Bulgakov would have loved this!!!

THE NEW YORK TIMES

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 World Briefing | Europe

16 September 2013

Russia: Shooting in Philosophical Clash

By ANDREW E. KRAMER

An argument over the teachings of the philosopher Immanuel Kant between two men standing in line for beer at an outdoor festival in southern Russia ended when one man shot the other in the head with gun loaded with rubber bullets, the state RIA news agency reported on Monday, citing the police. Though the wound was not critical, the attacker faces up to a decade in prison if convicted on assault charges. Among educated Russians, including those who drink, classical literature and philosophy are sometimes debated in casual social settings, the way sports often are in Western countries.

Better late than never...

The 1952 Sonata for Flute, Oboe, Cello, and Harpsichord has never been among my favorite Carter pieces.  Still, after having spent many years with a hideously balanced studio recording of this sonata (a technical embarrassment for the otherwise very competent Nonesuch label), it was thrilling to hear it for the first time in an excellently engineered live recording.
     The performance was given by members of the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra (except the harpsichordist) on September 10, 2013 at the Concertgebouw (Kleine Zaal).  The musicians were Fred Edelen (cello), Julie Moulin (flute), Miriam Pastor Burgos (oboe), and Christina Scott Edelen (harpsichord).

Gone but not forgotten...

The gravestone is less than modest, but then Mozart did not get even this much...  And what does it matter anyway?  If I were a composer, I would rather have people go to concert halls where my music is played than to the cemetery where my corpse is buried.

Which is how Elliott Carter was remembered on June 22, 2013 at the Aldeburgh Festival, where two well-known champions of his music - Pierre-Laurent Aimard and Oliver Knussen, supported by the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group - performed Carter's Dialogues and Dialogues II.  This performance was recorded live by the BBC and was made available for a while as a high quality (320 kbs) webstream.

At about the same time I also came across my second live recording of Carter's Triple Duo, performed by the Belgian group Ensemble Linea on September 27, 2012 in Strasbourg.  One especially attractive feature of this close-balanced but atmospheric recording is its sharply defined spatial separation of the three instrumental groups.

The truth shall set you free...

There is help for you too!

Recently there have been many reports in the media about the rapidly increasing number of school-age children diagnosed with ADHD.  But what about today's adults?  What about those of us who grew up at a time when a kid would not be considered psychologically abnormal unless he was found standing in his parents' bedroom with a smoking shotgun in his hands, staring at two bloodied corpses on the queen-size bed?  How many of us might have benefited from an early ADHD diagnosis, so that we would not have had to struggle through life as knuckleheads, dimwits, morons, or - in the words of loving but exasperated teachers - just plain fucking retards?

If you experience such pangs of regret from time to time and wish you could find out if you really suffer from this disorder, there is help for you too!  Below you will find a short yet remarkably accurate self-diagnostic test designed specifically for adults.

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