Words and Music

MY TWO MOST MEMORABLE concert-going experiences both were recitals by guitarist/lutenist Julian Bream. It’s difficult to describe what made ...

From the Musical Vault Dept .: One of the most engaging artists to have emerged from the long-running Martha Argerich-hosted summer fesitval...

From the Vault Dept .: Advances aren’t nearly as interesting as reviews, but this piece looks at a theater piece with dance that presented a...

From the Food Vault Dept .: The Olde Bryan Inn in Saratoga Springs has a venerable history, which includes two review visits that I paid du...

From the Musical Vault Dept. : Monday’s post recalled a warm Saturday night when I enjoyed a program at Robert Conant’s Greenfield Center (N...

From the Music Vault Dept.: It was good and hot at the end of July 1986, and the temperature in a small studio out in the woods on a hot day...

Guest Blogger Dept. : One of the best-selling novels a century was Booth Tarkington’s Penrod , a collection of stories in the popular genre ...

THERE’S A SCHUBERT SONG known as Ständchen (D. 957 No. 4) that Liszt transcribed for solo piano; a simpler transcription became a very popul...

RON CHERNOW'S MIGHTY BIOGRAPHY of Alexander Hamilton stares at me, unread, from a nearby bookshelf. I’m also unfamiliar with the massive...

MY HOUSE, which was roomy as can be back in February, has dwindled to something the size of a city apartment. It’s an old farmhouse with fou...

THE HEART AND SOUL of David Bromberg’s latest recorded offering, “Big Road,” is an eleven-minute version of “Diamond Lil.” The song, a Bromb...

“I ACTUALLY READ WOODY ALLEN’S MEMOIR” is the headline for Caitlin Flanagan’s review of Woody Allen’s new memoir in “The Atlantic.” She brav...

Guest Blogger Dept .: And who better than Robert Benchley to help us through this traumatic summer? Drawings by Gluyas Williams.            ...

WHEN DAVE BRUBECK disbanded his very successful quartet in 1967, saxophone star Paul Desmond had spent sixteen years with the ensemble, achi...

From the Musical Vault Dept .: During the peak of my concert-review years, I enjoyed many visits to the various spaces in habited by L’Ensem...

I CAME LATE to the Berlioz controversy by coming early to his music. Specifically, to his “ Symphonie fantastique ,” introduced in a high-sc...

From the Food Vault Dept .: When I moved to Schenectady in 1980, a restaurant near Mohawk Mall (now Mohawk Commons) was the only Indian eate...

YOUR VIEW OF THE EARTH may be immediately subverted by this book: most of it takes place in Australia, where the seasons are inverted and th...

From the Musical Vault Dept. : While combing the files for Monday’s post, I came across this review, written a couple of weeks later. I have...

From the Musical Vault Dept .: Can it really be that the most compelling view of musical performances now is in the rear-view mirror? I’m fe...