To enjoy a tale of Eternity in the context of time, you have to let go of your attachment to narrative. Much of the heavily advertised new movie The Tree of Life struck me as a fun romp through a new age of computer graphics, something like the abstract expressionism of Fantasia on steroids.
Paul Dukas' music for this story from Fantasia was based on Goethe's 1797 poem Der Zauberlehrling. This is NOT abstract expressionism.
I woke in the middle of the night wondering whether Robert Browning could have been thinking of the 16th-century composer Carlo Gesualdo (1566?-1613) when he penned his famous and much-anthologized dramatic monologue “My Last Duchess”. Continue Reading →
Instrumentalists imitate the human voice more often than human singers imitate instruments. Evidence for the rule includes Louis Armstrong’s duets with Ella, Bach’s obbligato parts to sacred arias (I am thinking especially of oboe and cello), some styles of African drumming, and even some didgeridoo music. Continue Reading →