In addition to performing and recording a great deal of early keyboard repertoire, he prepared and published a new edition of Domenico Scarlatti’s 555 sonatas, became the first North American given a full professorship at the Paris Conservatoire, and taught many of the leading harpsichordists and early music conductors working today. – Gramophone
Mozart Was A Brilliant Letter-Writer
Composers’ letters can make frustrating reading. Beethoven’s are brusque, practical affairs; Brahms hides behind a humour as impenetrable as his beard. But with Mozart, you get the whole personality — candid, perceptive and irresistibly alive. – The Spectator
What The Pandemic Revealed: Our Failure To Build The Things We Know We Need
Part of the problem is clearly foresight, a failure of imagination. But the other part of the problem is what we didn’t do in advance, and what we’re failing to do now. And that is a failure of action, and specifically our widespread inability to build. – Andreesen Horowitz
The Cast Of 2006’s ‘A Chorus Line’ Revival Makes A Physically Distanced Dance Video
What started as a jokey way to help fellow cast members share dance moves turned into an emotionally moving performance with 44 different cast members dancing everywhere – alone with masks on, in their homes with their children, near their dogs, and more. – The Hollywood Reporter
What Winning The Women’s Prize Does For An Author’s Career
Zadie Smith, Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie, Marilynne Robinson, Tayari Jones, and many more winners of what used to be the Orange Prize explain what it does. Ann Patchett: “Even now, I’ll be dusting in the living room and I’ll pick up that little statue and think about what a happy moment that was. My father is dead now, as are the elderly English cousins. I think about how happy they were that night. I had begged them not to come because I thought they’d be sad when I lost, but then I won and they were there. It was beautiful.” – The Guardian (UK)
Please, Please, Give Us This Eighth Narnia Book
Now is truly a time when the world could use an update to the beloved C.S. Lewis series. But only 75 copies of the sequel, written by a Narnia lover and scholar, exist. “It may never be conventionally published because Lewis’ work remains under copyright through 2034, and his estate has expressed no interest in authorizing it.” – Slate
When The Telenovelas Ground To A Halt
The writers scrambled to end the last episode on a cliffhangar from footage they’d already shot. This is a first: “Neither military dictatorship nor the Rio Olympics halted production of Brazil’s famous novelas, which are broadcast six days a week for single seasons of around 150 episodes apiece.” – The Economist
William Bailey, Modernist Figurative Painter, Has Died At 89
Bailey, who taught at the Yale School of Art for decades, created “pristine, idealized still lifes and female nudes [that] made him one of the leading figures in the return of figurative art in the 1980s.” – The New York Times
Garth Greenwell Thinks More Writers Should Write About Sex
Greenwell, the author of What Belongs to You and Cleanness, compares his new book to Schubert’s Winterreise and says, “It’s not that I think writing sex explicitly is in and of itself interesting, but that what interested me was the combination of sex with the kind of sentence I’m attracted to – a sentence with a history that comes through Proust and James and Woolf and Baldwin.” – The Guardian (UK)
Titans Of The Internet Are Making Unprecedented Power Grabs
As they fight viral virus misinformation, Facebook, Twitter, Google, and others are making some choices that, while they may be good for public health in the short term, have some First Amendment consequences. – The Atlantic
A Podcast Adapts To Rapidly Changing Times By Returning To Good Advice
The hosts of the podcast Were You Raised by Wolves? used to answer questions about the etiquette of using your cell phone flashlight to read restaurant menus. Then things they answered at the beginning of the pandemic were more focused: How do I decline a real-life hangout with a friend? Now, as the Wolves cohosts work from home, they say the questions are returning to normal. (By the way, they split on the flashlight question.) – Los Angeles Times
Inside The World Of Harry Potter Design
The MinaLima Studio worked on the Potter movies, founded a popup gallery that has become permanent, and now designs not only the Fantastic Beast movies but also fairy tales and a variety of other books that are Potter-related. They didn’t quite know what they were getting into: “We were tasked by Harper Collins roughly 10 years ago to do a celebration book of Harry Potter and blindly said yes.” – The Observer (UK)
Broadway Actor Nick Cordero To Lose A Leg To Coronavirus Complications
The actor, a Tony nominee and Broadway regular, has been through a lot while fighting the virus. Now, doctors had to amputate his right leg to stop clotting. – Variety
One Theatre In The United States Is Showing New Movies
And that’s a drive-in in Ocala, Florida. (Of course it’s Florida.) “the Ocala drive-in made up the entire revenue of the top-grossing film of last weekend, Swallow, which brought in $1,710.” – WJXT (Florida)