Every summer for the
past 52 years, Lincoln Center has hosted the Mostly Mozart Festival. I remember
going to various concerts over the years, and it seems to me that they truly
did perform music primarily composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. But in recent
years, they have broadened the scope quite a bit, so that we now attended an
all-Beethoven program: his Violin Concerto in D major (1806), with a very young
excellent violinist, Vilde Frang, and his Symphony No. 3 in B-flat major (also
known as the Eroica) (1803). We also attended the pre-concert recital, which
featured Schubert’s Fantasy in C major (piano solo by Drew Petersen) (1822). All
in all, a lovely program, if not consistent with the name of the series.
We have also seen two
interesting documentaries over the past week. The first, “Remember My Name,”
was about singer/songwriter David Crosby. A clearly talented musician, much of
his life was troubled by addiction to illegal drugs. This eventually led to his
need for a liver transplant in 1994, and he continues to struggle with a myriad
of health problems, including Type II diabetes. But amazingly, he is still
composing and performing after all these years. I do not think that I had quite
appreciated just how significant a contributor he was to CSNY; I always thought
of Stephen Stills and Graham Nash as the core of the group, although thinking
about it now, Crosby was, in fact, the first name on that list!
The second
documentary was “Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am.” Although we are certainly
familiar with the name, we have never read any of her highly acclaimed novels. She
has lived a fascinating life and was an engaging subject for the series of current
interviews and old footage that the film displayed, presenting a compelling
look at life for American blacks both then and now. She is an engaging presence
and amazingly articulate on a wide variety of societal issues. The film also
features interviews with a number of other literary greats, who help to provide
perspective on the importance of Morrison’s work, including Angela Davis, Oprah
Winfrey, Fran Lebowitz, Sonia Sanchez and Robert Gottlieb, who was her
colleague at Random House and became the editor of nearly all her novels. The
film was produced under the auspices of PBS’s “American Masters” series, and I
would imagine that it will eventually be shown on PBS. It is now being shown at
Film Forum and at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center (at Lincoln Center, where
we saw it).
The best news is that
this horrendous heat wave has finally given way to some lovely weather. This is
good timing, because Joshua is coming tomorrow for his week of Camp NanaSabba,
which includes three baseball games!
Have a great week.
Love,
Rebecca
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