Sergei Prokofiev may have been a second-rate human being, but he was also a genius, argues Mahlerman... Call me old-fashioned, but my broad touchstone for genius is that a man (it is almost always a man) elevated to such a station in life should, at the very least have spent five ... Read More...
Lazy Sunday Afternoon
Dabbler music
The poet Walt Whitman inspired not only writers but composers too. Here, Mahlerman introduces four exceptional pieces... The great American humanist poet and essayist Walter 'Walt' Whitman believed that music had mystical, supernatural powers - in fact it was the only art-form he acknowledged to be greater than poetry, the 'music' ... Read More...
An audio-visual treat for you this Sunday, as Mahlerman brings you three pieces of music inspired by great paintings... Musical inspiration is, like mercury, almost impossible to grasp. It can arrive, as many believe it did to a certain WA Mozart, in a 'lightbulb moment' as if from God, and the ... Read More...
Mahlerman starts 2014 in glorious fashion with the 'rebirth' of music in Venice... The Renaissance period, in art, literature and music is generally said, for convenience, to begin around 1400 and pass into the Baroque two hundred years later; and though this 'rebirth' may be true of painting and sculpture - ... Read More...
Expect the unexpected with Mahlerman's selection of festive music... Drifting very slightly off-message this Christmas, the 'day of birth' refers not just to the child, but to the fresh, seraphic world-view of all children at the moment of birth. The English composer Gerald Finzi's taste was always meditative rather than dramatic, ... Read More...
This week, Mahlerman's guide to classical music in America... When the Scottish philanthopist Andrew Carnegie built the hall that carries his name on Seventh Avenue, New York City, it was constructed in brownstone masonry - rare enough, when you consider that most of the large buildings around it are steel framed, ... Read More...
The Stalinist era's climate of fear shaped the work of dozens of composers. This week, Mahlerman examines Soviet music... A few months ago in Degenerate Music we looked at Adolf Hitler's totalitarian response to anything in 'the arts' that failed to meet the exacting Nationalistic standards he had set out, after ... Read More...
Shakespeare's cultural influence extends far beyond literature. As Mahlerman explains, the Bard has influenced musicians and composers across the world... The term, first invoked by G B Shaw at the birth of the 20th Century to indicate idolisation or, at the very least, an 'excessive admiration' for our greatest poet and ... Read More...
In this week's music column, Mahlerman dabbles in mysticism... Dreamers dream and, asleep or awake, we all dream. Mystics are an altogether more specific group who gather around a belief system of incandescent intensity; mysticism is at the very centre of their lives, and this is probably explained by the fact ... Read More...
Mahlerman is away this week, but this terrific post from his archive shows that losing an arm need not mean the end of a pianist's career... When Paul Wittgenstein woke up in a Russian field hospital in 1914 he was missing his right arm and was effectively a prisoner of war. ... Read More...
