Word: pastorale
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4 American Pastoral (Houghton Mifflin) The title is ironic--a Philip Roth specialty. There is precious little rural peace and harmony in this scorching novel about a prosperous New Jersey couple whose good life is destroyed when their daughter becomes a '60s terrorist. In Roth's earlier novels, parents tended...
The arrangements, in combination with the lyrics, also convey a greater artistic maturity: any pop fluff that sweetened the band's previous releases has been replaced with a pastoral gentleness and "a bittersweet taste of a time and another place before." "Leave This City," the song that concretely conveys this...
"Classic Girl" gained a renewed pride and updated ode-like feel (even if it was serenaded to a sheer body-suited Amazonian goddess on a catwalk), with Navarro getting the lightly capering riffs just right. The dreamily pastoral "Summertime Rolls" responded particularly well to the limitless dynamics of the concert...
Not all of the laughter was inappropriate, though. Cadmus (David Gullette '62) and Tiresius (Bashir Salhuddin '98) are both Theban wise men and comic duo. Their stichomythic exchanges even suggests lighthearted pastoral, but both are still capable of a rich gravity. I only thought that Cadmus' portentous admonition to Pentheus...
The second half of the concert went to the Pastoral Symphony, one of those old favorites that many can hum from start to finish. The orchestra attacked it with zest and did a fine job handling this picturesque masterpiece. However, with so well known a piece, any orchestra has to...