“By the beginning of the twentieth century, because of Schubert, song had become a musical form to rival the symphony, the string quartet, and the piano sonata. … Its aesthetic claims are complex and multifaceted: the response to text, the compression of drama (the thrill of the opera in a matter of minutes), a melodic sweep and harmonic language as worthy of attention and analysis as anything in Western classical music. In this sense the lied is a standing rebuke to classical music’s hierarchies, in which the biggest – or most expensive – is best.”
Reading Shakespeare In Tehran
Professor Stephen Greenblatt on his lecture at the first Iranian Shakespeare Congress: “Most of the questions were from students, the majority of them women, whose boldness, critical intelligence, and articulateness startled me. Very few of the faculty and students had traveled outside of Iran, but the questions were, for the most part, in flawless English and extremely well informed.”
Has The Classical Music World Expanded Enough To Truly Appreciate Schubert?
“This sense that at his death Schubert was an incomplete composer stemmed also from his preeminence in two fields of musical composition that lacked the requisite Beethovenian grandeur: song and dance.”
When An American Jewish Shakespeare Scholar Got An Invitation To Speak In Iran
Stephen Greenblatt: “If I went to the Iranian Shakespeare Congress, it would not be with the pretense that our situations were comparable or that our underlying values and beliefs were identical. Sharing an interest in Shakespeare counts for something, as a warm and encouraging phone call from the principal organizer amply demonstrated, but it does not magically erase all differences.”
The Success Problem (How It Gets In The Way Of Being Successful Again)
“Why not enjoy success? Why not accept that you are a genius, if people insistently tell you that you are? One way or another, from this point on it will be hard to achieve the same concentration, the same innocence, when you return to the empty page and the next stage in a life story that is now radically transformed.”
The Fascinating Economics Transforming Manhattan’s Skyline
“The stratospheric amounts now at stake in newly built Manhattan buildings perhaps can be best understood by comparison with today’s contemporary art market, where multimillion-dollar paintings and sculptures have become favored instruments in the global transfer of vast and largely unregulated sums.”