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Day: October 10, 2016
If the Louvre was on fire and you had to choose between saving an unconscious person or the Mona Lisa, what would you do? You are a scholar and curator at the museum and nobody will know who or what you saved. You are not in harm’s way.
Thx4A2A, Linda. I’ll go with the painting too. Even if I’m not a visual arts kind of guy. I won’t do a long justification of that; others have, pro and con, mostly jocular. Some have been less jocular. But you know what? Doodles do matter. And even though Tom Groves meant it jocularly, well, when […]
How is Mahler’s 7th Symphony different from the others?
People pretty universally say the 7th is crap. I think the reason is only the last movement. The first four movements are great. They are quite not as great as the 5th or 6th, which seems to say what they say better. In fact, each of the first three movements seems to be quite close […]
Do you enjoy Mahler’s 8th symphony? I find it to be one of his most boring and least exciting or moving works after the initial shock at how many performers are involved.
The 8th is a barrage and a tour de force. And it has some amazing moments. But… IMHO you’re on to something there. It is something of a step backwards for Mahler. It is not less competent, but it is less personal, and musically more conservative than what he did before or after. I love […]
At what tempo do you feel the Mahler 5 Adagietto ought to be played?
Slower than the Mengelberg Andy Anderson linked to, faster than Bernstein’s dirge. Mahler may have played it that fast, but geez, what does the author know about his own text? As Curtis Lindsay said, it is meant to be a song, not the slow-mo ringing of the spheres. Embarrassingly in fact Mahler did make lyrics […]