“Deeper than George Gershwin, more disciplined than Charles Ives, more accessible than Elliott Carter, more prolific than Leonard Bernstein, more varied than Samuel Barber,” Aaron Copland was the giant of 20th Century American music. He would have been 100 this year, yet no one seems to be paying attention. Why is that? – Chicago Tribune
Tag: 07.30.00
CONDUCTOR CULT
Surely Leonard Bernstein is the most-promoted of all dead-conductors. A new Sony project gathers up all of his recordings for another grand compilation. – New York Times
MUTI MYSTERY
Maybe it’s not so surprising Riccardo Muti turned down the NY Philharmonic music director job. He’s never seemed comfortable in the US. “He came from a world where music directors inhabit Olympian heights. He was visibly uncomfortable with the schmoozing expected of American music directors. He used to wince a lot.” – Dallas Morning News
JUST SAY NO
“The Muti episode must have sent a shudder through these ensembles. By refusing the offer to take over the Philharmonic, Muti sent a clear message that a great orchestra today cannot wave a handsome contract in a maestro’s face and expect that he or she will simply sign on the dotted line.” – The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)
ALSOP LEAVES
Marin Alsop is leaving as music director of the Colorado Symphony. Replacing her will be difficult – The Colorado, based in Denver has an unusual arrangement where the music director shares artistic decisions with the player. – Denver Post
FOND REMEMBRANCES
Van Cliburn is 66 and making still another comeback, with a concert at Tanglewood. “Mr. Cliburn gives the impression of being utterly content now and not too inclined to excavate the past afresh. He lets on at one point, as if revealing a deep family secret, that he’s thinking about performing Bach again, the E minor Partita, maybe, and he floats a program for a scheduled Chopin recital in Boston that is so preposterously long that it sounds like a fantasy of a young pianist in the first flush of success – as if, no matter how stressful the stage may have been all those years, it is still the locus of his imagination.” – New York Times
GRACE UNDER PRESSURE
That Van Cliburn has retained these qualities through some pretty tough times is a remarkable personal achievement almost as great as his win in Moscow more than 40 years ago. – Boston Herald
THE “CONCEPT CAR” PIANO
“At $250,000 (or £170,000), Yamaha’s Disklavier Pro 2000 is not merely the most stylistically radical and technologically advanced piano in the world, it is easily the most expensive, too.” Yamaha makes it to celebrate 100 years in the biz. – The Sunday Times (UK)
JUST IN TIME
Stanley Kunitz will be named America’s new Poet Laureate. What a birthday present – he turns 95 today. The nonagenarian is the 10th laureate in an impressive succession. He follows in the wake of Robert Penn Warren, Howard Nemerov, Mona Van Duyn, Rita Dove and Robert Hass. Robert Pinsky has been poet laureate for the last three years. – Washington Post
TELLING STORIES
Saul Bellow, Arthur Miller, Philip Roth, John Updike – they’re all old and they’re all American. “But they have two further features in common. First, they are all prophetic; they map, analyse and judge the condition of their nation and they consider its future. Second, they are, in this, completely unlike any British writers. We simply do not have a single writer of stature who feels obliged to tell our national story. – Sunday Times (UK)