Okay, so this has nothing to do with the eighteenth century, or anyone French, but it is about a performer, and my whole dissertation, only half written as it is, is dedicated to performers and their critics. I cannot think of anyone more dedicated to performance, or more dogged by critics, than Michael. What is [...]
Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Michael.
January 27, 2010
Man, a machine.
June 16, 2009
Why call my budding dissertation superfluous? I used to say to myself, “You know, the world doesn’t need another disquisition about why music mattered to people at a certain point in time, years ago, in France.” What’s a couple thousand words about how French writers in the eighteenth century mulled over the pains and pleasures [...]
An open lettre.
March 9, 2009
Almost a year ago, I mused on the apparent difficulty with which French composer and theorist Jean-Philippe Rameau put words down to paper. Alright, so it wasn’t as simple as “apparent difficulty.” The man had a fire within, a force driving him to convey his vision of musicality and music theory to a reading public. [...]
A Lullian pony.
March 9, 2008
A friend of mine sent a request for materials related to the study of the immortal Jean-Baptiste Lully, specifically the staged works or tragédies en musique. I had done time in this area as part of requirements for the storied general examination several years ago, and had an oddly enjoyable time going back through notes [...]
Rameau’s monstrous Thing.
February 18, 2008
I may or may not want to admit it, but there is solace out there for those alienated by complexities in scholarly writing. “Is academic writing,” as Jonathan Culler asks, “needlessly obscure?” That question may take a number of years to answer fully, although Culler is off to an admirable start suggesting possibilities. Enter the [...]
The diagnostician.
February 17, 2008
Never in recent semesters has part of a passage from my reading been so difficult to assess. As Robert Darnton has been fond of stressing, pre-Revolutionary authors and French libelists had much to say about circulating tales, or nouvelles, concerning the sovereign state, the antics of clergy, of other ministers, their lackeys, and those even [...]
The Rameau bandeau, in nude.
January 14, 2008
From the initial strains of the overture to Rameau’s comédie lyrique, Les Paladins (1760), José Montalvo’s stage direction (2004), as well as his collaborative choreographic efforts with Dominique Hervieu, betray the utterly otherworldly aspirations of the production. This is not the Rameau of the eighteenth century, nor even a conservative adaptation along the lines of a [...]
Blogging beyond the dissertation.
January 14, 2008
Once again I find myself fusing pieces of old archives, now mostly deleted, and a few new promises. Call it a return to blogging. Not with a vengeance, mind you, but with good intentions and the hope that more will unfold over time. The new digs? None other than amusicology.com, the sharp and still relatively [...]
