Sport: Vary from normal structure in a singular spontaneous manner. This is the definition of sport as applied to biology. It can be extended to include any event that is extraordinarily different from the norm. Below are a number of musical selections that could be called sports if one were generous with the appellation. If…
Earlier this month Commentary published its 75th anniversary issue. It contains a long dialogue (Editing Commentary – A Conversation) between John Podhoretz the magazine’s current editor and his father Norman a previous editor. The conversation, nine pages of it, is a largely congratulatory depiction of how heavily edited is the copy published. John describes an…
They’re back. Truth is, they never left. It’s just their cover that’s been discarded. In the age of gender fluidity they belong to whatever personal pronoun is in vogue. Plagues are NH4NO3 to them – ie, both fertilizer and explosive. Oedipus sought to end a plague which was caused by a curse which was cast…
The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”― Edmund Burke (in a letter addressed to Thomas Mercer). Most have heard Burke’s famous observation about how easy it is to allow evil to prosper. His elaboration on the subject is less well known. His 18th century prose style is all…
If you’ve been reading the articles here about the specificity and sensitivity of testing for COVID-19 you are aware that we lack critical information about the various tests used to diagnose the disease. The New England Journal of Medicine has just published an article about the sensitivity and specificity of testing for the Coronavirus. They…
Today was to be the final HD telecast of the Met’s 2019-20 season. But the company is as closed as an open mind. To compensate the Met broadcast, no TV, a 2013 performance of the opera that was to have been on had not the virus paralyzed the world. Maria Stuarda was Donizetti’s 100,345th opera…
Most opera composers are specialists. There are only four greats who are equally noted for both operatic and instrumental music – Monteverdi, Handel, Mozart, and Strauss. Chamber music is defined as: “Instrumental music played by a small ensemble, with one player to a part, the most important form being the string quartet which developed in…
Birgit Nilsson (1918-2005) was one of opera’s miracles. If you heard her during her prime, which roughly coincided with the first decade or so of her 22 years at the Met, you heard a unique voice. At its fullest, it was a Jovian thunderbolt. No technical challenge was too much for her. Vocally, she could…
The Met’s new production of Gershwin’s opera which opened its current season was telecast around the world today. Before getting to the performance, a few words about the opera. Though 80 years old, it is still under copyright as the Gershwin family has proved to be master manipulators of the relevant US law governing intellectual…
You have to be a grown-up to be able to hear opposing view while remaining calm and granting these views a dispassionate analysis. Such behavior is beyond the capacity of most people – certainly those with strongly held beliefs. There are many people with such beliefs who feel compelled to insert them into ordinary conversations…