James-Marcus
This arch-New Englander, descendant of Puritans, is also “the American who resists branding, who will not be commodified.”
Read MoreBy James Marcus At its best, an opera about the death of Spanish writer Federico Garcia Lorca is a tour-de-force. Ainadamar, an opera by Osvaldo Golijov. (Deutsche Grammophon) For most composers, geography is destiny. Even Schoenberg — whose innovations were supposed to release music not only from its tonal prison but from the local idiom…
Read MoreOld timers Ray Davies, an ex-Kink, and Donald Fagen, ex-Steely Dan, have released surprisingly youthful solo albums. “Morph the Cat” (Reprise); “Other People’s Lives” (V2) By James Marcus “Hope I die before I get old,” declared The Who’s Pete Townshend in 1965, and certainly there have been times, during his drink-and-drug-addled middle decades, when he…
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Arts Criticism Commentary: In Defense of Negative Book Reviews
“Criticism will always have the force of the child in the story about the emperor’s new clothes, because there will always be naked emperors who everybody says are wearing today’s Crown Jewels.” — Eric Bentley
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