Alex Ross: The Rest Is Noise

Dudamel at the NY Phil, Mozart at the Met

The Pit and the Podium. The New Yorker, June 5, 2023.

Der Schreibtisch des Zauberers

At the Thomas-Mann-Archiv, Zurich. Alongside the permanent exhibition evoking Mann's study, the archive has mounted a temporary exhibition titled "Achtung Europa!," about the author's political activity in Europe over the course of his life.

Marbach am Neckar

Inside the secret command center of German literature — the magnificent Deutsches Literaturarchiv Marbach.

For Kaija Saariaho

An incalculable loss for the musical world.

Mahler's baptismal record

A haunting item, to be seen in the Komponistenquartier Museum in Hamburg. Mahler converted to Catholicism at the St. Ansgarkirche in Hamburg in February 1897, in advance of his move to Vienna.

Ligeti at 100

American classical organizations have mostly ignored György Ligeti's hundred birthday, but events have been plentiful in Europe. The Vienna Philharmonic, Dresden Philharmonic, Gürzenich Orchestra, and Karajan Academy of the Berlin Philharmonic are all playing his music today. The Dallas Symphony is one of very few American groups marking the anniversary. I devoted a column to Ligeti in 2001 and wrote this notice when he died, in 2006. I treasure the memory of meeting the great man, in 1993, even if I asked a stupid question.

A Sarah Nemtsov moment

A Kristine Tjøgersen moment

At the grave of Edvard Grieg

Taken during a visit to the lovely Grieg Museum in Troldhaugen, outside Bergen. Below, pictures of Grieg's composing hut. Earlier, in Lofthus, he had a similar cabin built. These were perhaps the inspiration for Mahler's various composing huts.

Previously: Feuchtwanger, Toch, Lubitsch, Korngold, Salieri, Bruckner, Liszt, Georg Trakl, Willa Cather and Edith Lewis, Thomas Mann, Bach, Nietzsche, Monteverdi, Koussevitzky, Michael Furey, Luranah Aldridge, Ligeti, Frescobaldi, Villiers de l'Isle-Adam, Baudelaire and Beckett, Nadia and Lili Boulanger, Stravinsky and Nono, Zemlinsky, Schnittke, Fibich, X. Scharwenka, Elliott Carter, Enescu, Rachmaninov, Mahler and many others, Russ.

Momento Sciarrino