My wrongness was clear from the opening notes—those of Schumann’s “Abends am Strand.” Kissin was very songful. He sculpted ...
In 2000, John Adams composed El Niño, which is a telling, or a “reimagining,” of the Nativity. It is an opera-oratorio. And ...
Many of the pieces on display in “A Taste for the Renaissance” are very small—bringing a magnifying glass is a good idea. One ...
During the high dudgeon of the Black Lives Matter movement, New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts joined the chorus of handwringers with a particular twist. “In our 60+ year history, we ...
Many people, if they wonder how music is made up, suppose that it consists of a tune and an accompaniment. The paradigmatic guitarist in front of a campfire croons the melody, while his hands create ...
In this episode, Jay begins with a shout—“Carolina Shout,” the classic jazz number by James P. Johnson. There are songs by Schumann, Puccini, and Porter (Cole). There are piano preludes—starter pieces ...
For a few days, it was raining Martinů—Bohuslav Martinů, the Czech composer who lived from 1890 to 1959. I am exaggerating. But we did have two Martinů pieces in close succession, which is rare. The ...
The 1960s and 1970s resonate in our collective memory as a time of upheaval and social change, both in the United States and abroad—decades marked by the struggles of the civil-rights movement, the ...
Rob Henderson’s new memoir, Troubled, describes his journey from foster care in rural California to military service in the U.S. Air Force to public intellectual. With degrees from Yale and Cambridge ...