The Babylonian Talmud counsels that at times of bitterest cold, it is best to say, “Such is the way of the world,” and then “observe eight days of festivity.” One such ideal post-winter solstice festivity for Manhattanites is a January 11 Carnegie Hall recital by America’s sweetheart of song, soprano Renée Fleming, in a program…
Franz Schreker, an Austrian composer of Jewish descent who was hounded to an untimely death by the Nazis, has long been considered an unjustly forgotten genius. In recent years, however, Schreker’s works have received some long-overdue attention. In 2005 American music director Kent Nagano conducted a darkly impressive revival of Schreker’s 1918 opera “The Marked…
Danielle Cohen-Levinas, married to Michaël Levinas, the composer-pianist son of French Jewish philosopher Emanuel Levinas, is ideally placed to evaluate the Jewish inspiration of the composer Arnold Schoenberg. A professor of aesthetics at the University of Paris IV–Sorbonne, Cohen-Levinas has just produced a groundbreaking study, “Schoenberg’s Century” for Les éditions Hermann. In addition to editing…
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