The Grammys have introduced a Hawaiian music category, agreeing at long last that the islands’ rich musical tradition are worthy of separate recognition. But what exactly constitutes Hawaiian music? Can it still be Hawaiian if a singer performs in English? Must there be a ukulele involved? And most importantly, who gets to decide the answers to these burning questions?
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Everybody Loves An Oldie
Picking the winners of the Grammy awards in advance may not be all that difficult. Jon Pareles thinks he’s found the secret predicter: “The album with the oldest song wins.” The rule seems to hold true in almost every year, and may point up the, um, veteran sensibilities of the majority of Grammy voters.
Arthur Miller’s Legacy
Arthur Miller had such an influence on the world that it doesn’t matter whether or not you’ve seen his plays. “That’s the thing about great works of art: We can’t imagine a time before they existed, before certain phrases and ideas were part of the very air we breathed. And thus even if you’ve never seen “Death of a Salesman” or haven’t read “The Crucible” since high school — you’re still influenced by Arthur Miller, who died Thursday at age 89. The world is so suffused with the wisdom of those plays, with their indispensability, that we can’t envision somebody actually sitting down and writing them, line by line, and cursing and wadding up sheets of paper and trying again.”
Vox Populi
New Yorkers are rarely shy with their opinions, and the Gates of Central Park are inspiring plenty of comment from Manhattan’s residents, from gripes about the cost (which is being covered entirely by the artists) to praise for the way the saffron colors have transformed Central Park in winter.
Oboist Wanted – Apply Anywhere
The position of principal oboe is currently open in three of America’s major orchestras, and in several other second- and third-tier ensembles as well. When you consider how many aspiring professional musicians there are in the world, and how few high-profile positions available, the current surfeit of jobs has to be considered mannah from heaven for oboists. “The sudden raft of openings appears on the surface to be a confluence of health problems and retirements. But there is also a generational change under way, as the recent musical descendants of the father of American oboe playing, Marcel Tabuteau, who died in 1966, leave the scene.”
The Orchestra Ritual
“From dress to choreographed movements and the courtly interplay between conductor and musicians, the classical music stage is rich in etiquette and sometimes hijinks that are not always obvious to the audience. Chronicling this tradition goes back to Hector Berlioz and his classic “Evenings With an Orchestra,” a collection of essays dissecting the world of 19th-century orchestras and musical culture.”
America’s Moralist
“Arthur Miller may or may not be the greatest playwright America has produced – Eugene O’Neill and Tennessee Williams both have equal, if not more, claim to that phantom title – but he is certainly the most American of the country’s greatest playwrights. He was the moralist of the three, and America, as some recent pollsters rushed to remind us, is a country that likes moralists. The irony, of course, is that Mr. Miller’s strongest plays are fired by convictions that assail some of the central ideals enshrined in American culture.”
A Soft-Hearted Intellectual
It may seem de rigeur today for playwrights to tackle big sociological issues in a direct manner, but when Arthur Miller burst upon the scene, such forays into national self-examination were hardly theatrical comfort food for audiences used to droll comedies and “classic” drama. And yet, Miller’s work succeeded with the public because of his innate ability to make grand theoretical debates deeply personal. “He loved and even ennobled the little guy, with all of — and because of — his flaws. In works tackling the loftiest subjects, he touched nerves so deep, it was as if the plays were customized arrows, aimed at the unique contours of each theatergoer’s heart.”
Last of The American Renaissance Men?
Arthur Miller’s contemporaries in the theatre world remember him as a man of principle, of deep intellectual curiosity, and possessed of an immense talent for observing the human condition through prose. “He was absolutely charming. He was cast-iron… You would say how are you and for the next fifteen minutes you could sit back and enjoy and wonderful reply.”
Sozanski On Christo: Ribbon Of Color? I Don’t See It
Ed Sozanski was in New York’s Central Park as Christo and Jeanne Claude’s banners were unfurled. “Despite the enormous number of gates, their spacing is such that they never coalesce into a memorable visual force. One perceives hundreds of individual elements instead of an ensemble. Even from a distance – looking across the spacious lawn of the Sheep Meadow, for instance – the effect is fragmented, even slightly chaotic. Only when one is sighting down a curve and the panels elide one into another does The Gates achieve coherence, but those impressions last only a few seconds.”