“It is always instructive to read European newspapers on American affairs. It gives us the much needed opportunity to see ourselves as others see us – with their eyes shut. . . Do we not all reek with malodorous lucre? Are we not a nation of tradesmen?”? Thus W. J. Henderson, in the New York Sun (March 8, 1908), on the arrival of Gustav Mahler in New … [Read more...] about Mahler, New York, and Cultural Memory
When Charles Ives Wrote a Song as Magnificent as Brahms’s
In the remarkable absence of any suitable acknowledgement of the Charles Ives Sesquicentenary by our nation's slumbering orchestras, it has fallen to the National Endowment for the Humanities to celebrate the 150th birthday of America's greatest creative genius in the realm of classical music. In its latest embodiment, the NEH Music Unwound consortium, which I have directed … [Read more...] about When Charles Ives Wrote a Song as Magnificent as Brahms’s
Stravinsky in Exile — A New View
The current issue of the New School’s quarterly journal “Social Research” is dedicated to the topic “Exile.” I’m pleased to have contributed something on Igor Stravinsky – suggesting that his Symphony in Three Movements, composed in Los Angeles in response (sort of) to World War II, “complexly monograms its composer’s layer upon layer of identity,” disclosing “a condition of … [Read more...] about Stravinsky in Exile — A New View
“A Validation Overwhelming and Unprecedented” — Babayan and Trifonov Perform Rachmaninoff
Today’s on-line “The American Scholar” includes something of mine on a magnificent new recording of Sergei Rachmaninoff’s "Symphonic Dances" – and why it matters. You can read the whole thing here.. An extract follows: Rachmaninoff left two versions of the Symphonic Dances: one for orchestra, the other for two pianos. He premiered the latter, privately, with Vladimir … [Read more...] about “A Validation Overwhelming and Unprecedented” — Babayan and Trifonov Perform Rachmaninoff
Native America and American Music on NPR: “A Battleground”
This Hamms Beer commercial, which I vividly remember from childhood and our brand-new black-and-white TV, signals “Indian music” with a steady tom-tom beat. The tune (and its tom-tom) adapts the Dagger Dance in Victor Herbert’s opera Natoma. The words – “From the Land of Sky Blue Waters” – reference a once popular concert song by Charles Wakefield Cadman. Both Herbert’s opera … [Read more...] about Native America and American Music on NPR: “A Battleground”