Monday, July 25, 2016
My mother’s parents were born right around the turn of the twentieth century. Albert Crosno, Sr., my maternal grandfather, came from Decaturville, a rural Tennessee town whose current popu…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:30AMBill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys perform “A Voice From On High” in 1954 or 1955. This is thought to be the earliest surviving sound film of Monroe in performance: (This is the latest …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“When someone’s argument boils down to ‘it cannot be,’ it means that it probably is.” Sean Trende, “Yes, Trump Can Win,” (RealClearPolitics, May 31, 2016)
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, July 22, 2016
In today’s Wall Street Journal I review Goodspeed Musicals’ revival of Bye Bye Birdie. Here’s an excerpt. * * * Musicals don’t have to be first-rate to be fun. “Bye Bye Birdie,” …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:30AMThe second episode of Orson Welles’ Sketchbook, a BBC series in which Welles talked about his life and work. This episode, in which Welles talked about critics, was originally telecast on …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“One never gets accustomed to a miracle; one may only wonder at it. A poet is always filled with wonder.” Nadezhda Mandelstam, Mozart and Salieri (trans. Robert A. McLean, courtesy of Pa…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMThursday, July 21, 2016
“And so with the sunshine and the great bursts of leaves growing on the trees, just as things grow in fast movies, I had that familiar conviction that life was beginning over again with th…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, July 20, 2016
Janet Baker sings Hector Berlioz’ “Le spectre de la rose,” from Nuits d’été, accompanied by Herbert Blomstedt and the Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra, at a 1972 concert: (This …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“This is one of the greatest menaces there is; people with intelligence deciding that the point is to become grimly gray and intense and unhappy and tiresome because the world and many of …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMTuesday, July 19, 2016
From 2006: Perhaps as a result of my early musical training, I tend not to worry overmuch about what any work of art “means,” except when it insists on its “meaning” …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“I say ‘the great literature’ not because of its aura of cultural strenuousness, but simply because, in the past, there is only great literature. Only the great stands the racket of ti…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, July 18, 2016
Mrs. T and I are midway through a much-needed seaside vacation in Maine. For me that means no deadlines of any kind and no shows until Friday, when we pass through Massachusetts to see The P…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:30AMJudy Collins sings Bob Dylan’s “Daddy, You’ve Been On My Mind” on Rainbow Quest, a TV series hosted by Pete Seeger. This episode was taped in 1966: (This is the latest in a series of…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“We turn to literature not only for respite, relaxation or escape from the boredom of reality and the gnaw of suffering, but to get away from uncertainty. And certainty is in the past. The…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, July 15, 2016
In today’s Wall Street Journal drama column I review a production of The Merchant of Venice in Lenox, Mass. Here’s an excerpt. * * * “The Merchant of Venice,” like “The Taming of t…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:30AMJacqueline du Pré, Daniel Barenboim and the London Philharmonic perform the first movement of Elgar’s Cello Concerto on TV in 1967: (This is the latest in a series of arts-related videos …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.” Oscar Wilde, Lady Windemere’s Fan
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMThursday, July 14, 2016
In this week’s Wall Street Journal “Sightings” column I talk about a generation of American classical composers who fell through the cracks—and a new attempt to revive their music. H…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:30AM“It is always a silly thing to give advice, but to give good advice is absolutely fatal.” Oscar Wilde, “The Portrait of Mr. W.H.”
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, July 13, 2016
Perry Como and Tony Mottola perform “The Shadow of Your Smile,” written for the soundtrack of The Sandpiper by Johnny Mandel and Paul Francis Webster. This performance was originally tel…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“We spend our lives fighting to get people very slightly more stupid than ourselves to accept truths that the great men have always known.” Doris Lessing, The Golden Notebook
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMTuesday, July 12, 2016
From 2006: The trouble is that striking balances doesn’t come naturally to me. I’m a head-first guy, an enthusiast who jumps first and looks on the way down. Right now I’m not doin…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“Fervid readiness to judge is the most detestable stupidity, the most pernicious evil.” Milan Kundera, Testaments Betrayed: An Essay in Nine Parts
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMMonday, July 11, 2016
One of my favorite bloggers reminds me that in December of 1969, Esquire invited twenty-five venerable celebrities to offer end-of-the-decade advice, most of it predictably platitudinous, to…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:30AMContinuo, a ballet by Antony Tudor set to Pachelbel’s Canon and performed by the Paris Opera Ballet in 1985. The dancers are Sylvie Guillem, Laurent Hilaire, Isabelle Guérin, Manuel Legri…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM“An Orwellian world is much easier to recognize, and to oppose, than a Huxleyan. Everything in our background has prepared us to know and resist a prison when the gates begin to close arou…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMFriday, July 8, 2016
“Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly.” Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (trans. Louise and Aylmer Maude)
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMIn today’s Wall Street Journal I review the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival’s new production of Measure for Measure. Here’s a review. * * * Why do some of Shakespeare’s plays get …
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:30AMOrson Welles talks about Falstaff, makes himself up in front of the studio audience, and performs a monologue from the second part of Henry IV on The Dean Martin Show. This episode was origi…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 06:15AMThursday, July 7, 2016
“Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.” Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace (trans. Louise and Aylmer Maude)
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:00AMWednesday, July 6, 2016
Gérard Souzay sings Duparc’s “L’invitation du voyage,” accompanied by Dalton Baldwin, in an undated telecast dating from the early Sixties: (This is the latest in a series of arts-r…
SOURCE: ArtsJournal at 07:15AM 
