What Are Orchestral Musicians For?
I boldly inflicted both reading and writing assignments. The class was large (it was in fact required) – more than 50 instrumentalists....
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josephirvinghorowi
Sep 11, 20185 min read
THE FUTURE OF ORCHESTRAS — Part Six: What’s an Orchestra For?
Harvey had just read my notorious Jeremiad Understanding Toscanini: How He Became an American Culture-God and Helped Create a New...
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josephirvinghorowi
Aug 29, 20187 min read
On Rescuing a “Dead Art Form” — Take Two
It seems to me pretty obvious that nowadays it’s far easier to stage a successful Hamlet or Three Sisters than a successful Aida or...
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josephirvinghorowi
Aug 26, 20187 min read
On Rescuing a “Dead Art Form” — A Landmark Book on Opera in Performance
This weekend’s “Wall Street Journal” includes my review of Conrad L. Osborne’s new mega-book “Opera as Opera” — the most important...
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josephirvinghorowi
Aug 17, 20187 min read
Bernstein at Brevard — Take Two: The Artist and Politics
The Bernstein Centenary celebration at the Brevard Music Festival last month was multi-faceted. I was invited to explore the Bernstein...
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josephirvinghorowi
Aug 12, 20184 min read
Bernstein the Educator
Museums curate the past. They help us to shape and populate our impressions of history. Orchestras do not curate the past. A typical...
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josephirvinghorowi
Aug 8, 20188 min read
Furtwangler and the Nazis — Take Two
I am returning to the topic of Furtwangler because my previous blog produced a minor miracle – a thread of responses that yielded...
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josephirvinghorowi
Aug 4, 20184 min read
Furtwangler and the Nazis
This weekend’s Wall Street Journal includes my review of Roger Allen’s “Wilhelm Furtwangler: Art and the Politics of the Unpolitical.” As...
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josephirvinghorowi
Jul 1, 20182 min read
The Gershwin Moment — Part Five: Klemperer, Tibbett, Gerstein
As I’ve had occasion to observe in my various George Gershwin blogs, Gershwin and J. S. Bach are the two composers most malleable in...
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josephirvinghorowi
Jun 19, 20182 min read
El Paso, Kurt Weill, and Tornillo’s Tent City
Readers of this blog may remember my last filing from El Paso – a “Kurt Weill’s America” festival, part of the NEH-supported “Music...
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josephirvinghorowi
Jun 16, 20185 min read
VISCONTI’S FOUR-HOUR “LUDWIG” — A Momentous Wagnerian Film
Today’s “Wall Street Journal” includes my mini-review of a remarkable film. It’s appended, along with a chunk of my book-in-progress...
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josephirvinghorowi
Jun 1, 20187 min read
Shostakovich and the Cold War
Design Credit: Mimi McNamara “It is difficult to detect any significant difference between one piece and another. Nor is there any relief...
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josephirvinghorowi
May 1, 20184 min read
“The Great Composer You’ve Never Heard Of” — and how he was suppressed by Ca
As readers of this blog know, Revueltas is the composer most championed by my PostClassical Ensemble in DC. He’s also the main topic of...
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josephirvinghorowi
Apr 28, 20181 min read
Leonard Bernstein at 100: An American Archetype
My 5,000-word piece on the Leonard Bernstein Centenary, in The Weekly Standard this week, begins with a story you’ve never heard before:...
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josephirvinghorowi
Apr 18, 20186 min read
THE FUTURE OF ORCHESTRAS — Part Five: Kurt Weill, El Paso, and the National Mood
“Wherever I found decency and humanity in the world, it reminded me of America.” Kurt Weill wrote those words after returning from a...
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josephirvinghorowi
Apr 8, 20186 min read
“The Art and Alchemy of Conducting” — and Mahler’s Fourth
The champion retarder is Willem Mengelberg, in a famous 1939 recording with his Concertgebouw Orchestra. It sounds like this. Since this...
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josephirvinghorowi
Apr 4, 20183 min read
Can Orchestras Be Re-Invented?
David Skinner, in his article in the current Humanities Magazine about the NEH-funded Music Unwound consortium that I direct, describes...
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josephirvinghorowi
Apr 2, 20183 min read
Shostakovich and Film — Take Two
Every aspect of this astonishing movie has surged in my comprehension and estimation – to the point, for instance, that I have no doubt...
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josephirvinghorowi
Mar 25, 20186 min read
Shostakovich and the Fool: Boris Godunov and King Lear
The profound Russianness of the Kozintsev/Shostakovich Lear transcends language. Re-encountering this great film in the context of...
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josephirvinghorowi
Mar 15, 20182 min read
Mieczyslaw Weinberg on Film
My own impressions of Weinberg’s music have been spotty and confused, the peak experience having been Ben Capps performing Weinberg’s...
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