The Well-Tempered Ear
Classical music: Here is what superstar violinist Itzhak Perlman has to say about turning 70, about dealing with his disability and about receiving the National Medal of Freedom.
Leave a Comment
By Jacob Stockinger
This past week, superstar violinist Itzhak Perlman (below) and 16 other major figures from the arts, entertainment, sports and politics received the National Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama.
This year, Perlman also turned 70.
To mark the two events, National Public Radio (NPR) featured an interview with Perlman that shows his always self-deprecating humor and his insights into living and performing.
And in a second NPR interview Perlman, who had polio as a child and walks with braces or crutches and uses a scooter, talked about his championing by example the cause of people with disabilities.
http://www.npr.org/2015/11/27/457419476/itzhak-perlman-im-not-on-the-stage-to-walk-im-on-it-to-play
The piece also has some interesting personal background about Perlman (below, in a photo from Getty Images) that you may not know. And it has some wise advice about getting older and appreciating one’s own accomplishments.
It is hard to name a major composer whose works, sonatas and concertos alike, he has not performed and recorded: Johann Sebastian Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, Franz Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Franz Schubert, Hector Berlioz, Felix Mendelssohn, Johannes Brahms, Niccolo Paganini,Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky, Edward Elgar, Richard Strauss, Alban Berg and so many more — some 77 CDs in all, done for several labels.
Here is a link:
The Ear hopes you enjoy it and learn from it, as he did on both scores.
And here, in a YouTube video, is an excerpt from his latest recording — of two sonatas by Richard Strauss and Gabriel Faure with pianist and his longtime friend pianist Emanuel Ax.
Tags: activist, Arts, Bach, Barack Obama, Baroque, Beethoven, Chamber music, Classical music, Compact Disc, concerto, disabillity, disabled, disabled rights, Emanuel Ax, Entertainment, Faure, Franz Schubert, Haydn, Itzhak Perlman, Jacob Stockinger, Johann Sebastian Bach, Ludwig van Beethoven, Madison, Music, National Medal of Freedom, NPR, Piano, polio, Politics, President, Richard Strauss, Sonata, Sports, Strauss, United States, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Violin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, YouTube
Classical music: Why hasn’t anyone written an opera about Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement?
12 Comments
By Jacob Stockinger
Today is a federal holiday in the US: Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
And The Ear has just one question: Why hasn’t anyone yet composed an opera about MLK?
His larger-than-life existence has all the necessary operatic elements about it, from being a prisoner in jail and winning the Nobel Peace Prize to meeting with President Johnson in The White House and being assassinated while defending garbage workers in Memphis.
He took part in momentous events, some of them dramatic and violent, that involved huge masses of people.
Plus, he and his staff experienced major individual and personal conflicts.
And the cause he fought for forever altered the course of American history and the civil rights of other individuals and groups advocating women’s rights, Latino rights, gay rights and disabled rights among others.
Could it be that MLK has not been treated in an opera because the composers are white or non-American?
Who, then, could or should do it?
The contemporary American composer John Adams (below top) comes immediately to mind. He used President Richard Nixon (below bottom is a scene from “Nixon in China, as it was staged at the Metropolitan Opera); physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Manhattan Project in “Doctor Atomic: to create the atomic bomb; and in the still controversial opera “The Death of Klinghoffer” the question of terrorism examined through the story of Jewish tourist Leon Klinghoffer and his Palestinian murderers, to create his successful reality-based historical operas.
So, why not Martin Luther King Jr.?
Music certainly was vital to King and his campaign.
But what hasn’t he himself been treated as the central figure of an opera?
Maybe the difficulties posed by the King estate would have something to do with it, as they did with the current movie “Selma.”
But one can’t imagine that they are insurmountable.
Anyway, tell us what you think.
Should there be an opera about Martin Luther King Jr.?
Who would be a good composer to write one?
And why do you think one hasn’t already been written? Does racism play a role?
The Ear wants to hear.
Tags: American, Arts, China, Civil and political rights, civil rights, Classical music, composer, disabled, disabled rights, Dr. Atomic, gay, gay rights, Israel, Israeli, Israeli–Palestinian conflict, J. Robert Oppenheiner, Jacob Stockinger, John Adams, Jr., Jr. Day, Latino rights, Manhattan Project, Martin Luther King, Metropolitan Opera, Music, Nixon in China, Nobel Peace Prize, opera, Palestine, Palestinian, President Johnson, reality-based, Richard Nixon, Selma, terrorism, The Death of Klinghoffer, U.S., University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Music, University of Wisconsin–Madison, White House, women, women's rights
Recent Comments
 | Mary Friedel-Hunt on What do you think of the… |
 | music88 on Yunchan Lim’s Chopin etudes ar… |
 | diacon2 on Who was the better pianist? Ma… |
 | welltemperedear on Classical music: Madison Opera… |
| welltemperedear on Classical music: Was Bernard H… |
The Well-Tempered Ear 