A monthly review of the arts and intellectual life. Interviews, poetry readings, musical criticism, and more.
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A monthly review of the arts and intellectual life. Interviews, poetry readings, musical criticism, and more.
newcriterion.com
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Roger Kimball, the Editor and Publisher of The New Criterion, discusses highlights of the November 2020 issue and reads from its opening pages.
The New Criterion’s Visiting Critic Myron Magnet delivers the second annual Circle Lecture, followed by an interview with Myron by Executive Editor James Panero.
James Panero reads “Like a Rock,” his Letter from Plymouth in the November 2020 issue of The New Criterion.
That’s what Dido sings in Purcell’s opera, about her and Aeneas: “Remember me!” Jay is reminded of this when filling out forms on the Internet. In this episode, he plays Dido, plus Charlie Parker, Franz Schmidt, Leonard Bernstein, Lyle Lovett, and others. An unusually eclectic show—which also brings the Op. 1 by a young woman from Las Vegas: a “quarantine rag.” Trad., “The Parting Glass” Parker or Davis, “Donna Lee” Verdi, “Parmi veder le lagrime,” from Verdi’s “Rigoletto” “Glow-Worm” Schmidt, Adagio from Quintet in A major Mosca, Kristen, “Quarantine Rag” Bernstein, “I Am Easily Assimilated,” from “Candide” Lovett, “If I Had a Boat” Purcell, “Dido’s Lament,” from “Dido and Aeneas”
Roger Kimball, the Editor and Publisher of The New Criterion, discusses highlights of the October 2020 issue and reads from its opening pages.
That’s a lot to promise in one humble music podcast, isn’t it? Greatness, consolation, and transcendence? But it is truth in advertising. Handel, “Dopo notte atra e funesta,” from Handel’s “Ariodante” Pärt, “Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten” Mozart, Clarinet Concerto Trad., “Shenandoah” Brahms, Piano Trio No. 1 in B major, Op. 8 Bach, “Mache dich, mein Herze, rein,” from St. Matthew Passion
Mozart wrote his “Orphanage Mass” when he was twelve. Pretty good. Mendelssohn wrote his Octet in E flat when he was sixteen. Really good. Jay provides excerpts from these works, and also presents Chopin and Argerich, Strauss and Davidsen, and more. As the episode begins with Mozart, it ends with Mozart: a heavenly soprano aria from some vespers. You could well nigh ascend. Mozart, Mass in C minor (“Waisenhausmesse”), K. 139 Mendelssohn, Octet in E flat Chopin, Largo, Piano Sonata No. 3 in B minor, Op. 58 Strauss, “Cäcilie” Strauss, “Ruhe, meine Seele!” Mozart, “Laudate Dominum omnes gentes,” from “Vesperae solennes de confessore”
That is a line from a hymn. Jay says it must apply to Bach’s Cello Suites, which players of that instrument get to live with all life long — through good times and (maybe most important) bad. Of course, all of the pieces on this program may be called “great companions”: from the pens of composers famous and obscure. An appetizing, companionable episode. Bach, Allegro assai, Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 Bach-Rachmaninoff, Preludio, Violin Partita in E major Tchaikovsky-Wild, Pas de quatre, “Swan Lake” Bach, Sarabande, Cello Suite in C minor Mancini, “Quanto dolce è quell’ardore” Dalza, “Calata ala spagnola” Monteverdi, “Quel sguardo sdegnosetto” Price, F., “Down a Southern Lane” Trad., arr. F. Price, “My Soul’s Been Anchored in the Lord”
Roger Kimball, the Editor and Publisher of The New Criterion, discusses highlights of the September 2020 issue and reads from its opening pages.
Jay begins with a gigue, a jig, by Leclair. We also have Haydn, Brahms, and Penderecki. (The Brahms is played by Leon Fleisher, the great American pianist who has died in recent days.) There are also two items from the American Songbook — one of them sung by Jack Teagarden, the other by Frank Sinatra. This episode ends with a spiritual, a powerhouse. Leclair, Jean - Marie the Elder, Gigue from the Violin Concerto in B flat, Op. 10, No. 1 Haydn, Presto from Piano Sonata in G, H. XVI:40 McHugh/Adamson, “ Where Are You? ” Penderecki, Chaconne from “Polish Requiem” Brahms, Rondo from Piano Concerto No. 1 in D minor Whiting/Mercer, “Too Marvelous for Words” Trad., “Soon I Will Be Done with the Trouble of the World” (sung in recital by Latonia Moore)