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TANGLEWOOD

THE CLASH BETWEEN TRADITION AND CHANGE

It’s always a valuable exercise when critics step out of the moment to subject our most established artistic institutions to the magnifying glass, for they become reliable bellwethers of larger cultural trends. Such is certainly the case with this valuable look at Tanglewood. For nearly 60 years, Tanglewood, in western Massachusetts, has been the summer residence of the Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) and an oasis of classical music scholarship, pedagogy, and performance. Pincus, an award-winning music critic for the Berkshire Eagle, the Boston Globe, and other newspapers, has been covering Tanglewood for nearly a quarter-century. His informed account takes up where his Scenes from Tanglewood (1989) left off, chronicling the modernization’some have argued commodification—of the festival under the tutelage of current BSO director and conductor Seiji Ozawa. Ozawa, more profoundly than any of the Tanglewood legends (Serge Koussevitsky, Charles Munch, Erich Leinsdorf, and Leonard Bernstein) in whose legacies he operates, has been charged with reconciling the festival with both economic and cultural realities. In this respect, Pincus’s overview is not only a worthwhile history of the phenomenon of Tanglewood, but also a paradigmatic appraisal of Ozawa’s navigation of the art and administration of the classical repertory itself. Pincus’s commentary is honest and astute throughout, as when he notes the revolution implicit in the mundane appearance of ’signs . . . on the manicured lawn outside . . . warning that the grass, chairs and tables, with their commanding view of the lake and hills, were for the use of club members only.— That the club in question was an outgrowth of the construction—with monies provided by the conductor’s friends at the Sony Corporation—of Seiji Ozawa Hall illuminates the extent to which market forces have impinged on this formerly utopian compound; that they took so long to arrive reminds us of Tanglewood’s strange existence behind and, until recently, even beyond the times. (b&w photos, not seen)

Pub Date: June 5, 1998

ISBN: 1-55553-346-9

Page Count: 192

Publisher: N/A

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1998

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THE ELEMENTS OF STYLE

50TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...

Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.

Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").

Pub Date: May 15, 1972

ISBN: 0205632645

Page Count: 105

Publisher: Macmillan

Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972

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NUTCRACKER

This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)

Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996

ISBN: 0-15-100227-4

Page Count: 136

Publisher: Harcourt

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996

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