Monthly Archives: September 2020
Finale 26 – Il Templario Act 1
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 30th September 2020I wrote about Otto Nicolai’s second opera a couple of years ago. There’s only one complete recording of the work. It’s from the Chemnitz Opera which performed it in 2008 . The opera, based on Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, was thought lost as its score was obliterated by bombings in World War II. It was successfully reconstructed…
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COVID-19 Immunity
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 29th September 2020I’ve tried to resist the urge to write more about the COVID-19 epidemic. Afterall, there are only so many ways to say that we’ve done just about everything wrong that’s possible. Turning politicians and journalists loose on the disease was certain to make a hash out of a serious, but not world ending, problem. Even…
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George London
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 23rd September 2020Bass-baritone George London (born George Burnstein; 1920 – 1985) was born to naturalized American citizens who had emigrated to the US from Russia. His parentage likely explains the fluency he exhibited in Russian roles, most prominently Boris Godunov. Born in Montreal and raised in Los Angeles, his vocal talent was soon recognized. He toured the US…
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How Many Doctors Are Needed to Run a Hospital?
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 20th September 2020When I was a resident physician the chief of cardiology often argued that there should only be two departments in a hospital – medicine and trauma. I’ve often thought about that view over the ensuing decades as the number of medical specialties proliferated like mushrooms after a downpour. How many specialties would be needed if…
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False Positive PCR Tests For COVID-19
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 16th September 2020I got tired of writing about the problem of false positive tests for the coronavirus, so I gave up. Now the New York Times has suddenly become aware of the problem. When a PCR test is run the virus is amplified in proportion to the number of cycles run. Typically 40 cycles are performed. Thus,…
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Raina Kabaivanska
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 15th September 2020A regular reader asked why I had never written about Raina Kabaivanska. I had no reason apart from inadvertence and said I would put something together about her. This is it. Ms Kabaivanska (born 1934) is a Bulgarian soprano now retired. She currently devotes her time to teaching. She was a lirico-spinto (with more emphasis…
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CRISPR and Human Characteristics
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 12th September 2020On September 9th PBS series NOVA presented a two hour program devoted to the genetic technique CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats). It’s a technique that allows for gene editing. You can read about by clicking the link above. The PBS program does a pretty good job of explaining how the technique works and…
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Finale 25: Shostakovich: Symphony No. 11 in G Minor, Op. 103 “The Year 1905”- 4. The Tocsin
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 9th September 2020Written and first performed in 1957, Shostakovich’s Symphony #11 was ostensibly about the abortive Russian Revolution of 1905. Everything the composer wrote or said after Stalin squashed him in 1935 because the dictator was offended by Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk has to be decoded. He composed the piece in the wake of the Soviet repression…
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Why Contemporary Music Fails
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 7th September 2020Look to the boxoffice; the theater was meant to be full. Giuseppe Verdi to a young composer upset about the critics’ reaction to his compositions. The music discussed here is that of Western Europe which is typically called classical music. I’ll include opera and related vocal music under the same rubric. While largely the child…
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COVID-19 Six Months In
Written by Neil Kurtzman | 2nd September 2020It’s just about half a year since we recognized that the coronavirus had taken residence in the US and just about everywhere else. We took a while to realize that the bug was going to stay longer than The Man Who Came to Dinner. Though epidemics have been a feature of human existence ever since…
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