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Tarantella

For starters, it's frightening to think that the politics and behaviours of a whole social group have been the subject of 'scientific study'. Last time somebody tried that the Jewish race was nearly exterminated. Then there is this qualifier from one of the article's links which conveniently isn't m...

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It's not any of that - it's your belligerence, defensiveness and lack of interpersonal skills. There's no place for this in mature discussion.

Auf wiedersehen

Tarantella

This thread was about music. I don't see any point pursuing a political angle and, frankly, it doesn't interest me - especially with regard to the UK.

There's a lot of reductionism and anger in your comments and I'm afraid I'm bored now.

I'll be at the Kentucky Derby if you need me!!

Tarantella

John F wrote:I'm not getting into this one, but where Rupert Murdoch is concerned, I have just four words: News of the World.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_of_the_World

And I've got just two:

NEWSPAPERS/READERS

Tarantella

John, I'm very touched about that delightful experience of you substituting for a "certified" (in this country that means 'institutionalized'!!!) English teacher!! You said the kids read badly "in an adorable way". What a lovely teacher you must be and I can empathize with your response. The Baz Lur...

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The Guardian may be many things, but I don't think it's execrable, and I think the quotes come from the person being interviewed rather than the journalist, personally I don't think she is worthy of a Thread here but that's beside the point. Perhaps you should have checked to see how big her Met Op...

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This has evolved into such an interesting discussion!! Our intelligent contributors are people with sharp minds, unafraid to express their strong opinions in revealing themselves and their values. I love that. JohnF's watercolour by Hitler provocatively raises the stakes on the argument of the artis...

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Len, you're providing too much of a good 'home' for our serpentine friends!!

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Totally disagree, but this is beyond the brief of the Chatterbox.

However, I don't want to get into a political argument. Too acrimonious. Better stick to discussions between friends who are like-minded!

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The problem, John, is that those who are considered 'the rich' are actually the middle class. The bar has been lowered thanks largely to news-sites like "The Guardian" and cynical governments who want to label those earning $80,000 or more a year as "rich" so they can justify higher taxes. We'll hav...

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She may be about to hit the stage of the Sydney Opera House, in the Joan Sutherland Theatre no less, but apparently not to sing any opera. In the article she says, "The opera thing, at the moment, feels like a very extravagant hobby. Something that I studied many years ago." Being curious, I looked...

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Get ready all you discerning New Yorkers, an Aussie pop 'diva' is about to hit the opera stage: http://www.theguardian.com/culture/australia-culture-blog/2014/may/22/kate-miller-heidke-diva-who-straddles-pop-and-the-classics Some of the airhead comments from the "diva" are probably expected because ...

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Don't forget there are already sensitivities between Russia and Germany, going back as recently as 1989.

History. Context.

I think Gergiev has done the right thing. Now, what about Lang Lang?

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That's not what I said!

And yours is a big IF (cough).

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It doesn't--they are (or were, in the case of the deceased Gore Vidal) not performers or conductors. They do not or did not have to depend for jobs on administrators or boards of directors of arts institutions totally tied to the status quo, which is to assume that the American empire represents th...

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I feel that the statements about "freedom of conscience" about people living in the Western democracies are far too smug. I cannot speak for persons outside the United States, but if any American performer or conductor dared to attack the snooping, prying, and spying carried on by the American nati...

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I enjoyed Gergiev's conducting of the Vienna Philharmonic in 2011 and I look forward to seeing him again when we return for the 14/15 season. He certainly does not deserve the guillotine or any other such gratuitous violence. As to politics and the artist; this is a very fraught issue and I think we...

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I've read " Mythologies " by Roland Barthes - it's on my bookshelf untouched since post-graduate (Honours) "Cultural Studies" days!! Boring beyond reason. There was an essay in there about Garbo and I thought, "Oh, this should be interesting". Wrong response. At least with Rosen I had a reason to pr...

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Quite the polymath! Thank you for setting me straight on that formidable academic record. Having read "The Classical Style" I didn't read the biographical material of Rosen, neither did I on "The Romantic Generation" - which sits languishing on my bookshelf. All this knowledge about Rosen's eruditio...

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I agree. We had strong discussion about that at the time of the Georgian crisis, where - in my view- Gergiev was equally political and sycophantic. But mine was definitely a minority position. If he's such an ardent nationalist let him bring the Irkutsk Philharmonic (or whatever) up to scratch and ...

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But if Charlie Rosen fails to express any connection between Liszt and Debussy and Claude Rostand finds one, correction, several of them, the issue of secondary sources remains. In the end, it's all about the judgment of musicologists and if our own listening observations confirm such judgments. Jo...

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....and a critic shouldn't be confused with a scholar. Nor with a reviewer, who is essentially a journalist, though a review may possibly rise to the level of serious criticism, as some of Bernard Shaw's reviews did. Also, scholarship often involves criticism, for example in the creations of critic...

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....and a critic shouldn't be confused with a scholar. Excellent comments have been made here about the vexed issue of musical Impressionism and John has provided thought-provoking examples. However, it is not co-incidental to me that the musical style we refer to as Impressionism should follow roug...

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I'd be loathe to regard Charles Rosen as the fountainhead when it comes to these matters!! Other fine pianists have divergent views about Liszt and Schumann, sans prolix!! One is likely to find superb and intelligent analysis of musicological issues in any excellent composer biography. I'm having th...

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But impressionism is not pictorialism and the Annees de Pelerinage are not just a pictorial representation of different countries and places. You know as well as I do, John, what impressionistic painters did with pictorial representations. Suddenly, there was a mood, a psychological/environmental (...

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The American cinematographer Gordon Willis, known as the "Prince of Darkness", has died. My favourite film of his - in fact, one of my all-time favourite films - was " All the President's Men ". A fabulous film, particularly the end shot of the teleprinter itemizing the events leading to the destruc...

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Maestrob, thank you so much for your generous comments. Let me assure you that I have the Dvorak symphonies you mention in my collection and these are magnificent works which I wouldn't be without. This composer was a melodist in the tradition of Mozart, Schubert and Tchaikovsky and Dvorak's soaring...

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I've been enjoying this stunning work, written when Brahms was 28. The recording I have is Gilels with members of the Amadeus Quartet, recorded in 1971. The Piano Quartet in G Minor was written when Clara Schumann was his muse, and the second movement Allegro ma non troppo is tender, lyrical and pas...

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Today we've been having a Bobby Short Fest at our place!! I adore this musician and he's greatly missed. Ok, so how many of you New Yorkers saw him at the Cafe Carlisle when he was in his prime? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PzWrXDzjA7Y My favourite number of his comes from a CD I have of the music...

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And what of these clangers: The person with a confidence mind-set is told “Believe in yourself.” This arouses all sorts of historical prejudices and social stereotypes. The person with an instrumentalist mind-set is told “Look accurately at what you have done.” How is that a clanger? To me it's qui...

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If one wanted a new look, I could almost see a staging that recalled the American Civil War working. (You know, a northern power subjugating a southern one.) You've just described "My Darlin' Aida." The music for that Broadway musical is Verdi's but the words are new, not just an English translatio...

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The supposed basis of revisionist productions is intellectual, to make the audience think about ideas and situations of contemporary relevance, not just jerk the audience around by the emotions. But productions like this reveal what a sham those intellectual pretensions are. I won't defend the Aida...

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I don't blame Brooks. See my earlier comments. The "following sentences" might have made it clear, but the original sentence was obfuscation IMO. Either way, it's a specious (if not actually redundant) form of self-examination. "Confidence" or "Competence" - these are two totally separate issues and...

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Oh, does it give you the 'runs' Len?? :lol: Sue :) -a lot more soprano wine material here! http://www.wineintro.com/movies/sopranos/ This caught my eye at the link: "Just watch the scene where Janice is fighting with Richie, her fiance. Sure, Richie punches her in the face, and she promptly fetches...

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What casuistry is this? BTW, "How did I come across"? Sue another question to turn your sentence around a little-what is casuistry! :) Yep had to look it up--for me you came across nice because now I've learned a new word-now how do I pronounce it! :) Definition of CASUISTRY 1 : a resolving of spec...

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Oh, does it give you the 'runs' Len??

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What casuistry is this? " One of the hard things in life is learning to ask questions that you can actually answer ". I would have thought that if you know the answer you don't need to ask the question. The kind of new-age self-examination in this article suggests an even more narcissistic culture t...

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You think that sounds like Eurotrash? Cop this. A 'bearded lady' has just won the Eurovision contest. "Conchita Wurst" (yep, Conchita Sausage) has just taken first place and that means Eurovision will be held in Vienna next year!! I have to admit to side-splitting laughter during this performance. I...

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Consider that the class was being given by the then recent author of "Portnoy's Complaint"... Bingo!! Great call, John. I haven't read any Roth but my sister is a huge fan, having consumed some of it last year on an American trip. This is the same sister who is now writing poetry which is actually ...

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This new play has just opened in Perth. Written by (an under-30) newcomer, Declan Greene, it is comprised mainly of monologues which explore the 'interior' worlds of two internet addicts - she a lonely Nurse and compulsive shopper, he an internet porn user and habitual web 'surfer'. Both are obsessi...

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I don't thInk Anna Karenina wasnot the SLIGHTEST BIT schizophrenic. It was the pervailing society in which she lived that was socially schizophrenic. Tolstoy's portrayal of her is a powerful, eloquent protest against the dominnnat culture, even if he did not entirely intend this. The pen out-rides ...

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Switching composers, for the sake of commiserative conversation with Len (and I really mean that), a couple of years ago I suffered through, excuse me listened to, the first act of Lucia for the first time on the Met Saturday broadcast, hoping against hope that my youthful memory of bel canto opera...

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It's a very evocative and sensual little poem isn't it, my talented and multi-lingual friend!!

Your previous link didn't work, so here it is again:

http://poetrytranslated.blogspot.it/

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Corroborative fiddlesticks? I want some for Christmas!!!

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Barney, you've raised many salient and complex ideas here and I don't think I'm going to be able to tackle most of them. However, I remember an interview some years ago on Philip Adams "Late Night Live" where he interviewed/had a discussion with the theoretical physicist Paul Davies. The topic of re...

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"I Confess" is an interesting case in point. Hitchcock had significant hang-ups about Catholicism and it's amazing just how much there is of it in his films, one way or another. Joseph McBride writes fairly sympathetically about it in his excellent Hitchcock biography, while Donald Spoto follows the...

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And how many times have I heard those very words!! When I was a small child in a Catholic school I had to go to confession. Each week I had to wrack my brain to summon up a "sin" and I lived in fear that the priest would remember the one from the week before!! Such are the workings of the 9 year old...

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I've just looked again at the opening segments of Dreyer's "Joan of Arc". Those shots are stunning! The film was made in 1928 when sound film had already been used in the USA (The Jazz Singer, 1927). Lang, in his 1927 film "Metropolis", had used a primitive form of (*zoom in to a) close-up in the sc...

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Around here I have to deal with this at the level of relatives who assume that they will be reunited with their families in heaven after death. Well what about me-I have to go to the seder dinners and listen to talk about the parting of the Red Sea--it's a good thing they serve chopped liver! Regar...

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And, of course, the elephant in the religion room is no less a genius than JS Bach. Bach's embarrassing pietism is hugely problematic, but as I have posted before, we wouldn't need this board if every great composer had been a follow-through atheist, because there would be no music to talk about. B...

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