  I'll Walk With God
by Chris Matthew Sciabarra
Lanza, at his best, sang each song like a man possessed. It is an overblown cliche, but it is utterly impossible to project in words what I hear when I listen to a classic Lanza recording. Here's one example ... (Read more...)
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A Victim's Vindication
by Michael Newberry
National Museum of Contemporary Art, Athens
... (Read more...)
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Blarney at the Guggenheim: A Review
by Michael Newberry
In times of war, when our values as humans are being sorely challenged; and in times of celebration when we long to share how wonderful it is to be alive, and to be human; it is an aesthetic crime that contemporary art museums cannot offer us anything more than the emptiness of postmodern art. (Read more...)
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Serenade /Cavalcade of Show Tunes with Mario Lanza
by James Kilbourne
In a civilized world, Mario Lanza would have been cared for like the Hope diamond. In his career, he would have been singing with Maria Callas and Renata Tebaldi, not Jean Fenn and Kathryn Grayson. (Read more...)
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The Three Stooges Meet Bissell
by Fred Seddon
When I talked with Roger Bissell at the Advanced Seminar this year, I promised him I would read and comment on his JAWS [I presume you mean JARS, Fred? Perhaps you had JARS' loquacious editor, Dr. Diabolical Dialectical in mind when you said JAWS? - Linz :-)] article “Art As Microcosm.” The comments that follow pertain to his attempt to argue that, despite appearances (and Rand’s words in places) to the contrary, music fits Rand’s general “definition of art."
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Saturday
September 4, 2004 |
A(nother) Big Bang
by Peter Cresswell
I spent this last fortnight in some of the world’s great Opera Houses.
I made it to the Met, moseyed around Mantua, cavorted over to Covent Garden, blitzed through Bayreuth and then sashayed across to Stuttgart’s Staatsoper. What a week! Such a wonderful experience -- and all without jet-lag, and not once having my belongings inspected by customs!
How did I do it? I’ll tell you ... (Read more...)
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Gigli
by James Kilbourne
As most people know, Hollywood released a movie, starring Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, called “Gigli.” It was recently released to cable, and I, like many people I am sure, watched it to see if it could really be as bad as the reviewers had said. My verdict: it’s not very good, but I’ve seen a lot worse. However, it is not with the movie that I want to spend our time. There is another “Gigli” you should know. (Read more...)
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Cage Fright
by Eric Rockwell
Every music student will at some point be exposed to absurd arguments in defense of anti-music and anti-art. But there is a way to protest. (Read more...)
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Desert Island Discs #3
by Chris Matthew Sciabarra
If I'm in exile, I'm gonna want to boogie! Some of my fondest memories from New York dance clubs are from the 80s, and no album better captures that moment than ... (Read more...)
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Desert Island Discs #2
by Michael Newberry
There is an interesting undocumented story about Ayn Rand that was told to me by Michael Berliner. He told me that some friends of his invited Rand to go to the Metropolitan Opera House to see Puccini's La Boheme. The friends were quite anxious that Rand would enjoy herself - she had been known to make audible comments, not necessarily kind, whilst in a theater (Read more...)
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Desert Island Discs
by Lindsay Perigo
This soprano is one of the world's best-kept secrets. The most voluptuous-voiced prima donna ever! Again, a custom CD that contains, at minimum, her Rachmaninoff Vocalise, Songs of the Auvergne, her "Dream Duets" with Sergio Franchi, highlights from Die Fledermaus, her German recording of Vissi d'Arte, her German operetta recordings ... OK, maybe there are two or three custom CDs here! (Read more...)
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Troy: the Tragic Blockbuster
by Peter Cresswell
What of 'Troy'? Blockbuster or Tragedy? Sword-and-sandals gorefest or noble filmatic transformation of Homeric myth and legend? Those who have grown up watching on-screen car chases, explosions and shoot-’em-up film finales in which goodies triumph over baddies are probably going to understand little of what good tragedy might consist – which is why this review is here to help you out. (Read more...)
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In Praise of Live Music
by Adam Reed
The human ears are exquisitely sensitive not only to the amplitude and balance and frequency of sound, which are faithfully reproduced on stereo recordings, but also to phase, which isn't. Phase is the difference between the waveforms that hit the two ears from the same source. (Read more...)
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Italian Idol
by Peter Cresswell
A man sits on the battlements of a prison, deep in thought. In the distance the sound of shepherd boys can be heard, their clear voices filling the starlit sky. Dawn is imminent. In less than an hour the man will be shot. What thoughts go through a man’s mind at such a time? And who best to sing them? (Read more...)
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Mario Lanza: A Speech by Armando Cesari
by Armando Cesari
Biographer Armando Cesari discusses the life and art of tenor Mario Lanza. (Read more...)
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"Don't Cry for Me" - Aristotle
by Peter Cresswell
We all like a good 'weepy.' And we all know about catharsis. We got the idea from Aristotle, who argued that catharsis is the number one reason for enjoying drama. Ayn Rand didn’t agree. Art, she argued, shows us in concrete form what our world-view actually is. But have we got it all wrong? And is it okay to weep at the movies? (Read more...)
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Louis Sullivan - What’s the Big Idea?
by Peter Cresswell
Ayn Rand's view of what a good autobiography should be is contained in the title that Louis H. Sullivan gave to the story of his life: The Autobiography of an Idea.
So who is Louis Sullivan? What's the big idea? And what does it have to do with Frank Lloyd Wright, skyscrapers, and Sherlock Holmes? Read on, dear reader. Read on. (Read more...)
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The Inexperienced
by G. Stolyarov II
In this miniplay, a young rational composer confronts a world-renowned writer of "avant-garde" music. (Read more...)
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Celebrating The Great American Songbook
by Chris Matthew Sciabarra
At a time when "performing artists" spit rage and revenge against their mothers, fathers, friends, and lovers with every permutation of the F-word imaginable, it is hard to believe that there was once an era of hit songs dominated by such romanticists as Cole Porter, George and Ira Gershwin, Jerome Kern, Irving Berlin, Richard Rodgers, Johnny Mercer, Henry Mancini, Johnny Mandel, Michel Legrand and Antonio Carlos Jobim. It is even harder to believe that the hit singles chart was once owned by singers whose words you could actually understand, crooning songs that were worth understanding. (Read more...)
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"Errors of Modern Science" - A Philosophical Magic Act
by Rodney Rawlings
It all began with Ed Sullivan. In my early teens I used to watch his show regularly, and one day it included a tuxedoed magician who seemingly pulled colored hankies, billiard balls, and even entire decks of cards out of thin air. Much later, I would develop a theory that it is those who are most used to understanding the world who are most intrigued by a magic act. This was true in my case: I, who loved nature and thought I might one day be a scientist, was mesmerized. (Read more...)
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Evaluating Music -- and Franz Lehar
by Rodney Rawlings
The title of this article might make some modern intellectuals scoff. They hold the subjectivist theories that art is anything intended or recognized as such, and that it has only to be "sincere" to be pronounced worthy. So how can one say any art is good or bad? To them, music is even more problematic, because when it stands alone (as opposed to occurring in a song or play) nothing in it seems to refer to the outside world. (Read more...)
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Musical Mirth
by Lindsay Perigo
Two dear friends have sent me some seasonal cheer of a liquid red variety - already consumed, alas - & a little volume called Quotations from the World of Music. (Read more...)
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Wednesday
January 14, 2004 |
The Simpsons (Doh, Simpletons)
by Marcus Bachler
"The Simpsons" is a TV program that gets right up my nose! It is a satire that draws most of its humour by poking fun at the Homer Simpson's stupidity and incompetence. It glorifies the trivial and mundane in life – with nothing better to offer. (Read more...)
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Review: Mario Lanza - An American Tragedy
by Lawrence Galante
A review of Mario Lanza - An American Tragedy by Armando Cesari with a preface by Placido Domingo, foreword by Lindsay Perigo, and CD liner notes by Derek McGovern. "The definitive book about the legendary tenor Mario Lanza has been written." (Read more...)
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Philosophies of Faeces
by Lindsay Perigo
It was reported recently from Britain that the Tate Britain art gallery had warned underage visitors to stay away as it unveiled works short-listed for the Turner Prize- including a cast of two large dolls engaged in a sex act. (Read more...)
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