As promised here I spent Christmas with Jewish Friends watching a movie and going out for Chinese. The movie, True Grit, was the first of three very good films I’ve seen in the last month. Each of them was enhanced by a fine score. True Grit I had my doubts about True Grit in the…
The Deal with Christmas Music
When it came to music my father and I had little in common. He couldn’t abide the rock music I played for a living. I had no use for the idol of his youth, Bix Biederbeck. Or any other jazz for that matter. We briefly agreed on liking folk music – with Peter, Paul and…
Unfashionable Music – Brahms
There was a time when people spoke of the truly great classical composers as the three B’s – Bach, Beethoven and Brahms. Recently Mozart has tended to take the place of Brahms on that short list. Perhaps that’s fair. For all of its merits Brahms’ music sometimes falls a little short of the lofty reaches…
My Dad and Elgar
“There are places I remember…All my life, though some have changed Some forever not for better, Some have gone and some remain All those places have their moments with lovers and friends I still can recall Some are dead and some are living In my life I’ve loved them all ….” J. Lennon. Thirty years…
Hidden Classical Gems
(Mario Sarto) If you already know the classical repertoire, none of these are hidden. If you hate classical music, “You’re in the wrong place my friend, you better leave.” (B. Dylan, a classicist of another sort.) But if you’ve heard some classical stuff and like it –maybe Beethoven’s 9th , or the 5th, the Brandenburg…
Musical Athleticism
I am no fan of music athleticism, be it in rock, jazz or classical music. By athleticism I mean aspiring to and celebrating music on the basis of its being high, fast and tortuous, and therefore very difficult to perform. Musical athleticism should not be confused with virtuosity, the general mastery of an instrument. The…
Bach and the Beatles
The Beatles and Bach stand at opposite poles of my musical life, two great pillars on which my career stands. Without them I’d be a geologist or some kind of computer geek. I’ve chronicled Bach’s influence on me and will do so with the Beatles in the near future. What brings the Beatles and Bach…
More More More! In Praise of Overproduction
Part 1 I get a lot of my ideas in the sauna. I go in there after my workout, which seems to do as much for my brain as my muscles, oxygenating synapses, clearing out some of the fog. As the temperature passes 180, the heat melts things stuck in my subconscious and they float…
JS Bach Part II: A Pilgrimage to Leipzig
In December I visited my younger son in Berlin, where he was living on an art grant. He’s a painter, perhaps in part thanks to my having dragged him through art galleries when he was young. We took the train to Leipzig, on a joint pilgrimage. He’d come to see the art museum, which filled…
J.S. Bach Part 1: How He Changed my Life
In late 1968 Johann Sebastian Bach’s music changed my life. I was a freshman at Wesleyan University in a year that saw an invisible pendulum swinging from hell to heaven, from the terrible assassinations of our heroes to celestial visions of the sort that visited me one day in my first week of college. Up…
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