I turn on the radio in the car (where I usually listen to hiphop music) and hear a recording of Haydn's F-Minor Variations. I don't change the station. Within seconds, I'm thinking about the bright, separate envelope of every treble note in the recording. Lovely, but not really legato. Must be a German Steinway, I think. Whatever else pianists may be doing, in order to play piano music -- piano keys move vertically, down and then up again in … [Read more...]
Widescreen
The 4:3 television screen ratio came to represent present tense -- the "narrow slit of 'now'," to use Bill Viola's term. With the increasing preponderance of widescreen 16:9 ratio, those of us who spent thousands of formative hours with the cathode-ray norm find that video suddenly got more narrative. With the new proportions, since the information in view is just a little too much (too wide) to see in a glance, my entire sense of the medium and … [Read more...]
Just before 8
A few minutes before 8 p.m., my heart beats faster. So many concerts start at this time -- after years in the business my body is trained! The particular ritual of the concert brings a kind of order to living. Concert days culminate in a seventy- or eighty-minute period of time that begins at 8:05, or 8:13 (late ticket buyers still in line). Of course, at Wigmore Hall, this "8 o'clock" is 7:30 (often 7:33), in Rome it's 9. Unlike the … [Read more...]