Archives for November 1, 2012

CD

November 1, 2012 by Terry Teachout

A Sonata Recital by Joseph Szigeti and Béla Bartók. Recorded live at the Library of Congress in 1940, this concert features the most interesting violinist of the twentieth century, accompanied by one of the greatest composers of all time. Beethoven’s Kreutzer Sonata, Debussy’s G Minor Sonata, and Bartók’s own First Rhapsody and Second Sonata are all played with jaw-dropping spontaneity and individuality. The sound is only fair, but who cares? That this performance was recorded for posterity is a blessing (TT).

REVIVING SIDNEY BECHET

November 1, 2012 by Terry Teachout

“The musical score for Woody Allen’s unexpected 2011 hit, ‘Midnight in Paris,’ features songs intended, like the film itself, to evoke the spirit of the City of Lights in the 1920s. The musical performance that opens the movie is a jazz recording called ‘Si tu vois ma mère.’ It dates not from the interwar years but was instead cut in 1952 by a soprano saxophonist whose sound–huge, nasal, and piercing, with a startlingly wide vibrato–is as atypical of jazz as the French-flavored song itself. ‘Si tu vois ma mère’ (‘If you see my mother’) delights everyone who hears it, and the sublime mood in which it drenches ‘Midnight in Paris’ was partly responsible for the movie’s surprising success…”

TT: So you want to see a show?

November 1, 2012 by Terry Teachout

Here’s my list of recommended Broadway, off-Broadway, and out-of-town shows, updated weekly. In all cases, I gave these shows favorable reviews (if sometimes qualifiedly so) in The Wall Street Journal when they opened. For more information, click on the title.

BROADWAY:

• Bring It On (musical, G, closes Dec. 30, reviewed here)

• Evita (musical, PG-13, most performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

• Once (musical, G/PG-13, all performances sold out last week, reviewed here)

• Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (drama, PG-13/R, reviewed here)

OFF BROADWAY:

• Avenue Q (musical, R, adult subject matter and one show-stopping scene of puppet-on-puppet sex, reviewed here)

• The Fantasticks (musical, G, suitable for children capable of enjoying a love story, reviewed here)

• The Freedom of the City (drama, PG-13, closes Nov. 25, reviewed here)

• Tribes (drama, PG-13, closes Jan. 6, reviewed here)