film festival. TIFF programmers are forever dreaming up new categories, acknowledging the golden age of television, for example, with a slate of TV shows added last year.”
Buffalo Philharmonic Makes Seven-Year Deal With Its Musicians
“Under the agreement, musicians’ minimum salaries will be raised from the current $48,120 to $54,177 in 2022. The contract maintains a schedule of 38 workweeks and two paid vacation weeks.”
Don Buchla, 79, Pioneering Instrument-Maker, The “Anti-Moog”
“Mr. Buchla was an instrument builder, musician and composer. He conceived his instruments, including a voltage-controlled modular synthesizer, as tools for creating previously unheard sounds and gave them names like the Music Easel, Thunder or simply the Buchla Box.”
How Edward Albee Made His Toxic Characters So Compelling
“That theme of kindness and cruelty acting in tandem with one another — that ‘teaching emotion’ — was an idea that recurred in his work again and again.”
Museum Expansions Shot Out Of The Recession With Speed And (Huge) Ambition
“Architects are once again fully engaged in the invention — and reinvention — of cultural landscapes, for the first time since the Great Recession sent many of these projects into flat files.”
Ava DuVernay’s New TV Show Follows Through On Commitments Inside And Outside The Story
“If we say that black lives matter, then you’ve got to see black lives mattering and having meaning, and that’s not just coming from the heightened moments. That’s coming from the everyday moments, the real life that we live. So the question is can that be narratively compelling. I think it is.”
Bringing The Kilroys Into The Theatre Classroom
“Girl. If I could have a reading a day when I’m working on a play, I’d do it. I need workshop time like I need water and sunshine. If I just wanted to hide away and write, I would have been a novelist. Playwriting is a collaborative effort — don’t ever forget that.”
When A Working-Class Actor Won’t ‘Conform And Shut Up’
“A revolution is happening, but in its own quiet English way, because people work fucking hard, and it’s hard to live, and everyone’s had enough of being fucked over.”