Aisle Be Seeing You

Sympathetic communion of minds

"The sympathetic communion of minds necessary for art appreciation must be based on mutual concession. The spectator must cultivate the proper attitude for receiving the message, as the artist must know how to impart it. The tea-master, Kobori Enshu, himself a daimyo, has left to us these memorable words: 'Approach a great painting as thou woudst approach a great prince.' In order to understand a masterpiece, you must lay yourself low before it and await with bated breath its least utterance."

From The Book of Tea by Kakuzo Okakura.

Brahmins

"Lovers of Brahms were much disturbed by large numbers of people leaving the hall between movements of the C minor symphony....It must be admitted that to the larger part of our public, Brahms is still an incomprehensible terror."

-Boston Evening Transcript, November 16, 1885, as quoted in Nicolas Slonimsky's Lexicon of Musical Invective

The subtle charm of tea

"There is a subtle charm in the taste of tea which makes it irresistible and capable of idealisation. western humourists were not slow to mingle the fragrance of their thought with its aroma. It has not the arrogance of wine, the self-consciousness of coffee, nor the simpering innoncence of cocoa."

From The Book of Tea, by Kakuzo Okakura

Happy Day!

Wendell Berry On Things That Stay Stuck

"Good artist are people who can stick things together so that they stay stuck. They know how to gather things into formal arrangements that are intelligible, memorable, and lasting. Good forms confer health upon the things that they gather together. Farms, families, and communities are forms of art just as are poems, paintings, and symphonies. None of these things would exist if we did not make them. We can make them either well or poorly; this choice is another thing that we make."

From Life Is A Miracle by Wendell Berry.

Dance Series gets props from the Phoenix

In other year-end wrap news, The Boston Phoenix's trio of dance judges gave honors to 3 dance engagements that your Celebrity Series had a thing or two to do with...Jeffrey Gantz, Marcia Siegel and Debra Cash put their heads, and presumably pens, together and came up with a top ten list that featured honors for The Royal Ballet's Manon from June of this calendar year ("three delectable Manons in Tamara Rojo, Alina Cojocaru, and Zenaida Yanowsky"), The Kirov Ballet and Orchestra's Swan Lake from this past November, ("gray and gorgeous")and the Mark Morris Dance Group's L'Allegro il penseroso ad il Moderato in January ("one of his defining works"). Full text

Lloyd Schwartz on Angelika Kirchschlager

Annette Bening

Lloyd Schwartz had kind words for mezzo-soprano Angelika Kirchschlager in his Boston Phoenix review of her December 1 Celebrity Series debut recital:

"Kirchschlager is glamorous (a cross between Helena Bonham Carter and Annette Bening) and projects a large personality. Pushing her mop of dark curls out of her eyes, she laughs out loud or winks when she finds the end of a song amusing; when she’s serious or heroic, she seems to elevate in stature."  Complete text of review

Schwartz picked Kirchschlager's recital as one -well, part of one- of his top ten classical music events of 2006, also for The Boston Phoenix. Kirchschlager shares the #10 slot with a recital by mezzo-soprano Delores Ziegler with accompanist John Greer. Of the two recitals, Schwartz said:

"Both these events were true lieder recitals, presenting great songs beautifully, honestly, and with no gimmicks. Maybe it’s not a dying art." Complete text 

Ohlsson says Beethoven piano sonatas are "a full accurate portrait"

Pianist Garrick Ohlsson recently spoke with pianist Jospeh Smith for Playbill Arts. Here is an excerpt:

"The piano was Beethoven's own instrument — it is the most intimate of instruments, and also the most complete of instruments. No wonder it served as Beethoven's workshop — the sonatas span all the periods of his development. If a man from Mars were dropped on the earth and the only Beethoven left was the piano sonatas, he could actually form a pretty complete idea of who Beethoven was. They present a full, accurate portrait."

Read the full transcript here.

Garrick Ohlsson will play an all-Beethoven recital at NEC's Jordan Hall on Saturday, February 10.

Daniel Pinkham, 1923-2006

Daniel Pinkham

Composer, conductor, teacher, organist and harpsichordist Daniel Pinkham died yesterday at 83. Among the many things that made Mr. Pinkham remarkable, was his status as a contemporary composer whose work was popular with music connoisseurs as well as the larger, general music audience.

Jeremy Eichler wrote Mr. Pinkham's obituary for today's Boston Globe:

"A pioneer of the local early music movement, Mr. Pinkham served on the faculty of New England Conservatory since 1959 and taught at many other local schools. He served at King's Chapel as music director and music director emeritus for more than four decades. Widely admired by colleagues for his generosity and quick wit, he was also an active performer on harpsichord and organ, playing for many years in a duo with the violinist Robert Brink. His orchestral music was once performed by the New York Philharmonic under Leonard Bernstein." Read the complete text of the article.

Though we are a mere footnote in Daniel Pinkham's career, the Celebrity Series was fortunate to have commisioned work from him. His composition Blue Blazes appeared as one of six segments of The Rainbow Hexameron, (each segment by a different Boston composer, the others being Julia Carey, Christopher Trapani, Joseph Johnson, Michael Gandolfini, and Alan Fletcher) premiered by pianist Sergey Schepkin at NEC's Jordan Hall in April 2005.

In the program notes for the premiere, Pinkham described Blue Blazes this way:

Sergey Schepkin, in explaining to me his vision and plan of The Rainbow Hexameron, assigned me the color blue. He also specified that the piece be “turbulent”. The title jumped out at once — Blue Blazes — and immediately the form and shape of the work emerged. It would be a succession of musical fragments alternating extremely fast and brilliant fireworks contrasted with passages of tranquil and reflective lyricism.

Richard Dyer, reviewing the concert for The Boston Globe, said of Pinkham's Blue Blazes that it is, "...like light passing through a cobalt bottle that contains a message."

Boston Globe obituary

Daniel Pinkham's web site (site has posted information on donations in lieu of flowers)

Daniel Pinkham's NEC faculty page

Extensive biography of Pinkham from Notable Unitarians at Harvardsquarelibrary.com

Daniel Pinkham's wikipedia entry

A list of Pinkham's compositions for organ available from Thorpe Music Publishing

Keillor on Christmas letters

If you're over 30 you get them every year, if you're under 30, you're probably in them. In his latest column, Garrison Keillor looks at a time-honored, often immodest tradition, The Christmas Letter:

"I get a couple dozen Christmas letters a year, and I sit and read them in my old bathrobe as I chow down on Hostess Twinkies. Everyone in the letters is busy as beavers, piling up honors hand over fist, volunteering up a storm, traveling to Beijing, Abu Dhabi and Antarctica; nobody is in treatment or depressed or flunking out of school, though occasionally there is a child who gets shorter shrift. 'Chad is adjusting well to his new school and making friends. He especially enjoys the handicrafts.' How sad for Chad."

Read all of Christmas Letter: Can I get some modesty with that?