Archive for the ‘Music & Art’ Category
Boxes of the Mind
I just finished watching (h/t Jeff Li) the documentary film "Stanley Kubrick's Boxes", made by Jon Ronson for Channel 4 [UK] and released in 2008. I was captivated by it. Anyone who has ever been privileged to direct a film also knows that, although it can be like trying to write War and Peace in [...]
Share on FacebookIn: All, Common-Place Book, Music & Art
Chandler on Speed Limits
A few nights ago Isaac and I had a treat and watched the film "Double Indemnity" again–our second time, although Isaac claims not to remember the first. I remembered liking it but I'd forgotten just how good I thought it was. You'll recall that this is Billy Wilder's trend-setting film noir, starring Barbara Stanwyck, Fred [...]
Share on FacebookIn: All, Music & Art, Such Language!, Writing
We Actually Stage Our Staged Shows
Today and yesterday I've listened to the announcers on my local radio station interviewing one or another conductor whose group is presenting a "concert version" of a Broadway show. "Oklahoma!" was one, "Follies" was the other. They explain that their productions are "fully staged", but done without sets and costumes. Oh, and without most of [...]
Share on FacebookIn: All, Feeling Peevish, Music & Art
Beard of the Week LXXXVI: Fall of the Roman Empire
it's been awhile, far too long really, but I'm back with more beards of interest, at least to me. This week's handsome granite-colored beard belongs to British actor Anthony Quayle (1918–1989). I saw him a few night ago, looking as he does in this photograph, when we spent a snowed-in evening watching the film "The [...]
Share on FacebookIn: All, Beard of the Week, Music & Art
Friday Soirée IX: New Year's Supper
Okay, it clearly isn't a Friday night, but it also isn't the evening of New Year's Day when I was thinking about this program, either. I'm sure our imaginations can handle it. Hors d'Oeuvres — Astro-Weenie Christmas Tree If there's a concept that could use re-introducing for 2010, I think it's smart. That's smart as [...]
Share on FacebookIn: All, Food Stuff, Friday Soirée, Music & Art
Friday Soirée IX: Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve at our house is traditionally a very quiet time, because Isaac works all night directing and playing four different musical programs for 3 Christmas-Eve services (plus one interlude). I typically stay at home and cook and read until it's time to go to friend's house for a little midnight supper. Tonight then, to [...]
Share on FacebookIn: All, Friday Soirée, Music & Art
Friday Soirée VIII: Ghosts in the Snow
As I sit down to write this the snow has begun. We don't know when it will stop, of course, nor how much we might get, but forecasters seem to delight in adding up the biggest numbers they can credibly find: 18 inches? 20 inches? 26 inches? Whatever, it seems likely that this snowfall will [...]
Share on FacebookIn: All, Friday Soirée, Music & Art
The Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2009
Way back in July 2006 I wrote ("National Portrait Gallery I") about a spontaneous visit Isaac & I made to the National Portrait Gallery (here in Washington, DC) where we happened upon an exhibition of 100 or so finalists from the 2005 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. (The competition home page.) The winners and finalists of [...]
Share on FacebookIn: All, Music & Art, Personal Notebook
Radio Netherlands & Me
As I've mentioned before (there's no reason for you to remember it), Wednesday nights on our local classical radio station (WBJC, Baltimore), at 11pm, is the time when we enjoy listening to Live at the Concertgebouw, featuring the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra but also bring us chamber-music and solo-performance programs at times. The program is a [...]
Share on FacebookIn: All, Music & Art, Personal Notebook
Friday Soirée VII: More Light Comedy
I enjoyed the humor so much last week that I thought we'd have a bit more tonight, not just because I had so many leftovers. Besides, the tone tonight is a wee bit different, although I'd be hard-pressed to say just how. P.Q.D. Bach: Iphigenia in Brooklyn (Cantata, S. 53162) If there is someone reading [...]
Share on FacebookIn: All, Friday Soirée, Music & Art
Friday Soirée VI: Something Lighter
Tonight I decided I needed a bit of levity, so humor (and "humour") is the theme. We have two very special guests to spend some time with: Anna Russell and Sir David Attenborough. Anna Russell Analyzes Wagner's Ring (Part 1) I expect I first found Anna Russell in my college days, thanks to friend and [...]
Share on FacebookIn: All, Friday Soirée, Laughing Matters, Music & Art, Notes to Richard
Friday Soirée V: Elizabethan Excitement
Today it was rainy and gray around here and for some reason that's put me in an Elizabethan mood for tonight's program. However, it may not be the weather since I'm frequently in the mood for Elizabethan music: music from around 1600, particularly the English Virginalists, always delights me. How fortunate we are to have [...]
Share on FacebookIn: All, Friday Soirée, Music & Art
Friday Soirée IV: Eureka!
With tonight's program we're out for some thrilling exoticism and discovery — in an intimate setting: harpsichord music by one of my favorite Baroque guys and stimulating conversation with a great scientist and thinker. Soler: Sonata in F-Sharp Major Padre Antonio Soler (1729–1783) was a Catalan composer who studied music from the time he was [...]
Share on FacebookIn: All, Eureka!, Friday Soirée, It's Only Rocket Science, Music & Art
Friday Soirée III: Dangerous Ideas
I'm not certain that "dangerous ideas" is exactly right, but I'm not certain that it's not, either. Tonight's program is a bit longer so let's get right to it. One of the "dangerous ideas" is due to Darwin, to use the phrase that Daniel Dennett used in his excellent book Darwin's Dangerous Idea, a book [...]
Share on FacebookIn: All, Friday Soirée, Music & Art, The Art of Conversation
Friday Soirée: Mensuration Canons
Oh dear. What started as something simple again becomes complicated and a bit circular* without my intending it, but that may be suitable because the subject is the musical canon, specifically the "mensuration canon". Let's keep it simple. Perhaps you recall that a "canon" is a musical device in which one musical line, or "voice" [...]
Share on FacebookIn: All, Friday Soirée, Music & Art
Mozart Hated It–We Should Love It?
Somewhere in my top-10 of all-time vapid pieces of music is Mozart's concerto for flute and harp, K. 299, in c major. It is dull, totally devoid of inspiration, and defines the tedious listening experience. Virtually every radio announcer who introduces this playlist favorite will point out how much Mozart is reputed to have hated [...]
Share on FacebookIn: All, Music & Art, Splenetics
Friday Soirée: Feynman & Villa-Lobos
Let us have now a little soirée, a short program of ideas and music to cheer up my rather drab Friday evening. On tonight's program, Richard Feynman and Heitor Villa-Lobos. The Feynman bits are both excerpts from a BBC series called "Fun to Imagine" (1983), in which Feynman is interviewed and talks about all sorts [...]
Share on FacebookIn: All, Friday Soirée, It's Only Rocket Science, Music & Art
Beard of the Week LXXXIII: Variations on America
This week's beard belongs to American composer Charles E. Ives (1874-1954). He's been a personal favorite ever since I tripped over some of his music a few decades ago. It is hard to find a biography of Ives that does not use the phrases "iconoclastic" and "quintessentially American". (This nice one, also the source of [...]
Share on FacebookIn: All, Beard of the Week, Music & Art
Beard of the Week LXXXI: Pagan Russia
This week's beard belongs to Nicholas Konstantinovich Roerich* (1874–1947), painter, lawyer, peace activist — any number of things, it seems. Excerpting some from biographical notes from the Nicholas Roerich Museum of New York Nicholas Konstantinovich Roerich was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, on October 9, 1874, the first-born son of lawyer and notary, Konstantin Roerich [...]
Share on FacebookIn: All, Beard of the Week, Music & Art
Short & Succinct
Some blog I read suggested that I (among other readers) might enjoy watching this video of Richard Dawkins being interviewed for the BBC by one Matthew Stadlen, who seems agreeable enough but it otherwise unknown to me. Although I enjoyed Dawkins' answers, it was not the answers as such that impressed me so much as [...]
Share on FacebookIn: All, Music & Art, The Art of Conversation
