Today’s Boston's "The Arts Fuse” carries an investigative piece of mine exploring how the Boston Symphony trustees decided not to hire Leonard Bernstein as the orchestra’s Music Director in 1949 even though he was the chosen successor of Serge Koussevitzky. This story is not irrelevant to the current controversy over the termination of Andris Nelsons, or the Chicago Symphony’s … [Read more...] about Why Did the Boston Symphony Decide Not To Hire Leonard Bernstein? Did that Decision Change the Course of American Music?
“Blows Off the Dust of History”
Reviewing my new novel “The Disciple: A Wagnerian Tale of the Gilded Age,” the British critic Clive Paget writes in “Musical America” that it’s “a richly detailed depiction of [New York] at the apogee of the Gilded Age and its embrace of all things Wagnerian.” His review reads in part: Horowitz sees Seidl’s sudden death at the age of 47 as a national and cultural calamity. … [Read more...] about “Blows Off the Dust of History”
Was Richard Wagner a “Monster”?
In Verdi, the elephants are in Aida. In Wagner, the elephant in the room is a pamphlet: “Judaism and Music.” It seems the Rosetta Stone of Wagner scholarship, the central text that lays bare what lurks hidden in his life and work. Beyond a doubt, it is an egregious text, unforgivable and dangerous. Less egregious is a necessary preliminary topic: Wagner’s actual relationships … [Read more...] about Was Richard Wagner a “Monster”?
Wagner’s “Tristan” at the Met — Then and Now
I am in Ann Arbor, participating in a Mahler project with Ken Kiesler and his fervent University of Michigan Symphony Orchestra – the group with which I memorably toured South Africa a year ago (and about which I blogged and broadcast). Addressing a class of young conductors this morning, I was reminded by one of them of a promotional video that I stumbled upon a few days … [Read more...] about Wagner’s “Tristan” at the Met — Then and Now
Shostakovich: His Time Has Come (Alas)
Leonard Bernstein celebrated Dmitri Shostakovich’s sixtieth birthday by proclaiming him “an authentic genius” – “and there aren’t too many of those around anymore.” That took courage in 1966, when Shostakovich – the leading Soviet musician -- remained a Cold War cartoon of the stooge and simpleton. As Bernstein appreciated earlier than others, Shostakovich’s ultimate genius was … [Read more...] about Shostakovich: His Time Has Come (Alas)