The Davison Art Center at Wesleyan University has purchased Leonard Freed’s Powder Ridge photographs from the Brill Gallery, North Adams, by Michael Miller

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Leonard Freed, Flag Top

The Davison Art Center at Wesleyan University has purchased a collection of Leonard Freed's photographs of the abortive second coming of the Woodstock Festival in the summer of 1970, planned to take place at the Powder Ridge Ski Resort near Middlefield, Connecticut, on July 30 and 31. Some of the most renowned rock stars of the time were scheduled to perform, including Joe Crocker, Allman Brothers, Janis Joplin, James Taylor, Van Morrison, Little Richard and Richie Havens. Local citizens, apprehensive about the large gathering of young people (30,000 tickets had been pre-sold), obtained a court order and forced the cancellation of the festival. The audience turned up anyway and entertained themselves. The number of participants is numbered between 25,000 and 35,000. There were conversations, swimming, sex, and on the second evening music from local bands. Drugs of all kinds were liberally enjoyed, with the attendant excesses, but no deaths. Contemporary news coverage tended to focus on the bad trips and other sensationalistic aspects of the event—none of which were to be seen in Leonard Freed's sunnier view of the proceedings, as selected by Susannah Freed and shown at The Brill Gallery.(For a complete view of the show, click here.)

Read the full notice
 on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!








A Singer’s Notes by Keith Kibler 42: Simple Songs

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Kara Cornell in Menotti's Amahl and the Night Visitors

At its center Christmas is the simplest of celebrations. Its god is created not in a magnificence, but in poverty attended by animals. Except you become as a little child.... I am thinking now of three powerful and simple beauties I have heard this Yuletide, full of integrity and without dilution. The first was the marvelous performance given by Anne Azema in the Boston Camerata's Medieval Christmas at the Union College Chapel. Like all great singing, hers comes at you directly, no mediation, no hesitation.  Her sound, her knowledge, even her appearance, are all part of one thing, and that thing is honest. Like all great artists she makes you know that her voice is the right instrument for the music. She sings an old cantiga with as much passion as another kind of soprano might sing Norma. An update of the Camerata's first medieval Christmas program, this one was sparely accompanied, most often unaccompanied. The chant and monophonic songs held full sway. They were sung with a sharp and soaring energy which was always interesting, often riveting. This repertoire in a performance like this easily held the attention of a full house for over two hours. This was a performance of early music which was straight out, in no way manufactured. The highest compliment I can give it is that it was simple. And the model for this was the singing of Anne Azema.

Read the full article
 on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!








Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan, The National Gallery of Art, London, November 9, 2011 – February 5, 2012, by Bruce Boucher

Musician
Fig. 1 Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519), Portrait of a Young Man (‘The Musician’), about 1486-7, oil on walnut, 44.7 x 32 cm, Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana, Pinacoteca – Milan (99). © Veneranda Biblioteca Ambrosiana – Milano/De Agostini Picture Library .

The crowds begin as one approaches the rear of the building: a long line, snaking back on itself contains those hopeful of gaining one of the 500 tickets on sale each day; further on, is a smaller queue of the luckier ones who had snapped up all the online tickets during the first three days of sale. Overall, the crowds are well behaved—for this is England—and approach their goal with good humor and a touch of the spirit of Dunkirk as they descend upon the National Gallery’s runaway success, Leonardo: Painter at the Court of Milan. It is not a large show, only some sixty paintings and drawings, but then Leonardo only began a score of paintings in a career spanning four decades. Of those paintings, fifteen autograph works survive, and four of these are generally deemed incomplete. To assemble almost every surviving painting from Leonardo’s Milanese period in London is a notable achievement, and these works are supplemented by others associated with his followers and sometime collaborators in the most sustained period of productivity in the artist’s life.

Read the full review
 on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!








Rembrandt and Degas: Two Young Artists, at the Clark Art Institute, by Gregory Scheckler

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Edgar Degas, Self-Portrait, c. 1855–56 Oil on paper laid down on canvas, 40.6 x 34.3 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Bequest of Stephen C. Clark, 1960 61.101.6

Sponsored jointly by the Clark Art Institute and the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, this small exhibition of prints and paintings by Rembrandt and Degas opens with Degas' assertion that "What I do is the result of reflection and study of the great masters."

One of the marvelous things Degas learned from them is that new art need not always look like old art, that the great masters often were consummate experimenters developing entirely new kinds of imagery. Indeed Degas is well-known for his pastels of dancers, which often involve mark-making and composing methods that veer far away from the academic traditions of his early training.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!


Opera Boston to Close January 1, 2012, by Michael Miller

December 24, 2011 •

A Scene from Shostakovich's The Nose at Opera Boston

With no advance warning, Opera Boston board chair Winifred P. Gray and board president Gregory E. Bulger have issued a statement that Opera Boston faces “an insurmountable budget deficit” of $500,000 and will cease operations on Jan. 1, 2012.

The announcement cited “lackluster fundraising in a tough economic climate” as the main reason for the closure. The staff was notified yesterday.

“The Board realizes that this development will come as a shock to the Boston arts community, and it is not a decision we made lightly,” Gray said in this morning’s statement. “The Company has had many artistic triumphs in its recent history, and has many fans. However, as the end of the year approaches, we find ourselves in a financially untenable situation, and the responsible thing is to work with our creditors and cease operations.”

Read the full article
 on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!








Andris Nelsons withdraws from his January commitments with the BSO. Leininger to fill in.

Andris Nelsons

The BSO has made the following announcement:

"Conductor Andris Nelsons regrets to announce that he will not be able to travel to Boston for his scheduled concerts with the Boston Symphony Orchestra on January 6, 7, and 8, as he and his wife prepare for the imminent arrival of their first-born child. BSO Assistant Conductor Marcelo Lehninger will step in to conduct this program, with Haydn’s Symphony No. 88 replacing the previously scheduled Symphony No. 90. The rest of the program remains unchanged.

Maestro Nelsons will appear at Tanglewood this summer where he will lead both the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Tanglewood Music Center Orchestra in concerts July 14-16, 2012."

Read the full notice on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!


Mozart and Yellow Warblers: Recent Performances of the Piano Concertos on Disc (Part I of a Series) by Seth Lachterman

Recorded Performances of Leif Ove Andsnes, Jonathan Biss, Derek Han, Vassily Primakov, Rudolf Buchbinder, David Fray and Emanuel Ax.
(Leif Ove Andsnes, Mozart Concertos Nos. 9 and18; Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, EMI)
(Jonathan Biss, Mozart Concertos Nos. 21 and 22; Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, EMI)
(Derek Han, Mozart Complete Concertos; Paul Freeman, Philharmonia Orchestra, Brilliant Classics)
(Vassily Primakov, Mozart Piano Concertos, Vol. 1: Nos. 24-27; Scott Yoo, Odense Symphony Orchestra)
(Rudolf Buchbinder, Mozart Piano Concertos Nos. 22-24; Wiener Philharmoniker, DVD, EuroArts)
(David Fray, "David Fray Records Mozart," Concertos Nos. 22 and 25; Jaap van Zweden, Philharmonia Orchestra, film directed by Bruno Monsaingeon, DVD,Virgin Classics)
(Emanuel Ax, Mozart Piano Concertos Nos. 17 and 18; Pinchas Zukerman, The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, RCA Victrola)

Companion analyses:
Rosen, Charles. The Classical Style: Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven. New York:W.W. Norton & Company, 1970, 1998.
Girdlestone, Cuthbert. Mozart and His Piano Concertos. New York:Dover Publications, 1964.

Part 1: Leif Ove Andsnes, Derek Han and Emanuel Ax

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Not so recent Emanuel Ax, Photo by Jenny Baumann

While spending almost twenty years closely listening to Bach's more than two hundred cantatas bewildered some of my friends would decry my project and say, "They all sound alike - how can you tell them apart?" These people, sophisticated music lovers who simply did not care for the Bach vocal repertory, refused to admit they glossed over these works in a superficial way.  To my ears, of course, each and every cantata had uniqueness that clearly articulated it from the rest of the pack. Yes, there were many structural similarities, and Bach's musical language is the unifying tongue, but, to say Bach's cantatas all sounded alike seemed heretical, born of inferior taste and auditory skills.  Years later, when I started watching birds, I came upon the family of yellow warblers, illustrated in Roger Tory Peterson's definitive field guide.  Boggled by the subtle markings which distinguish these birds, it seemed that page after page pictured the same damned bird, and I recalled my friends'  remarks about Bach's vocal works.  The thirty-odd subspecies of yellow warblers, all tiny creatures with a mix of yellow, white and dark streaks, seemed like a pattern puzzle on an I.Q. test:  "Which bird doesn't belong with the rest?" or "What will the next bird in the sequence look like?"  I passed over the warblers and contented myself to distinguish a black crow from a blue heron.

Read the full review on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!


From Concord’s Jail – An Address by H. D. Thoreau, by Nathaniel Smith

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Henry David Thoreau[

[Originally published September 25, 2008]

Introduction: On July 23rd, 1846, Henry David Thoreau, protesting slavery and the ensuing Mexican war (1845 – 48) chose incarceration rather than paying his $1.00 poll tax. From this experience came the essay CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE which directly influenced Mohandas K. Gandhi in his efforts to free India from British rule and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., head of the civil rights movement in the 1960's.

The following monologue is the author's fictionalized attempt to portray Thoreau's state of mind shortly after the incident and the areas of consideration leading to his momentous essay.

Setting: July 24th, 1846, Concord – H.D. Thoreau is invited to speak at the Concord Lyceum about his recent act of civil disobedience. The lyceum was a place where relevant topics of the day were presented to the public.

Note: H. D. Thoreau did, in fact, speak at the lyceum about this matter, but it was not until two years later in 1848 and later publishedCIVIL DISOBEDIENCE.

I have only lately come from Concord Jail. I went, you see, because my government, like some ruffian, has gone to war with Mexico. And yet it comes to me to pay for this villainy. My conscience would not let me pay a penny for the privilege of sacking my neighbor. But I am told to hand some portion of my earnings over or else be promised with a bullet or barred windows!

Read the full address on the Berkshire Review, an International Journal for the Arts!