Monthly Archives: January 2008

In and Out of Church

Full ServiceThe crowd observed a moment of silence as Lorin Maazel brought his performing forces to a reverent ending in a darkened Disney Hall last week, then burst forth in high-decibel approval. As with Messiaen’s pictorial panorama the week before, … Continue reading

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In Living Color

In 1973, the story goes, the wonderful, if eccentric, New York patron Alice B. Tully asked Olivier Messiaen to compose a piece for the American Bicentennial. Messiaen hesitated at first; the notion of celebrating American skyscrapers or the like did … Continue reading

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Not With a Whimper

It was good to hear Earl Kim’s music again; I knew him at Berkeley in the late ’40s, when I had the job of working the Music Department’s only tape recorder and he was already composing deep, dark, moving songs, … Continue reading

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A Rocky Landscape

The Cat House Afire Edgard Varèse arrived in New York in 1915, age 32. His journey from his native Burgundy had taken in most of Europe’s cultural capitals, where his scores had been played, admired, and many lost in a … Continue reading

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Onward! The Philharmonic's Concrete Frequency

Starting From Here December wasn’t much; you get so many sing-alongs. One night, a young man of scholarly mien, Jonathan Biss, tried out his fingers, but not apparently his heart, on the Beethoven Fourth Piano Concerto at Disney. Afterward, he … Continue reading

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