Monthly Archives: May 2007

It was late. A steaming, congealing plate of nachos had just emerged from my microwave oven and my esophagus steadied itself for yet another ill-advised insertion. On the windowsill, my score of the Allemande stood, begrimed, bravely withstanding my strung-out glances, surrounded by poignant, desiccated remainders of Vietnamese takeout. Skeletons of spring rolls, mummies of [...]

An Allemande has two halves. There is something about this “two-halviness” that I think often gets forgotten, or taken for granted. For me the following image is useful: suppose the first half of the dance is a drawing. Now for the second half, imagine Bach putting a piece of tracing paper over the first drawing [...]

In many Romantic lieder, the pianist is the river, while the singer is the melody above: the person addressing the river, throwing themselves in the river, or participating in other river-related mishaps. I’m down there burbling or babbling or sometimes even burping (if I’ve had enough to eat just before the concert), and the singer [...]

My favorite scene in Don Quixote: Sancho is telling a story to calm himself and his delusional master. It’s about a goatherd, Lope, who’s in love with a shepherdess: … Torralba, the shepherdess, who was a stout girl, and wild, and a little mannish because she had something of a mustache… But eventually, despite this [...]