Writing about music, like the art itself, is alive and well in this country.
Reinhold Moritsevich Gliere died as recently as 1956; his musical style suggests a much earlier date. His memory is kept alive by two works, one tiny (a dance from his satiric ballet “The Red Poppy”) the other huge (the Symphony No. 3, subtitled “Ilya Murometz”). Neither is what you’d call a masterpiece worthy of the [...]
Did the world really need a Tenth Symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven? Apparently so, says a British musicologist named Barry Cooper, and who’s to say he’s wrong? Nothing would please me more, in fact, than to be able to greet this mangled, crippled, stillborn product of Dr. Cooper’s fantasizing as the very Tenth we (some [...]
Alan's Poppies and Sage, photographed by Paul Cabanis, Spring 2010.