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“Fairness and Freedom” is a cultural/political/social history of the United States and New Zealand in one volume. To the general reader’s likely question, “Why would anyone put the two in one book?”, author’s answer and binding theme is that both former British colonies are open societies with liberal democratic systems, but with a difference.
There was nothing in the program about the pieces he and his fellow musicians would be playing, but no one seemed to care. Most already knew the music from Paco de Lucía’s recordings. They were coming to hear him live, and there was not an empty seat to be seen in the Boston Opera House.
Though rooted in Boston history, “The Luck of the Irish,” with its racial, class, marital and inter-generational conflicts, could be set anywhere in the world.
William Kentridge spoke of the value of using a mirror to re-learn what he already knew how to do; the clear implication was that we are daily surrounded by mirror-images that we do not see for themselves but that hold the potential to alter our relationships to our tools and to our visions.
What struck me about “Hunger Games” is that the rules change in Katniss Everdeen’s battle to survive against others like her, including others she likes, might even love.
This recording heralds a serious, probing musician exploring some vital, if unfamiliar, twentieth-century violin repertoire, and, as such, presents a more-than-welcome addition to recent solo violin discography.
For the reader who is not already a William Carlos Williams enthusiast, the biography provides a good corrective to the Norton Anthology picture of Williams as the poet of tiny images, of plums and red wheelbarrows and fire engines with big gold letters.
If a few of his tempos, particularly in the opening movement, weren’t among the liveliest on record, there was a gravitas and underlying conviction to Mr. von Dohnányi’s interpretation of “A German Requiem” that were wholly appropriate to the piece and its appearance on a program that was presented during Holy Week.
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