Hits, Favorites, and Second Chances


Angels in Reverse (History)

“A true, lively, and experimentall description” (Puritan advertising and cultural fragmentation)
The Turn of the Screw: Part IPart II (cultural history as screwball comedy)
Full measures of devotion (the National Anthem in 4)
Naming of Parts (when philosophical and musical history diverge)

Vast Considerations (Philosophy and Science)

Well, there’s your problem (music’s communicative irrationality)
Design for Living (natural selection and process music)
No problem (style and the dialectic)
Qui sème le vent recolté le tempo (Augustine and the contingency of music)

Exploded View (Music Analysis)

“The reason… is a remarkable one” (quotation and unknowability in Richard Strauss)
I may burn the toast (kitchen adventures and the limits of analysis)
Categorical denials (evolution, ragtime, and Robert Schumann)
Our Prayer (gospel, Brian Wilson, and the plagal cadence)

The Exchequer (Economics)

… When I showed him my lymphatics (the cost-disease, revisited)
Concentratin’ (orchestra seasons and programming wealth)
E pur si muove (dire predictions, Marx, and the squeeze of inequality)
Get on Board (on bandwagons and other network effects)

Hopelessly Devoted (appreciations)

Magna Carter (on Elliott Carter at 100):
1. Punctuality
2. Genealogy
3. The stuff that dreams are made of
4. Identity politics
5. Role modeling
6. This Is Your Life
7. Either/Or
8. You’ve got a head start
(Epilogue)

Music of Changes (on John Cage)
Di piu’ risorgere speranza e’ muta! (on Callas’ Covent Garden Traviata)
Les anges musiciens (on Poulenc)

Reshelving Area (Uncategorized Musings)

“…the magician and the prophet on the one hand…” (conductors and political charisma)
If that’s movin’ up then I’m movin’ out (making one’s own history, sometimes on purpose)
I watch the ripples change their size (Bowie, Satie, and dilettantism)

Novelty Acts (Silliness)

Strauss and Mahler Re-Enact Your Favorite Movie Moments:
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Midnight Cowboy
The Ten Commandments
It’s a Wonderful Life
The Seventh Seal

Composer in the Kitchen: episode 1episode 2

Operas as summarized by the lyrics of “Ashes to Ashes”
To Serve Man
Dreidel Attraction

The Roll Up Yonder (In Memoriam)

Thanks for hesitating (David Bowie)
Competitions (Van Cliburn)
I say a prayer with every heartbeat (Whitney Houston)
Composer’s Holiday (Lukas Foss)