Author: Matthew Westphal

How Blue Can It Get? Simon Schama Visits The Pigment Archive Of Record

“Rows of pigments in tubes, jars, and bowls are visible through the doors of floor-to-ceiling cabinets. … There are the products of nineteenth-century chemical innovation — viridian green, cadmium orange, and the chrome yellow with which van Gogh was infatuated but which, over time, has begun to darken his sunflowers. But at the heart of the Forbes Collection are the natural pigments that were the staples of painters’ inventories before chemically synthesized paints replaced the impossibly esoteric, the dangerously toxic, the prohibitively expensive, and the perilously fugitive.”

‘The Walking OED’: Oliver Sacks’s Widower Remembers His Etymophilia (Love Of Words)

Bill Hayes: “He delighted in etymology, synonyms and antonyms, slang, swear words, palindromes, anatomical terms, neologisms (but objected, in principle, to contractions). … Oliver loved words so much, he often dreamed of them, and sometimes dreamed them up. One morning, six years ago, I found a phrase he’d written on the white board in the kitchen. All it said was ‘5 a.m. Nepholopsia.'”

Rare Live Recording Of Rachmaninoff Playing Piano Discovered

“[Sergei Rachmaninoff] refused to allow his live performances to be recorded or broadcast; the recordings we have of him were all made under tightly controlled studio conditions. So the discovery of a recording of the great composer and pianist playing through his recently composed Symphonic Dances – almost certainly recorded covertly, literally behind the pianist’s back – is a major landmark.”

Can This Playwright Make Snooker Into Compelling Theatre?

The question seems even more unlikely when one finds out that the play in question is titled The Nap. But the playwright is Richard Bean, who gave us One Man, Two Guvnors. As he tells Roslyn Sulcas, “[Snooker] is sociologically quite interesting, because it’s a working-class game. You read the autobiographies of the top players, the tropes are exactly the same: alcohol, gambling, fast cars, women trouble, dystopian families. That’s your raw material really. At the same time it’s unbelievably difficult, and it’s like playing first violin in the Philharmonic.”

How Dancers Laid Off For The Summer Are Arranging Their Own Solo Tours

“The dancers themselves meticulously organize these tours. They are in charge of fielding requests aligning schedules and flight itineraries, securing their own costumes and music, and then rehearsing for their guest roles — sometimes with an entirely new partner.” Meryl Cates talks to several of them, including such stars as Sara Mearns, about everything that goes into planning the tours and what makes them rewarding.

Do College Librarians Have Academic Freedom? Should They?

The question has become an active issue in the University of California system: employees at UCal’s 100 libraries are pushing to have a clause guaranteeing academic freedom included in the new contract they’re negotiating. The librarians thought the idea was “a no-brainer” and including it in the contract a mere formality, but UCal administrators maintain that the doctrine of academic freedom doesn’t apply to non-teaching staff.

DiDonato ‘Troyens’, Volodos, Tetzlaff Among Winners Of 2018 Gramophone Awards

Christian Tetzlaff’s Bartók Violin Concertos won the Concerto category, with Arcadi Volodos taking the Instrumental prize for his recent Brahms solo disc. Among other honorees are a period-instrument Ravel Daphnis et Chloé (Orchestral), mezzo Marianne Crebassa accompanied by Fazil Say (Solo Vocal), the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir singing Pärt and Schnittke (Choral), and the choir Blue Heron for the last of a five-disc set of never-before-recorded early Tudor sacred music.