Syllabus
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10:30am-12:00pm
via Zoom until further notice |
Fall 2020
Sept 22 The Way Back A frank look at just where our artistic institutions are and how they are coping, here and worldwide, with a glance at the prospects, near- and far-term.
Sept 29 Nordic Saga Kirsten Flagstad’s career was a thirty-year success story until the Germans invaded her homeland. Improbaby and against all odds, she added a fourth decade, maybe the best of all, after the war.
Oct 6 Puccini the Wagnerite “La bohème” is about as un-Wagnerian as it could be on the outside - short, sweet, down-to-earth, unintellectual. But half the secret of Puccini’s dominant position lies in the fact that he mastered Wagner’s techniques better than anyone else, and it’s ear-opening to re-examine the Bohemians through that lens.
Oct 13 The Life and Deaths of Maria Callas We had a version of this talk about five years ago, but Callas’s legacy is so rich, and her story so absorbing, that it can be told again with a completely different set of audio examples and a fresh group of biographical vignettes.
Oct 20 The Wizard Many of us heard Vladimir Horowitz play, and some of us met him - but we are most familiar with the last phase of a many-phased career. Ask any pianist: there is not one who fails to see him as the greatest of all, even if he was sometimes maddening.
Oct 27 The Great Dane If any voice in the 20th century deserves to be called “unique,” it is Lauritz Melchior’s, a heldentenor instrument that could do things nobody has matched before or since. And we can trace it uninterruptedly from 1913 to 1963.
Nov 3 The Moral of La Traviata The world knows it about as well as any opera has ever been known - but what exactly is it telling us?
Nov 10 Forgotten Greats III Another installment in what has proved a popular series - thumbnail sketches of musicians who didn’t make history’s “A-list,” but perhaps should have!
To register, please send $500 (and your contact information if we do not have it or if it has changed) to Will Crutchfield at 820 West End Avenue, Apt. 9-F, New York NY 10025, or via PayPal, Venmo or Zelle to WillCrutchfieldAssistant@gmail.com
Sept 29 Nordic Saga Kirsten Flagstad’s career was a thirty-year success story until the Germans invaded her homeland. Improbaby and against all odds, she added a fourth decade, maybe the best of all, after the war.
Oct 6 Puccini the Wagnerite “La bohème” is about as un-Wagnerian as it could be on the outside - short, sweet, down-to-earth, unintellectual. But half the secret of Puccini’s dominant position lies in the fact that he mastered Wagner’s techniques better than anyone else, and it’s ear-opening to re-examine the Bohemians through that lens.
Oct 13 The Life and Deaths of Maria Callas We had a version of this talk about five years ago, but Callas’s legacy is so rich, and her story so absorbing, that it can be told again with a completely different set of audio examples and a fresh group of biographical vignettes.
Oct 20 The Wizard Many of us heard Vladimir Horowitz play, and some of us met him - but we are most familiar with the last phase of a many-phased career. Ask any pianist: there is not one who fails to see him as the greatest of all, even if he was sometimes maddening.
Oct 27 The Great Dane If any voice in the 20th century deserves to be called “unique,” it is Lauritz Melchior’s, a heldentenor instrument that could do things nobody has matched before or since. And we can trace it uninterruptedly from 1913 to 1963.
Nov 3 The Moral of La Traviata The world knows it about as well as any opera has ever been known - but what exactly is it telling us?
Nov 10 Forgotten Greats III Another installment in what has proved a popular series - thumbnail sketches of musicians who didn’t make history’s “A-list,” but perhaps should have!
To register, please send $500 (and your contact information if we do not have it or if it has changed) to Will Crutchfield at 820 West End Avenue, Apt. 9-F, New York NY 10025, or via PayPal, Venmo or Zelle to WillCrutchfieldAssistant@gmail.com