Rave reviews of John Harbison's "Abu Ghraib" at Rockport are here and here. The work for piano and cello includes the melody of an Iraqi lullaby. Harbison (left, via Wikipedia
) says it is not a protest, but the two dailies say it's "cathartic" and "haunting" and lodges in the mind. I can't shake the feeling that this work would have gotten more attention during the Vietnam era. Like an NYTimes review for starters that would have spread word about it nationally. Perhaps the web will serve that function. Admittedly the Rockport Chamber Music Festival isn't Carnegie Hall and this wasn't Leonard Bernstein or some other famous '60s dissenter. But still it does raise questions about the role of high art in debates like the one over the war in Iraq - and the role of arts journalists in spreading word of such works. A Globe columnist today tackles the Dixie Chicks controversy. But in today's culture, how and where does more formal work engage society? Perhaps the question also sheds some light on the larger debate about the role and fate of classical music.
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June 20, 2006
June 19, 2006
In Paris, it's 72 and cloudy
Paying work continues to, ahem, intrude into my 24/7 blogging regimen...but I had to post about this morning's press preview for the "Americans in Paris, 1860-1900" show at the MFA. This is another in a line of unambiguously successful big shows at the MFA since Bill Koch took his boats and went home to Cape Cod. There are some merely pretty pictures here, but there's also stunner after stunner by Cassatt, Homer, Sargent etc., including a handful of masterpieces like Sargent's "Portrait of Madame X" (left). I managed to get some alone time with Whistler's Mother, and a long look at Sargent's recently restored "The Daughters of Edward Darley Boit" - flanked here by the two huge Chinese vases that appear in the picture.
I tend to focus my privileged gallery time on those moments of deep connection rather than on the scholarship; I'm happiest when the note-scribbling crowd moves on, leaving me alone with just the art and a suspicious guard or two. But this is an exhibit that does offer something to learn. It's based on a Henry James quote about how the American art of the day was mostly found in Paris - but if found elsewhere, you could still find plenty of Paris in it. Curator Erica Hirshler explained it all well, after torturing the sweltered attendees with the Paris weather report above. (And the mini-chocolate croissants were wonderful.)
The show will move on to the Met after its Sept. 24 closing here. MFA staffers say there's an upcoming exhibit of a private collection later this summer at the MFA that will offer a nice crossover, featuring works by some of those same artists.
June 18, 2006
June 16, 2006
June 15, 2006
Unbound in the Berkshires
Good on Roger Rees, best known in Massachusetts as a) Robin Colcord on "Cheers" and b) the current artistic director of the Williamstown Theatre Festival. He gets big ups from the New York Times today in a review of the new movie "Going Under," in which he plays a married therapist crushing on his dominatrix. The Times doesn't like the movie much, but describes the 62-year-old Rees as "cheerfully baring every inch of a body Brad Pitt could be proud of" and says "your opinion of 60-something nudity will be altered beyond belief."
June 14, 2006
What took them so long?
New Hampshire's Donald Hall will be named today as the nation's new poet laureate. Hall, a big Red Sox fan, told the Washington Post his ideas for the gig include starting a poetry channel on satellite radio. You can read some of his work here and here, which would not be a bad way to strike a little blow for literature today.
June 13, 2006
My morning video, podcast, papers etc.
The Exhibitionist pointed me to video of the pretty wonderful My Morning Jacket/Boston Pops performance on Letterman. Ought to whet everyone's appetite for the two Pops concerts they're doing later this month. ... A back-and-forth debate on the re-released Boston albums out today is here. iTunes doesn't have them up yet, BTW. Brett Milano talks to Tom Scholz. ... A review of the new Mr. Lif is here. ... A chat with Lenny Clark. ... The obit for NEC's Daniel Steiner is here.
June 12, 2006
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