Orchestra musicians aren’t always the best judge of the conductors who make them sound best, observes John Rockwell. “Whereas critics tend to prize creative excitement, profundity of interpretation and charisma, orchestra musicians — while hardly forswearing such virtues, at least in principle — often seem to base their decisions about a conductor on his rehearsal efficiency and lack of pretension. There can be no doubt that Mr. Maazel is a fabulous technician. A lot of us agree that the orchestra has rarely if ever played better; it gleams. And no doubt his rehearsals run like clockwork. The controversy has to do with his interpretive skills, or depth, or vision. And the concern is that for all the pride orchestral players take in their music-making, efficiency trumps inspiration when they come to pick a music director.”
Month: December 2003
The Writer In Your Ear
A new CD gives us writers reading their own work. “Writers who seemed beyond our reach are suddenly in our ears, revealing the often startling distance between their voices and the ones we imagine while reading — not to mention the ones that grab us from a movie screen. One of the great surprises is finding which writers actually do voices and which don’t. When A. A. Milne reads from “Winnie-the-Pooh,” his creations sound like Victorian gents — soothing, paternal Victorian gents reading a bedtime story, it’s true, but rather Victorian nonetheless.”
The Last Year Of Met Radio?
For 64 years the Metropolitan Opera has been broadcast on radio every saturday afternoon while the company was in season. But this season may be the last. The broadcasts have “been a cultural lifeline for generations of listeners, both those who live in places far removed from any opera company and those who may live just a subway ride from Lincoln Center but can’t afford to attend. They are carried by some 365 stations in the United States, as well as in Canada, Mexico, South America, 27 European countries, China, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, reaching, according to the opera company’s most recent survey, an estimated total of more than 11 million. The Met has been unable to obtain a new sponsor to pick up the annual $7 million cost of the broadcasts.”
In Search Of The Universal Experience
Writer Diran Adebayo “does for black urban Britain what Irvine Welsh did for working-class Edinburgh: his novels resonate with the slang and street idioms of the multicultural inner city. ‘I want to reach a stage where black characters can talk in a language as universal as white characters. You know, the film Titanic plays from Lagos to Delhi to London and no one has a problem taking lessons of love from it. But what would happen if you did the same thing with an all-black cast? It would be a ‘black film’, just as my books are still categorised sometimes as ‘black books’. People have a much harder time drawing an objective message from that.”
Italy Seeking Indictment Of Getty Curator
“In Rome, prosecutors are seeking the indictment of Marion True, curator for antiquities at the J. Paul Getty Museum, and three art dealers on charges of illegally exporting cultural goods, receiving state-protected cultural property and criminal association. Italy, a pioneer in police work to crack down on illicit antiquities trafficking, forbids selling or exporting ancient artifacts found in the country. Getty officials defended True’s work.”
Barnes Has Lost Hundreds Of Items
The Barnes Collection has lost “hundreds of items” including artwork by Matisse, Renoir and a Steinway piano. “It was unclear how the pieces disappeared, whether they were stolen, or when they might have been taken from the foundation.”
Bamiyan Buddhas Stabilized
“Italian engineers have completed work to prevent the collapse of the cliff niches which house the remaining fragments of Afghanistan’s ancient Bamiyan Buddhas which were destroyed by the Taliban.”
Cold Weather Equals Good Violins
The wood used by the old master Italian violin makers was special – the product of a mini ice age in Europe. “Trees grow slower in colder weather, producing denser wood for that season. So, narrower tree rings grow in cold weather than rings grown in warmer seasons. Narrow tree rings would not only strengthen the violin but would increase the wood’s density, the researchers said. The change in climate therefore made a difference to the violins’ tone and brilliance, they said.”
What Becomes A Plinth
There are four plinths in Trafalgar Square, but one of the pedestals has been empty since 1837. Now there’s a plan to rotate art onto the plinths, and the artists have been selected and their projects chosen. So what’s going up? Their work includes “a car covered with bird droppings, a statue of a handicapped, pregnant woman, a sculpture of anti-war demonstrators and a pigeon hotel.”
Fun With Plinths
Proposals for Trafalgar’s empty plinth are startlingly different from one another. “By 7.54am yesterday somebody had posted a plea on the Fourth Plinth website seeking the public’s reaction: ‘Put something fun there’.”