Book, CD,
VHS
& DVD Reviews
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Just some comments, with stubs
here and there. Under construction.
1: Books 1: Books
Allan Bloom apparently understood his book as a litmus test, i.e., a way to probe the intellectual state of American academe and culture. He must have realized that without some provocation, it would not be possible to wake up at least some people before the American mind went definitely to sleep. I guess he decided to play the Socratic gadfly and the violent response he got (outrage, indignation, smears, accusations, and so on) did much to prove his point in spades. Closing is considered one of the first politically incorrect books because it dared to challenge dogmas that gradually came to be taken for granted to the point that any discussion of them would be beyond the pale. The writing is so carefully aimed at American culture that non-Americans will have difficulty understanding what the whole fuss was all about. The Brazilian Portuguese translation, for example, simply can't convey Bloom's irony and there is no way for it to articulate what his critique was aiming at, simply because there is no politically correct culture in Brazil of the kind there is in the US. Latin American perception of US culture is inextricably linked to its experience of US foreign policy as being unilateral, interventionist, hypocritical, racist and genocidal. Given this perspective, Bloom's claims that America is not subtly racist and that Western values are universal values seem disingenious. It later became more widely known that besides being Jewish, Bloom was gay and not really a conservative, but rather a follower of the Leo Strauss school. What one should make of these personal facts, however, is not clear. Closing is remarkable for several reasons. It doesn't often happen that book by a political philosopher becomes a bestseller. Moreover, it is a thoughtful essay, can be read several times and still provide new insights. It unapologetically combines history of philosophy and social commentary without much concern for the methodological qualms and quibbles of social science. His analyses of modern relationships and the secular nuclear family are merciless. Bloom is constantly referring to the soul, which seems to suggest he would like to be seen as a thinker in the venerable tradition of Jewish Platonism. The subtitle reads: "How higher education has failed democracy and impoverished the souls of today's students." It is worth re-reading the whole book just to see what he says about the soul, God, or the quest for truth. His passionate defense of the possibility of the individual to rise beyond his or her subjectivity to a higher, more universal, truth, cannot fail to make a deep impression on anyone inclined to philosophy. Much as his Platonism is respectable, though, Bloom is for the most part simply assuming such concepts and apparently expecting the reader to be at least responsive to their claims upon spiritual and intellectual life, while not proving or even explaining them thoroughly. Near the end of the book he conjures the vision of the ideal community of truth-seekers (the philalethes) as the model for all other kinds of society and reminds us of Socrates's personal example and of the supremacy of the US at this moment in history. All of this is fine and impressive, but it does little to prove his argument. After so much damning critique of modern American life, all that is left is the Platonic community of the wise.
This is the most important book written about concepts in the last decades of the 20th century. It covers, in three volumes, the whole history and development of the subject, beginning with the use of myth as a foundational procedure, moving on to Socrates's demand for strictly universal definitions, Plato's Ideas or Forms, Aristotle's essences or substances, Stoic logic, Sextus Empiricus's skepticism, St. Augustine's claim of subjective sense certainty, the theological interpretation of concepts as God's ideas, the problem of universals, Ockham, Descartes's innate ideas, Locke, Leibniz's petit perceptions, Kant, Husserl, Frege, and Wittgenstein. It also deals systematically with the problems involved in grounding (or justifying) predicative assertions and defining concepts. By means of his logical-developmental approach, Ros succeeds in integrating the most significant previous thought about concepts and elaborates an original interpretation of Wittgenstein's later philosophy. Taking a hint from Leibniz, Ros explores the concept of concept as an ability to clarify to other speakers the grammar that regulates our proposed use of general terms. In this way, he avoids the pitfalls of understanding concepts as mental representations. The concept of what it means to ground or justify a predicative statement or a concept should therefore be reformulated so that it is understood as a proposal instead of some unappealable ultimate foundation (Letztbegruendung). Among other ideas, Ros proposes the distinction between foundation within a field of concepts and foundation to (or of) a field of concepts. This is a major contribution, an absolute must read for anyone interested in logic, epistemology and philosophy of language. It is also meant to serve as an introduction to analytic philosophy, leading the fortunate undergraduate student from the most elementary notions of ancient Greek logic to the most recent discussions of philosophical semantics. In my opinion, it is better than Christopher Peacocke's Neo-Fregean A study of concepts (MIT Press) and there is no equivalent to it in the English language.
Candid and informative autobiography of a successful analytical philosopher, describing his working class origins, his discovery of philosophy, his Oxford experience, his immigration to the US and career there. McGinn came to my attention in the 1980's when he published Wittgenstein on Meaning and The Character of Mind. While perhaps not radically original (a colleague of mine once dismissed him as being just a follower of Thomas Nagel), I always respected his ability to come to the discussion with accurate, timely, brief and clear presentations of the issues. For this reason, if I needed an update on what was going on, I could rely on his account as an at least good starting point. I find the way he embeds technical discussions in his narrative to be enlightening because it shows his conception of the philosophical life. The source of philosophical problems that concern him arise from logical inconsistencies he tries to solve a priori (without resorting to experience), not from real life situations one reflects about. I think this illustrates the intellectual(ist) character of analytic philosophy in the Oxonian tradition: philosophical problems arise much in the same matter as mathematical puzzles, and one spends one's life pursuing solutions to them in the world of abstraction. While I understand and respect this kind of experience, my path to philosophy came through an attempt to come to terms with real life situations: personal relations, interacting with people of different backgrounds, and managing cultural shocks. McGinn's pessimism regarding the solution of philosophical problems seems to me, however, based on mistaken assumptions and expectations. Logical analysis is indispensable in philosophy, that much is clear. However, McGinn shows that analytic philosophers are for the most part motivated by the possibility of proposing so-called (logical) theories and of developing arguments for the latest fashionable -ism. This motivation is, at the psychological level, basically career ambition and leads to discussion for discussion's sake or aims at increasing one's list of publications. At a certain point, it was bound to reveal itself pointless, because either the hectic theorization is satisfactory as an end in itself, or it's just a means to a careerist end. The further conflation of empirical with conceptual discussion in the post-Quinean, naturalized, cognitive sciences leads to even more confusion. Is the latest theory conceptual, dealing with logical necessity in all possible worlds, or is it trying to establish causal relations of a falsifiable, empirical sort? Analytic philosophy created for itself something like a room in the attic, above the ceiling of traditional philosophy, which continued to live side to side with social and natural science. Wittgenstein built the ladder and then threw it away. Henceforth analytic philosophers have lived in that higher world of ordinary language analysis, describing and sometimes correcting the grammar of our most fundamental concepts. Unfortunately, this kind of logical therapy gets boring when it's disconnected from scientific work and it's hard to keep up the motivation, so the temptation to theorize kicks in and is impossible to resist. Instead of being a therapist, one can try to be a theorist. But, as P.M.S. Hacker correctly points out, this generates unneeded and even undesirable "theories of meaning". It's exactly what should be avoided. The mistake lies in the attempt to transform the analysis of the grammar of our concepts into a separate field or even a profession, whereas it is and should only be a specific task of meta- or self-clarification done by the scientist himself. That's what the research program in cognitive science tried to correct, after all. Division of labor can be effective if it is well done, otherwise, it generates myopic specialists who are unable to relate what they know to what they need to know but can't keep up with. In this framework, philosophy has most to lose, because it originally had to provide foundations and guarantee a minimal coordination of the specialized subjects. McGinn's later development, in which he tries to widen his concerns to include literature and moral philosophy may be an indication of what is lacking to the analytic approach, but the split between "Wittgenstein's garret" and the underlying traditional philosophical issues is logical, definitive, and therefore cannot be overcome. The issue is more how to deal with it in theory and in practice.
Prescient description of the effects of mass immigration, now vindicated by the riots throughout France in 2005.
In traditional societies, most people were primarily concerned with the past because the future was not open to radical experimentation. It was only when modernity came along that we started trying to implement social change guided by science and technology. We moderns believe in progress. Of course, all of this may go wrong, terribly wrong. That’s what happens to the U.S. in Kevin Beary’s novel, The Savaged States of America. The title may suggest that the author has intended to exploit an apocalyptic scenario in his novel to promote his personal political philosophy. But, on the contrary, the novel’s savagery is a strictly logical extrapolation of egalitarian ideologies that have populated modern minds. The violence in it is never gratuitous, and it always follows the attempt to "fix" some social problem. The end result is that such intervention only makes things worse. Beary is as sensitive to physical violence as he is to psychological warfare. Both are kept connected and in balance throughout the book. One may take issue, however, with the subtitle: "a futuristic fantasy". While it is certainly futuristic, there is nothing of "mere" fantasy to it. On the contrary, the novel is far from being just a flight of the imagination. It is, in fact, a logically constructed reductio ad absurdum of modern politics and ideology. Beary does not try to counter-argue. He just lets the current politically correct dogma play itself out unimpeded in thought and action, and the result is more damning than a refutation. The novel describes the last 24 hours of The Corridor in the year 2050. The US had been broken up in 2030 and two southern states had been founded: Aztlan in the Southwest and Malcolmland in the Southeast. The former is a re-creation of the Aztec empire, while the latter is a Muslim African-American homeland. These states were created to compensate for historical injustices commited by the White race, so the Corridor, i.e. a strip of land crossing the continent from Northeast to the Northwest of what had been the US, was expected to assist them in all possible ways. Canada and the European Community (E.C.) united in 2020 in response to an invasion of south Europe by the United Islamic World (U.I.W.). Although they did not succeed in driving back the Islamic invasion, the E.C. and Canada did manage to get their Pan-Euro act together, thus guaranteeing white survival. In Asia, the major block is the New Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, but it does not play a prominent role in the fate of the Corridor. Given the rapid pace of the narrative, Beary does an excellent job not only filling in all the background information needed to understand the situation, but also inserting and developing several sub-stories with secondary characters that are, however, pretty convincing in themselves. The most fully developed of these secondary characters is Mohammed El Caz, Grand Caliph of Malcolmland. His surname alludes to his genital endowment, certainly a generous gift of the almighty Allah. Besides ruling Malcolmland, one of his endeavours is to translate the works of Shakespeare, who was actually black in his view, to Ebonics. He is also concerned with uprooting a Christian movement led by Mulatter Mary, whose brief but poignant appearance toward the end of the book is quite unforgettable. While getting as much financial and military assistance from the Corridor as he can, his great design is to make possible "Allah’s Golden Ring", i.e. to have a continuous Islamic territory which would circle the Earth, from the Mideast, North Africa, Southern Europe to North America and Southeast Asia. That means, of course, that he will eventually have to invade the Corridor, which is defended by an all-female army. While El Caz is very concerned with spreading Islam, he enjoys special privileges, like having a harem and being able to drink Canadian whiskey. One day, after having too much of his "Divine Drink" (a mix of French wine, Canadian whiskey and Malcolmlander rum), he starts having visions and hearing the voice of Allah, which he dutifully registers for posterity on a digital recorder. This is El Caz at his funniest. But his madness and self-deception has also fatal consequences for others near him. The Grand Caliph’s Corridorian counterparts are "Coordinator" (i.e. President) Harrietona and "Co-Coordinator" (i.e. Vice-President) Cat. Corridorian women generally have male-sounding names like Matt, Stace, Rex, Thunder, Leopard, Panther, Power, Wolf or also end with the suffix -ona, the addition of which in Spanish and Italian suggests large size (so Harrietona means "big Harriet", Cindona "big Cindy", Josephona "big Josepha" and so on). Men have a completely marginal role in Corridorian society and are given names like Serenity and Humility. To achieve this kind of social "harmony", men are given Untesty, which has also the drawback of causing impotence. Corridorian women don’t help much either, covering their faces and arms with Brown-aid to look darker and performing plastic surgery to remove their breasts or to acquire Negroid features. Quality of life is further worsened by the tasteless (and often spoiled, if not rotten) food and juices imported from Aztlan and Malcolmland. Relief is sought in soft drugs such as opios, Forcaz, Tumease and smuggled Malcolmlander rum. Psychological control by the state is extreme, with the imposition of speech codes and white-guilt ideologies. For all practical purposes, Western civilization has ceased to exist in the Corridor, and its demise cannot really evoke any tragic pathos except in the closing lines of the novel, where Beary reminds us that this was how the "nation ... born in bloody travail on Lexington Common, Massachusetts, on the morning of April 19, 1775 anno Domini" came to an end. In a way, this closes a circle, for it is ultimately the Old World (E.C. and U.I.W) that reconquers an America that has lost its moorings. Openmindedness is another aspect of this novel which makes it a valuable study of the modern mentality. Beary does not build his story solely on characters he may sympathize with. Even the main male character, Serenity, is hardly a man at all. As the novel progresses, he comes to know himself better. He discovers sex, love, patriotism and destiny. But all characters in this novel, regardless of whether we like them or not, are carefully dissected by Beary’s omniscient narrator. Because of this, we never get a one-sided view of what’s happening. Psychology, philosophy, ideology and politics are made to shed light on each other. Black Muslim, Aztlanian and Corridorian perspectives are all articulated and played off against each other in convincing situations and exchanges. The satirical treatment given to the characters neither dehumanizes them nor transforms them into paranoid projections (as Hollywood does to those it stereotypes as "white racists and anti-semites"). There is, of course, a tragic sense to this cultural and racial clash, but Beary’s approach is particularly fortunate because it captures a lighter side in irony and satire, while combining it with a commendable openness to all angles. This benefits the reader because he or she is given a chance to re-live and re-examine what for many, after so much subliminal media indoctrination, are deeply ingrained belief systems. Non-Americans will get to know historical figures such as Nat Turner, in whose honor Washington was renamed to Turnertown, John Brown, Carry A. Nation, and there is hardly an aspect of life that Beary leaves untouched, from trade relations between the Corridor, Malcolmland and Aztlan, to the deranged "moral" belief-system of "Coordinator" Harrietona and "Co-Coordinator" Cat. This includes, of course, the characters’s sex life and how it is influenced by egalitarian notions of gender (in)justice or lack thereof. Although the graphic sex and violence in the book is never gratuitous, it is sufficiently explicit to make it inappropriate for minors. It is really an adult book that covers the range of human experience in full, and while it has regrettably to dwell upon much that is base, it does briefly indicate what is noble and uplifting. Beary’s novel is very much a page-turner and its readability is due to his careful phrasing, sense of narrative rhythm, lively and precise descriptions, besides a feeling for effective dialogue. His style is economical but is not diluted to acquiesce to the "verbally challenged" public. The text abounds with satirical allusions and neologisms which non-Americans will probably not understand completely, but which remain funny anyway. The symmetry and balance in the composition of the chapters is also part of this novel’s beauty and elegance. Technically, it is a fine performance, and one can only hope for more. Serenity realizes in the end, after it is too late for the Corridor, that he must go back to his roots and recover his manhood and dignity. Instead of fleeing to safety in Canada, he joins a group of Old-Timer patriots on Liberty Island making a last stand against the Malcolmlander invasion. Yes, it is too late for the Corridor, but not to save one’s soul and honor. The idea that individual valor and sacrifice is possible, no matter how passive and unmanly one has been in the past, is portrayed in a very moving and compelling way in the final pages of this powerful novel.
Abel Znorko, a crusty and reclusive Noble prize winner, unexpectedly accepts to be interviewed by a journalist from Nobrovsnik, Eric Larsen, regarding his latest book. As the interview proceeds, we are in for several surprises. Znorko's book was about a couple that separated, upon the man's initiative and the woman's acceptance, to live their love at a distance, by writing letters to each other. The story, however, was not fiction, but actually autobiographical. When Znorko was diagnosed with lung cancer, he tried to meet his beloved to see her for the last time, but she refused because of their former agreement never again to meet. He then published the correspondence in a desperate attempt to perhaps provoke her to visit him, even if in a rage. What he didn't know, however, was that she, in real life Hélène Meternach, had died of cancer ten years earlier and that her letters had been written by no one else than her husband... Eric Larsen. E.-E. Schmitt reveals that this is one of his most autobiographical plays and that he wanted to play off two views of love and sex against each other. Znorko and Larsen share the love for the same woman, but she remains completely mysterious to us. What interested me about this play is that, at this point, ten years after her death, both are more concerned about themselves and about how they are going to live on their lives. Znorko's hope to see her one last time before he falls terminally ill is dashed, while Larsen desperately needs to maintain the fiction that some part at least of Hélène lives on in his letters to Znorko. Both men are caught in a web of their own making. To what point is love a self-inflicted wound, if it gives us so much grief? Why is liberation from love, as the aged Sophocles is said to have noted, such a relief? And why does this release depend so often on tapping a deeper egoism within us, that makes us prefer self-preservation to pointless suffering? E.-E. Schmitt, regrettably, does not explore this opposition between deep egoism and love, but is more concerned with the more traditional opposition between love and sex. Larsen is more romantic and committed, while Znorko is at the same time "Platonic" but crazy for sex (he regularly hires prostitutes). Of the two, Larsen is the only one who actually took care of Hélène, but is just a music teacher. Znorko is a Nobel prize winner, but he can't face the challenge of married life. Larsen is decent, but an average person. Znorko is flawed, but an achiever. All this is fine and familiar, but, again, it does not address the consumerist culture the younger generation is being raised in, one in which narcissism, deep egoism, instant gratification, high divorce rates and radically different lifestyles generate individuals who are fundamentally incapable of understanding "give and take" and make any kind of personal sacrifice to sustain a serious relationship. Znorko and Larsen could well have lived in the late 19th century. There is nothing wrong with that, and it even gives the play an antique flavor, but there are more problems in this area that will have to be addressed sooner or later, by Schmitt or someone else.
Violin playing is one of the most complex sensorimotor activities one can think of. Quite a few teachers have difficulty explaining to their students how to perform required techniques other than by just playing and asking them to see and hear what is being asked of them. To go beyond this level of kinaesthetic intuition, it is necessary to analyze the physics and physiology of playing, break down the complex movements into simpler parts, and to develop a layered, incremental approach to learning. Fischer's Basics is not a violin method, but a collection of exercises that address fundamental technical issues, providing local solutions for specific problem spots. A must have for any violinist or violist, whether professional or not. 2: CDs
There have been several schools of violin playing: the Italian, the German, the Franco-Belgian, the Russian-Jewish, the Soviet, and the Galamian schools to name a few, but there is only one Paganini. How can we explain what he was and do justice to his accomplishments? This is when we feel compelled to resort to the term 'genius' because it is the only word we can use to cover up our ignorance. There was a natural side to his genius which was due to his particular neuromuscular condition, whatever it may have been. Then there was the consistent dedication to the violin and to composition throughout his life. He extended and developed advanced techniques and showed that they were not just effects, but of crucial importance for solid playing (for ex., left hand pizzicato). He applied the chordal concept from his experience with the guitar to the violin. As a composer, he wrote six concertos for his instrument, along with the famous Caprices and many short pieces. He was a particularly prolific writer of variations and inspired generations of composers: Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Brahms, Rachmaninoff, as well as the composers featured on this CD. Gidon Kremer was trained in the Soviet school, having been a student of David Oistrakh's, and is a major promoter of modern music. Schnittke's A Paganini (there is a free mp3 download available, performed by Sayaka Shoji) tries to convey the mysterious and diabolical side of the master, beginning with enigmatic trills over open string pedals and later evolving into painful Webernian strains and hysterically dissonant chords. Near the end, Schnittke inserts brief literal quotes from the Caprices for contrast. In itself, a compelling piece and very well written for solo violin. Rochberg's fifty Caprice Variations are somewhat less interesting and Kremer does not play all of them. Composed in 1970, the whole work lasts 90' and is postmodern in the sense that it either quotes, borrows or alludes to other composers, such as Beethoven, Schubert, Brahms, Offenbach, Mahler, Webern and Crumb. Kremer selected 23 variations and played the original theme by Paganini. Rochberg's radically eclectic approach can be initially interesting but the sharp stylistic constrast eventually becomes wearisome and does not seem to lead anywhere. Ernst's Last rose of summer belongs to a set of extremely difficult polyphonic études, some of which are almost unplayable. Milstein's Paganiniana is a dazzling synthesis of several themes taken from the Caprices and Campanella. As is usual, the tonal character of the Ernst and Milstein pieces counterbalances the more modern idioms of Schnittke and Rochberg.
Répons and Dialogue de l'Ombre Double, the two pieces in this CD, explore space by surrounding the listener. To simulate this in the recording, a special software, the Spatialisateur, was developed at IRCAM. Boulez explains that Répons refers not only to the responsorial form of Gregorian chant, to the dialogue between soloists and ensemble, the soloists among themselves, but also to the musical material itself, which is structured in a spiral form. In the Dialogue de l'Ombre Double, a clarinet dialogues with its pre-recorded electronic shadow. Before approaching modern music, listeners tend to be concerned about whether what they are going to experience is an "aural assault" or whether it is simply going to be an unintelligible mass of noise. Except for some irritating screeches in the clarinet piece, these pieces can be said to be written to be listened to, which is, after all, if not the, at least a purpose of music. Répons actually starts off well, with what would appear to be an interesting theme in the orchestra, followed by mysterious-sounding textures (trills, a certain amount of polyphonic writing amid complex chordal phrases) in relatively thin orchestration. Section 1 opens with electronically processed arpeggi performed by the six soloists, who play harmonic instruments: 2 pianos, harp, vibraphone, xylophone, glockenspiel and cimbalom. In the following sections and the coda, Boulez develops this material in several ways which cannot be easily or usefully described. It goes without saying that the technical difficulties involved in the piece are enormous and that the Ensemble's performance is nothing short of virtuosic. After a first listen, one may peruse the interesting booklet that accompanies the CD (much of the material has been transcribed here). Besides the liner notes, it has an interview with the composer, in which he makes several important points. He notes that if one tries to establish a personal "language" upon that of others, one inevitably runs into technical difficulties to proliferate or develop ideas into larger structures. Not only Schoenberg, Berg and Webern, but Debussy, Ravel and Stravinsky had this problem too: the increased complexity of the music forced them to write short pieces. Boulez credits his experience with Beethoven, Wagner and Mahler with having helped him deal with expanded, large-scale structures. But this external influence would not be enough if he had not developed an internal solution: "... my language has also evolved in a way that has made it more malleable and more powerful. "(p.10). Further on he adds, "... I am not at all like musicians such as Berio or Berg or, of course, Mahler, all of whom accept heterogeneous elements and integrate them into their works. For my own part, I find it impossible to integrate extraneous elements in this way, unless I have already translated them into my own individual language."(p.12). There are other points he makes, the validity of which is generally recognized, such as the need to completely separate the conception phase of a piece from later practical concerns regarding performance. For the purpose of this short review, however, I would like to concentrate on this idea of establishing a personal musical language. Readers familiar with Wittgenstein's later philosophy will be immediately reminded of his argument concerning the implausibility of a private language, in which meanings are only understandable by the speaker. Granted that "private" in this sense is different from "individual" in the way meant by Boulez above, but this is also because music is not, properly speaking, a language. What is happening here is rather that a concern to sound different and original, which one may call "heterophony", leads Boulez to develop and use serial and spatial techniques. I would agree that these techniques may be considered powerful in the sense that they go much beyond traditional "pitch-centricity". However, the aural effect of his music remains relatively monotonous and inexpressive. The rejection of tonal harmonic functions prevents the music from moving, from going to expected or unexpected places, from alternating dissonance with consonance (relative as these categories may be shown to be), from integrating the music of the past. Like it or not, there is no more powerful musical "language" than the extended tonality used by, for ex., R. Strauss in Salomé. Boulez's music, as far as these pieces are concerned, does indeed sound "mysterious", as some reviewers say, but this is because, to a tonally conditioned ear, he seems to be using what sound like highly chromatic phrases and chords in which augmented fourths and major or minor sevenths prevail over the many other intervals in the mix, and these do indeed sound somewhat conventionally mysterious. Maybe Boulez himself is conscious of something like this, because he mentions his interest in the illusion of recognition: "There was a time when I was particularly attracted by the novelistic technique of Kafka and Joyce: their logic consists in leading you towards something new that you none the less think you recognize. This technique involves illusion and ambiguity and is of capital importance for me."(p.11). Be that as it may, the lack of a tonal center and, hence, harmonic movement, creates a sensation of stasis or immobility, as if it were a hypercomplex modal structure which, given that Répons explicity alludes do Gregorian chant, is not a wholly inappropriate comparison. In the end, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating" applies to music as to anything else. It is worthwhile to compare the early 20th century attempts to expand tonality with the avantgarde attempts to create individual musical languages or soundworlds. One may and should listen to all kinds of serious music, such as Boulez's, but there is no supposed law of historical progress to determine that the latest is the best. History is full of failed experiments and dead ends. As individuals, we always live within an inherited tradition and cannot make sense of ourselves outside of it. In the greater scheme of things, at least within European civilization, extended tonality still rules supreme as its particular and most representative musical system.
3: VHSs Review: Excellent Soviet documentary on D. Oistrakh's life narrated in
English by former Heifetz pupil Erick Friedman. Contains rare footage of
Oistrakh playing throughout his life, beginning with his victory in the
Wieniawski competition in the 1930's. Shows how he became a Soviet hero
during WWII in Leningrad by playing the Tchaikovsky concerto to keep
military morale high. In his statement right after receiving the
Wieniawski prize, he makes it clear that he expected his achievement to be
seen as a proof of the superiority of the Soviet system and ideology.
Auer's flight to the West left his orphaned pupils with the challenge of
establishing the Soviet school of the violin. One can see Oistrakh's
relation to Soviet composers such as Shostakovitch, Prokofiev and
Katchaturian, and to conductors and musicians such as Rostropovich and
Sviatoslav Richter. David's son Igor talks, among other things, about his
father's exacting work ethic and his experience of visiting Prokofiev with
his father to hear the recently composed F minor sonata.
4: DVDs A very personal and romantic interpretation of the complete cycle of Beethoven's sonatas. As a matter of principle, I believe that the performer has the right and the duty to be authentic and to explore the repertoire by emphasizing what they like in the pieces they play. In this DVD, Mutter is certainly sincere. She prefered to be true to herself rather than to follow the expectations of a standard Beethoven interpretation. Having granted this, however, I don't understand why the cover and booklet show photos of Anne-Sophie leafing through Beethoven's manuscripts. If the intention of these photos is to suggest that she did musicological research to bolster her interpretation, this is somewhat misleading and, besides, is not substantiated anywhere. I don't get the point. Aside from the rubati, which may have something to do with an attempt to apply Furtwaenglerian concepts of tempo, what most surprised me was her idea of suddenly stopping the vibrato for some phrases, leaving them with a blank tone. This was effective in her interpretation of the Sibelius concerto, but seems out of place here.
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Copyright © 2005 Tristan Torriani
The
Closing of the American Mind (Paperback)
The Culture
of Critique: An Evolutionary Analysis of Jewish Involvement in Twentieth-Century
Intellectual and Political Movements (Paperback)
Begründung und Begriff.
Wandlungen des Verständnisses begrifflicher Argumentationen. 
The
Extended Phenotype: The Long Reach of the Gene (Paperback)
On Genetic Interests: Family, Ethny,
and Humanity in an Age of Mass Migration (Paperback)
The CLASH
OF CIVILIZATIONS AND THE REMAKING OF WORLD ORDER (Paperback)
Politics,
Sociology and Social Theory: Encounters With Classical and Contemporary Social
Thought (Hardcover)
The Making
of a Philosopher : My Journey Through Twentieth-Century Philosophy (Paperback)
Sources
of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (Paperback)
The Camp
of the Saints (Paperback)
The
Savaged States of America: A Futuristic Fantasy 
Basics: 300 exercises and
practice routines for the violin (Paperback)
A
Paganini - Virtuoso Music for Violin 
Pierre
Boulez: Répons / Dialogue de l'Ombre Double (20/21 series) 
Boulez
conducts Boulez
Mark-Anthony Turnage
Allan
Holdsworth - I.O.U.
David Oistrakh: Remembering A Musician
Leonid Kogan: Interpretations
Beethoven's Complete Violin Sonatas