“Beethoven certainly changed the way that people thought about music, but this change was a change for the worse. From the speculations of Pythagoras about the “music of the spheres” in ancient Greece onwards, most western musicians had agreed that musical beauty was based on a mysterious connection between sound and mathematics, and that this provided music with an objective goal, something that transcended the individual composer’s idiosyncrasies and aspired to the universal. Beethoven managed to put an end to this noble tradition by inaugurating a barbaric U-turn away from an other-directed music to an inward-directed, narcissistic focus on the composer himself and his own tortured soul. This was a ghastly inversion that led slowly but inevitably to the awful atonal music of Schoenberg and Webern.”
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Statue Of Ancient Pharoah Found
“A life-sized statue of the 13th Dynasty Pharaoh Neferhotep I has emerged from the ruins of ancient Thebes in Luxor. Buried for almost 3,600 years, the six-foot limestone statue shows the “beautiful and good” pharaoh — this is what Neferhotep means — wearing the royal head cloth.”
Saving Machu Picchu
Peru has unveiled a new conservation plan for Machu Picchu. The plan includes restricting the number of visitors. “With the defeat of the Shining Path terrorist movement in the 1990s, Peru has been “rediscovered” by the international tourism industry and the hordes of visitors are causing erosion and other damage to the archaeological site which extends over some 76,000 acres. In addition, mummies dating from the Inca period are being exposed to the elements and wild orchids are threatened by the increasing pollution.”
British Art – Home To The World
Where are the hot new British artists coming from? All over. The British Art Show “reflects how London’s art scene is fast usurping New York and European cities as the place to be.” “The final list of 49 artists unveiled today – a day before the original Young British Artist (YBA) and former enfant terrible Damien Hirst turns 40 – incorporates more than 18 different nationalities. Curators of the exhibition said its diversity was a reflection of how London had become a magnet to growing numbers of international artists who were enriching the scene and re-defining the notion of “Britishness”.”
Top Two Cliburn Winners A Contrast
Russian pianist Alexander Kobrin wins top honors at the Van Cliburn Competition; South Korean Joyce Yang wins second and Chines pianist Sa Chen wins third. “Kobrin and Yang, the two top prize winners, couldn’t be more different. Kobrin polarized critics, bloggers and audience members. He often received screaming ovations, and fans threw carnations on the stage after his chamber orchestra performance Thursday night. Yet, some critics reacted strongly toward his steely style, dubbing him “The Undertaker.” Yang, on the other hand, is effervescent. She so dominated the news conference after the awards, that it was easy to forget Kobrin was actually the gold medalist.”
Some Do’s And Don’ts At The Cliburn
After weeks of listening to competitors of this year’s Van Cliburn Competition, Scot Cantrell has some advice for competitors…
New Star Wars Soundtrack Hits Top 10
The new Star Wars movie sound track has cracked the Billboard Top 10 albums. And the music? It’s epic, writes Richard Dyer. “What Lucas does not say is that the music often tells the story more clearly and in greater depth than the filmmaking does; the music’s emotional resonances reach further than the dialogue and the acting do.”
Pair Arrested In Theft Of New Harry Potter
Two men who stole copies of the new Harry Potter book due out later this summer and tried to sell them to newspaper reporters have been arrested. When one reporter tried to recover the book from the men for police, shots were fired…
Bravo Piano – Chicago Plan Looks Like A Winner
The Chicago Art Institute’s expansion plan designed by Renzo Piano and unveiled last week, is a winner, writes Blair Kamin. “The plan calls for a $258 million wing at the southwest corner of Columbus and Monroe Drives that will concentrate the Art Institute’s now-scattered modern and contemporary collections in a 264,000-square-foot temple of steel, glass and limestone. Completion is due in spring 2009. In most cities, this would be a stand-alone structure, the leading art museum. Here, it has been deftly woven into an urban composition that includes the sober classicism of the Art Institute’s 1893 temple along Michigan Avenue and the baroque modernism of Gehry’s Pritzker music pavilion, across Monroe in Millennium Park. That is a balancing act worthy of a circus acrobat carrying a parasol.”
An Ode To The Bassoon
What use is a bassoon? “We hold the whole thing together. Aside from holding up the bottom of the four main woodwind instruments, we modify our colors, and in the process, suddenly it’s not a flute and a bassoon, it’s a ‘flassoon.’ And the combination of clarinet and bassoon is a ‘bassinet.’ The same thing with the oboe. It’s our job to make these instruments into something altogether different. A good bassoon player has to have an ear for color and has to be a good ensemble player.”