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Assassins at the Arden
Steve Cohen must have seen a different production of Assassins from the one that I attended ("Mission impossible, accomplished"). The music was so unmemorable that I came out humming the scenery.
Andrew Kevorkian
West Philadelphia
September 26, 2007
Farewell, Pavarotti
Re “Pavarottti and the magic of crowds,” by Dan Rottenberg (Editor’s Notebook)—
Thank you for capturing the magic of that extraordinary day and evening when the Academy of Music closed and the performance of L’elisir d’amore with Luciano Pavarotti and winners of the Pavarotti Competition was moved to the Cathedral of Sts. Peter and Paul.
I was with Luciano in his suite across the street as crowds began to form a line, and in a brief moment just before it began to rain again, a rainbow appeared over the Cathedral. Luciano was a superstitious man and interpreted it as a good omen, which it certainly turned out to be.
Last week I was in Modena for Luciano’s funeral— to bid a final farewell to the extraordinary man with whom I’d spent hundreds of hours searching for talented young opera singers. Two days after the funeral, I was standing on a hillside in Tuscany when an enormous, absolutely perfect rainbow arched from one hillside to another, across the vineyards. I’m not much of a believer in omens, but for some reason I have seen few rainbows in my lifetime, and in my state of melancholy this one seemed to have been sent directly from Luciano to remind me that his exuberant personality and his magnificent voice will always be with us.
Jane Grey Nemeth
Haverford, Pa.
September 20, 2007
Editor’s note: The writer was director of the Pavarotti International Voice Competition.
Thanks, Dan. You described that memorable day beautifully, and summed up Pavarotti’s big thinking and big heart.
Miriam Lewin
Executive Producer
Lavine Production Group
New York
September 12, 2007
Music, golf…. and Beethoven
Re: “Classical music and golf,” by Dan Coren—
I am enjoying Dan Coren’s series on sonata form. I must take exception, though, to his lumping Beethoven in with other classical practitioners. The Eroica Symphony is so revolutionary a score that it marks, for me, a crucial divide in the sonata’s evolution, as does the Appassionata Sonata and the First Rasumovsky Quartet.
Not only was the Eroica half again as long than any previous symphony I’m acquainted with, but it replaced the old minuet and trio with the new form of the scherzo— still A-B-A in structure, but radically different in temperament and content.
And Beethoven kept on transforming the sonata form: To speak only of the symphonies, there is the daring linkage of scherzo and finale in the Fifth Symphony, the absence of a slow movement in the Seventh and Eighth, and, of course, the choral finale of the Ninth.
I’d have to say Beethoven’s game was a lot more innovative than Tiger Woods’s. People didn’t catch up with his innovations for a century, and in some respects I would say they still haven’t. Nonetheless, things were never the same for anyone, the "classicizing" Mendelssohn included. Berlioz and Beethoven are in some ways worlds apart, but can one imagine the Symphonie Fantastique without Beethoven?
If the sonata form defines the core of the classical tradition, then its supersession arguably marks the end of it. Sonata-form survived well into the 20th Century— Prokofiev remarked, with perhaps pardonable exaggeration, that it contained everything he needed for his own expressive purposes, and Shostakovich’s very public return to it in the Fifth Symphony and subsequent works makes for an interesting coda. Is it a coincidence that Shostakovich is the last classical composer widely recognized as major?
Something else may come along— many other things already have– but no form has yet won comparable public acceptance. Schoenberg understood full well the importance of replacing sonata-form with a rigorous new set of rules (well, he was a Teuton), but serialism proved a relatively brief episode.
There is, of course, much music of the first rank written outside the sonata tradition: Wagner, Sibelius, Stravinsky, the second Viennese school, etc. But it’s tough to write strong music without a dominant style to either compose within or against.
The same is true of the plastic arts, in which Abstract Expressionism played something like the role of serialism for a while, but where parody and pastiche now rule the day. Call it, more grandly, the crisis of narrative, but it is awfully hard to tell a story in any of the arts today. Is it because we are very much afraid of what the end may be?
Robert Zaller
Bala Cynwyd, Pa.
September 24, 2007
Editor’s note: To read Dan Coren’s reply, click here.
Orchestra 2001 plays Crumb
I’m so glad to read Tom Purdom’s vivid account of the Orchestra 2001 concert, which I too attended.
I haven’t always gotten George Crumb’s music, but these works convinced me of his greatness. To produce work of such vitality at the age of nearly 80! What an inspiration for youngsters like Tom and me.
Orchestra 2001 is a real civic treasure.
Dan Coren
Queen Village
September 20, 2007
Daniel Garber
Re Anne Fabbri’s review of the Daniel Garber shows at Pennsylvania Academy and the Michener Museum (Feb. 23, 2007)—
I am under 70 years of age and a Democrat. I am also a landscape painter of 30 years. I take exception to several of Fabbri’s comments.
I agree that the Quarry painting is breathtaking in its clarity and glowing tonality.
As for the use of the repeat motif of the tree, I think that is a very healthy choice for Garber. His figures are clumsy at best, similar to Cézanne’s figurative work. I think his trees, however, have anthropomorphic qualities that are quite beautiful, and I did not tire of looking at them at all. I think he painted them for himself and not for the public.
The paintings after 1930 did take on a more somber mood, similar to Hopper. I liked the feeling of isolation and quietness that is so prevalent in the Pennsylvania countryside.
All in all, I left the Michener Museum revitalized and ready to paint, which is always a good sign.
Jeanean Songco Martin
Boyds, Md.
September 18, 2007
Artists and criminals
Jim Rutter is quite right that the convicted drug dealer Christian Lisak has every right to perform his piece (“Arists and criminals”). I’m amazed the argument even came up on artists’ ListServ.
But one point Rutter offers bothers me: that Lisak is a victim of civil liberties abuses. It’s one thing when you’re talking about personal drug use; it is entirely another when you are talking about the very lucrative illegal business Lisak was operating.
As someone who runs a small business, I can tell you that it’s not an easy burden. But I bear it, because that’s how our society is able to pay for things like trash collection, public schools, a war (sadly) and publicly funded arts programs (dwindling though the latter may be). It’s my responsibility as a citizen, and it is Lisak’s, too.
But Lisak didn’t have to pay taxes on his business— and it was a business that was quite lucrative, from what I understand. If the business were legal, Lisak probably wouldn’t have been attracted to it, because there would be just as much government regulation and taxation on the business as there is on any company that sells an ingestible product to consumers.
It amazes me when I meet artists who complain about the lack of funding for the arts but who also admit to not paying their taxes. Sometimes I think people confuse liberalism for libertarianism.
In my mind, tax evasion is Lisak’s bigger crime here. True artist he is. In fact, the controversy draws me more to his production, because now I want to hear his story. But Timothy Leary? That’s a stretch.
David Dritsas
South Philadelphia
September 12, 2007
If the art is good, it should be published. Many excellent artists have committed crimes according to our government. It would be a great loss not to have had the work of say, Henry David Thoreau, because he refused to pay taxes.
The greater problem today is: What is good art? There are too many stories and exhibitions of bad artists just because they are criminals, and just because it makes good copy.
Vincent Romaniello
Willow Grove PA
September 11, 2007
Jim Rutter is quite right that the convicted drug dealer Christian Lisak has every right to perform his piece (“Arists and criminals”). I’m amazed the argument even came up on artists’ ListServ.
But one point Rutter offers bothers me: that Lisak is a victim of civil liberties abuses. It’s one thing when you’re talking about personal drug use; it is entirely another when you are talking about the very lucrative illegal business Lisak was operating.
As someone who runs a small business, I can tell you that it’s not an easy burden. But I bear it, because that’s how our society is able to pay for things l trash collection, public schools, a war (sadly) and publicly funded arts programs (dwindling though the latter may be). It’s my responsibility as a citizen, and it is Lisak’s, too.
But Lisak didn’t have to pay taxes on his business— and it was a business that was quite lucrative, from what I understand. If the business were legal, Lisak probably wouldn’t have been attracted to it, because there would be just as much government regulation and taxation on the business as there is on any company that sells an ingestible product to consumers.
It amazes me when I meet artists who complain about the lack of funding for the arts but who also admit to not paying their taxes. Sometimes I think people confuse liberalism for libertarianism.
In my mind, tax evasion is Lisak’s bigger crime here. True artist he is. In fact, the controversy draws me more to his production, because now I want to hear his story. But Timothy Leary? That’s a stretch.
David Dritsas
South Philadelphia
September 12, 2007
Some may feel that Lisak was treated unfairly, or that his actions should
not be a crime, but I don’t think that’s relevant here. Joanne Broadward is clearly outraged at Lisak’s simply being able to perform a piece about his experience.
The idea that a convicted criminal should not be allowed to compose a work of art about his or her crime is absurd. It’s an experience like any other and is worthy as subject matter, as it provides a unique insight about a certain aspect of society and expresses or supports personal ideals.
People like Broadward have no place in a free and open society. If they do, then we are the lesser for it, having severely truncated our view of the
world around us and our ability to express our thoughts.
Matt Green
Philadelphia
September 12, 2007
As a parent of an art student now paying the phenomenally priced tuition of art school, I am happy that my daughter chose to attend an institution that has a zero tolerance policy on drug use on campus. University of the Arts had offered her a significant scholarship, which she chose to sidestep in favor of a city (Baltimore) that is making an effort to keep students safe from crime (violence always seems to go hand in hand with drug dealing), and a school (MICA) that expects excellence from its teaching staff.
I would like to know how this individual, obviously enamored with some rather specious art philosophies, even got in through the door at UArts. A teacher is in a rather special, powerful position to inspire and influence students. One can “tune in, turn on” (or whatever O’Leary’s philosophy was) on one’s own time, one’s own buck, and at one’s own risk.
Over the course of the last four years or so, I have accompanied my daughter to weekend classes in our fair city at Moore, UArts, and PAFA. Our experiences going to and from these otherwise venerable institutions have included aggressive panhandling on the Avenue of the Arts, being stalked in a parking lot adjacent to PAFA, observing homeless and drug-unconscious persons on PAFA’s steps with no effort being made by the security personnel to ameliorate, drug dealing on the Parkway to children who had the appearance of having come from the suburbs, and being nearly attacked by someone, probably a drug-hungry prostitute, in the Starbucks at the Bellevue Stratford.
Needless to say, our experiences have left my daughter with a significantly detrimental impression of the city that I grew up close to and have always cared about. When will Philadelphia wake up to the fact that our city’s cultural life is slowly being stolen from us?
Move the Barnes Foundation? Let’s get the drug dealers off the Parkway (and out of universities and schools) before we even begin to entertain that one.
Victoria Skelly
Wayne, Pa.
September 12, 2007
To say that I’m insulted by Jim Rutter’s suggestion that as I theater artist am somehow less likely to think like a philosopher would be accurate, but it would miss the point. I can’t speak for my fellow theater artists, and I wouldn’t dare try, but I can tell you precisely why I did not object to Joanne Broadward’s characterization of Christian Lisak’s actions as being “criminal”: They were. Rutter seems to have confused “immoral” with “criminal.” Things are criminal because there are laws against them. Whether or not those things should be criminal, whether or not those things are wrong, immoral or anything else, has no bearing on whether or not they are criminal. Personally, I don’t believe that drug use should be criminal, because I don’t believe that it’s in any way immoral. But that does not change the fact that using and selling marijuana is still, technically, criminal. Broadward does not appear interested in whether or not Christian is a bad person, or whether or not he has harmed anyone, but instead is solely interested in the fact that he participated in criminal activity.
It seems a little ridiculous that Rutter should be protesting Christian Lisak’s arrest and conviction now that he’s already been punished for it.
Christopher Braak
Manayunk
September 12, 2007
Tale of two Philadelphias
Re: ”A tale of two Philadelphias”—
Robert Zaller is brilliant— not because his position on Barnes is aligned, but because his arguments are based in factual knowledge and charged with sincere emotion. How many Barnes Foundation matriculated alumni have spoken in favor of the move? Any? They have the first-hand knowledge, the intelligence, the experience. One could know volumes about art and know little about Barnes, the Foundation, and the Barnesian objective method. Let’s hear an (intelligent) argument in favor of the move from one of the alumni. Casual visitors can’t have the intelligence, the understanding to offer a competitive argument. It’s not going to matter anyway…
I’m confident Judge Ott will correct the injustice, and in the process blast all those greedy, perjurers— the big winds who spoke in favor of the move in 2004. Their testimony ignored critically relevant facts ($100 million in taxpayer funds) and steered Judge Ott toward an uncomfortable ruling. They deceived Judge Ott just long enough to get their ruling, and I bet he’s pissed. Stay tuned.
R. Charles Martin
Andalusia, Pa.
September 12, 2007
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