Monthly Archives: August 2009

Modernism in Retreat

Lev Grossman’s recent article “Good Books Don’t Have to Be Hard” in the Wall Street Journal reads rather as dejà vu, reminding me of Harold C. Schoenberg’s descriptions back in the 1970s of the critical retreat from musical modernism. At … Continue reading

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Spend, Spend, and Headphone Bliss

O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet. That’s playboy-turned-religious Augustine talking, and he speaks for many of us. In my case I would replace "pure" with "thrifty." I am not thrifty, but I’m not exactly chomping at … Continue reading

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The Creative Contract

Composers and performers: joined at the hip, mutually and co-dependant, partners and rivals, friends and enemies. It’s a powerful, sometimes strange, even disturbing, relationship. Unless a composer is one of those increasingly rare breed who is competent to give his … Continue reading

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Antonin Dvořák, Manhattanite

There’s nothing I like more than a story that de-mystifies or un-iconifies a famous composer, bringing us just that much closer to figures who are likely to exist in our minds as near-abstract entities rather than flesh-and-blood people. It turns … Continue reading

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In defense of the PC

I’m a part-time computer geek. There: I’ve said it. Geek. Nerd. I’m the guy people ask for computer advice. My picture hangs over the shared computers in the SFCM faculty lounge with an announcement that I am available for consultation … Continue reading

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And Gladly Teche

I’ve spent the bulk of my adult working life teaching people how to do things. Mostly I’ve taught them piano, eartraining, music theory, music history, music literature, and various other subjects. I’ve also flirted around pedagogically with a bevy of … Continue reading

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It’s Just Plain Silly

"Opera, to a person genuinely fond of aural beauty, must inevitably appear tawdry and obnoxious, if only because it presents aural beauty in a frame of purely visual gaudiness, with overtones of the grossest sexual provocation…The genuine music-lover may accept … Continue reading

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Henry, the media server

About a week ago in this space I snuffled publicly into my hanky as I bewailed the shortcomings of the Apple TV and the aggravations those shortcomings had imposed on a straightforward process, which is to play video and audio … Continue reading

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Happiness in a nutshell

The end of another summer approaches and with it my autumnal migration back into academe after the hiatus. For me New Year’s is the change from August to September, and with the iteration of another cycle I give some thought … Continue reading

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Revisiting “The White Album”

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” Thus begins Joan Didion’s “The White Album”, a masterpiece of modern American prose that has been rattling around in my head for a while thanks to an afternoon revisit. It’s a memoir … Continue reading

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