Michael Linton

Timing is everything. To complete his three-year tenure as composer-in-residence with the Pacific Symphony (an ensemble in Orange County, California), Richard Danielpour planned to write a large choral work dedicated to American veterans. The premiere was scheduled for November 2001, and Danielpour . . . . Continue Reading »

The True Life of J.S. Bach By Klaus Eidam , translated by Hoyt Rogers Basic. 432 pp. $35 Nicht Bach, sondern Meer sein! Beethoven’s famous pun on Johann Sebastian Bach’s last name (“not a Brook, but rather an Ocean!”) is perhaps the most eloquent summary of the Saxon . . . . Continue Reading »

The ovation at the close of its premiere in Stuttgart was so raucous that people out on the street thought a pop concert was ending. In Boston the critics were ecstatic, one writing that at the end “the crowd made a sound that will echo in the musical world for some time.” The Wall Street . . . . Continue Reading »

Are there prizes for titles and dust jackets? If so, Spence Publishing should win them both for All Shook Up . I don’t know when I’ve seen a philosophy book covered by a more colorful dust jacket or graced with a snappier title. Carson Holloway is a political scientist teaching at Concord . . . . Continue Reading »

Last December, soon after the Supreme Court had pulled the chain on Florida’s chad fest, Bill Ivey, the Clinton-appointed director of the National Endowment for the Arts, spoke to the National Press Club. American culture had flourished under the Clinton-Gore Administration, he said. Congress . . . . Continue Reading »

In opera, it’s good to be the tenor. You get the high notes, you get the girl, and you get the big fees. And this has been a half century rich in remarkable tenors. Perhaps there has been no voice so purely beautiful as Luciano Pavarotti’s (or as profitable), and probably no singer so broadly . . . . Continue Reading »

The international broadcast of the opening of Scotland’s new parliament in July 1999 gave the world more to see than just Queen Elizabeth’s much ballyhooed thistle-inspired frock. It also presented Scottish composer James MacMillan conducting two of his fanfares as Her Royal Highness led the . . . . Continue Reading »

Apostles of Rock: The Splintered World of Contemporary Christian Music by jay r. howard and john m. streck university press of kentucky, 304 pages, $29.95 “Redemption.” The banner headline in the May 6, 1999 Nashville Tennessean wasn’t about religion. It was about commerce. . . . . Continue Reading »

The twentieth century an age of religious art? It wouldn’t seem so. In the ranks of painters, sculptors, writers, and architects it is hard to think of very many (Rouault, Gaudi, Solzhenitsyn) for whom matters of faith were a significant subject for their creativity. But as this aggressively . . . . Continue Reading »

It can cure backache. And asthma. And obesity, writer’s block, alcoholism, schizophrenia, prejudice, heart disease, drug addiction, headaches, and aids. It makes bread rise better and improves the taste of beer. It can even make you smarter—so smart that in Florida it’s now the law that . . . . Continue Reading »