Archives for October 2, 2012

I’ve written about the singer-mandolinist Chris Thile on numerous occasions, both here and elsewhere, always with the utmost enthusiasm. He’s a superlatively imaginative artist who never fails to surprise and delight. So I rejoice greatly to report that he has just been awarded a MacArthur Fellowship. I can’t think of anyone who deserves it more.
A fair number of artists whom I admire no less greatly have gotten the nod from the MacArthur Foundation in recent years, among them David Cromer, Stephen Hough, Edgar Meyer, Kay Ryan, Alex Ross, and David Simon. May Chris prosper as they have.
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Chris Thile and the Punch Brothers perform their arrangement of Bach’s Third Brandenburg Concerto live in 2009:

From 2006, some thoughts on the death of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf:

We are all flawed creatures, and one of the impenetrable mysteries of beautiful art is that it can be made by ugly souls. So feel free to mourn the death of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, and to speak admiringly of her artistry–but when you do so, remember that there was more to her than the music she made….

Read the whole thing here.

“He didn’t have anything to say about death; the only thing he ever had anything to say about was music. From his own point of view as a pianist and trumpet player he could tell you whether a piece was hard or easy; in a larger sense, as critic, he could say right off whether a thing was good or bad. His instinctive taste was infalllible within the bounds of his chosen field. Outside of that he was deaf, dumb, blind, even slightly halt and more or less lame. What was death to him; what was plane geometry; what was Spanish Conversation and Composition?”
Dorothy Baker, Young Man With a Horn