Via Open Culture (h/t Benjamin Lukoff).
Filed under: Debussy
July 18, 2016 • 8:16 am Comments Off on Debussy Plays Debussy
Debussy Plays Debussy
July 16, 2016 • 5:33 pm Comments Off on Discovering Ursula Mamlok
Discovering Ursula Mamlok
I’ve been enjoying dipping into Bridge Records’ wonderful series devoted to the late Ursula Mamlok (who died this May at the age of 93).
From Margalit Fox’s New York Times obituary:
Ms. Mamlok, who moved back to Berlin 10 years ago, was for decades a fixture of the New York contemporary music scene. A longtime faculty member of the Manhattan School of Music, she was known in particular for her chamber music, piano works and vocal pieces.
From an interview with Bruce Duffie in 1996:
The purpose of music is probably that if you are gifted in music, to express yourself as somebody else would be in writing stories or poetry. The purpose is to not entertain, but to give people something that could be either uplifting or disturbing; something for people’s emotional life. Perhaps there is also an intellectual purpose, depending on what kind of music.
Filed under: Ursula Mamlok
July 10, 2016 • 5:56 pm Comments Off on Proustiana
Proustiana
July is my favorite birthday month for artists (Mahler, Kafka, Hesse, Neruda, Thoreau, GB Shaw, Klimt, Janáček, etc.), so it’s always pleased me that Proust, one of my supreme idols, managed to be born in the heart of summer.
In honor of Marcel Proust’s 145th birthday (10 July), here are some reflections that have been circulating recently.
Biographer William C. Carter, who believes À la recherche du temps perdu is “arguably the best book ever written about perception,” on Why You Should Read Proust:
I think he helps us to see the world as it really is, not only its extraordinary beauty and diversity, but his observations make us aware of how we perceive and how we interact with others, showing us how often we are mistaken in our own assumptions and how easy it is to have a biased view of another person.
Daniel Mendelssohn, one of Literary Hub‘s Six Writers on the Genius of Marcel Proust rails against the cheapening of the term “Proustian,” which has come “nowadays to refer to pretty much anything sepia-toned, anything having to do with ‘memory.'” Time, he asserts:
is not just the subject, or one of the subjects, of In Search of Lost Time; it is also the medium in which the novel must be read, if it is to be understood. To read this novel takes time; there is no faking it, there are no short-cuts, like five-minute yoga (one of the many fatuities of a frenetic era that is obsessed with “wasting” time, as if to spend time on anything were somehow a loss).
And Laure Murat ponders How the French Reread Proust:
To read or reread Proust brings about this symbolic identification at every level. From the first example to the last, it has really only ever been a question of being named or naming oneself: from “I am a writer” to “I am asthmatic”(or both), the Remembrance systematically determines names given and names taken individually, thereby establishing a relationship between the reader-rereader, the author, and the book that has no other parallel in the accounts of rereading other texts I have gathered.
Filed under: anniversary, Proust
July 9, 2016 • 6:01 am Comments Off on Lethal Soundwaves
Lethal Soundwaves
In her article “The Loudest Sound In The World Would Kill You On The Spot,” science writer Maggie Koerth-Baker describes the frightening power of extremely low-frequency soundwaves (infrasounds):
“Humans exposed to infrasounds above 110 decibels experience changes in their blood pressure and respiratory rates. They get dizzy and have trouble maintaining their balance. In 1965, an Air Force experiment found that humans exposed to infrasound in the range of 151-153 decibels for 90 seconds began to feel their chests moving without their control. At a high enough decibel, the atmospheric pressure changes of infrasound can inflate and deflate lungs, effectively serving as a means of artificial respiration.
But at least humans are spared from hearing such massively loud infrasounds. Koerth-Baker quotes soundwave researcher Milton Garces on how humans evolved a way to cope with infrasounds that are pervasive as natural background noise (though thankfully not lethally loud). Such infrasounds include microbaroms from marine storms and the sound of wind: “We developed our hearing threshold so we don’t go nuts. If we had hearing perception in that band it would be difficult to communicate. It’s always there.”
Filed under: acoustics
July 7, 2016 • 12:00 pm Comments Off on Happy 156th, Gustav Mahler
Happy 156th, Gustav Mahler
Filed under: Lucerne Festival, Mahler
July 4, 2016 • 11:59 pm Comments Off on Seattle Chamber Music Society’s 35th Summer Festival
Seattle Chamber Music Society’s 35th Summer Festival
Cynthia Phelps is a regular participant in the Seattle Chamber Music Society’s Summer Festival.
Tonight the 2016 edition of the Seattle Chamber Music Society Summer Festival begins, with James Ehnes and his colleagues fresh from a Beethoven quartet marathon in Seoul. My preview has been posted on the Seattle Times website:
“Chamber music is about being able to trust your colleagues,” says violist Cynthia Phelps. That’s what enables the risk-taking that’s essential for this intimate musical medium, she explains. “And the chance to live and work together during the Summer Festival is a wonderful model for building that trust.”
Filed under: chamber music, James Ehnes, Seattle Chamber Music Society
July 4, 2016 • 12:48 am Comments Off on Happy Fourth of July!
Happy Fourth of July!
July 3, 2016 • 5:54 am Comments Off on Happy 101st, Randolph Hokanson!
Happy 101st, Randolph Hokanson!
Yesterday’s birthday recital was incredible. Here’s the “set list” Mr. Hokanson played:
Mendelssohn/Three Songs without Words
Schubert/Two Impromptus (G-flat and E-flat major)
Schumann/Two Fantasiestücke Op. 12 (Des Abends and In der Nacht)
Hokanson’s own compositions: two new songs: “Elegy” (Tennyson) and “Nightingales” (Robert Bridges)
Brahms Two Op. 119 Intermezzi (B minor and C major)
Chopin Mazurka in A minor Op. 59, no. 1
Debussy “Beau Soir” in Heifetz transcription
Albeníz tango in Kreisler transcription
Gershwin “It Ain’t Necessarily So” and Prelude for Piano 3 transcriptions by Heifetz
Guest soloists: mezzo Sarah Mattox and violinist Marjorie Kransberg-Talvi
Randolph Hokanson with pianist Judith Cohen – a day before he turned 100 (photo by Thomas May)
This is a belated birthday salute, as Mr. Randolph Hokanson’s actual birthday happened on 22 June. He’s now into his second century. Today I’ll be attending a recital by Mr. Hokanson. In honor of the occasion, here’s a profile I wrote a couple of years ago about this remarkable pianist (also at work as a composer these days):
“I’ve seen it all!” announces Randolph Hokanson before losing himself in a mischievous gale of laughter. With someone else, you might be tempted to indulge that as hyperbole. With Hokanson, who was born in 1915 in Bellingham, it’s tempting to take it literally.
This gifted pianist and teacher has witnessed almost a century of not just ceaseless but accelerating change: epochal shifts in technology, in education, in how music and the arts are valued.
Filed under: Uncategorized
July 2, 2016 • 12:08 pm 3
Happy 101st, Randolph Hokanson!
Randolph Hokanson with pianist Judith Cohen – a day before he turned 100 (photo by Thomas May)
This is a belated birthday salute, as Mr. Randolph Hokanson’s actual birthday happened on 22 June. He’s now into his second century. Today I’ll be attending a recital by Mr. Hokanson. In honor of the occasion, here’s a profile I wrote a couple of years ago about this remarkable pianist (also at work as a composer these days):
“I’ve seen it all!” announces Randolph Hokanson before losing himself in a mischievous gale of laughter. With someone else, you might be tempted to indulge that as hyperbole. With Hokanson, who was born in 1915 in Bellingham, it’s tempting to take it literally.
This gifted pianist and teacher has witnessed almost a century of not just ceaseless but accelerating change: epochal shifts in technology, in education, in how music and the arts are valued.
Filed under: anniversary, pianists
June 30, 2016 • 8:31 am Comments Off on Let There Be Light
Let There Be Light
Filed under: John Luther Adams
MEMETERIA by Thomas May 