Word: seigneurs
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...popular image of the orchestra conductor is that of a grand seigneur: imperious, authoritarian and, more often than not, old. Concert music, goes the conventional wisdom, is something so emotionally and spiritually complex that no one who has not reached at least his 60th year can possibly plumb its depths. What Beethoven, who died at 56, Mozart, who died at 35, or Schubert, who died at 31, would have thought of this manifestly ridiculous proposition hardly needs asking...
...easy to understand King's fondness for clothbound versions. After all, it is paper more than celluloid that allows him to live in the style of a Down East grand seigneur. The family occupies a 23-room, 129-year-old house ! surrounded by a black iron fence with interwoven designs of bats and spider webs, installed in an excess of whimsy by the owners. The place is within a mile of the down-at-the-heels section of town where the Kings began their odyssey. It has an eccentric charm appropriate to the tenants: one cupola is conical, the other...
...prominently featured devotional music, notably Penderecki's St. Luke Passion and his Utrenja ("The Entombment of Christ" and the "Resurrection"), and Messiaen's massive piano piece, Vingt Regards sur I'Enfant Jésus, and his work for large chorus and orchestra, La Transfiguration de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ. Both men are leading composers in their countries, yet each has transcended parochial considerations to become an important international figure. Furthermore, each writes in an immediately identifiable style that is uniquely his own, and neither has significant imitators...
Like most operatic plots, that of The Marriage of Figaro is tortuous and ultimately unnecessary. Suffice to say that it involve the feudal privilege known as droit de seigneur and, some hours later, reunites one character with an unlikely set of parents. Unity comes not from the storyline but from the voices, which without exception stay well in control of a difficult and lengthy score--especially Knowles, who must awkwardly sing the show's first notes from his knees...
Despite their many erotic moments, both of these stories are curiously lifeless. The effect may be intentional. Hawkes displays the paraphernalia of pornography in a cautionary manner. Both tales end in a kind of hellfire. Seigneur is burned at the stake by some vengeful ex-pupils, and Virginie voluntarily joins him; Bocage's mother puts an end to the latter-day revels by torching her house. These fates are not surprising. Virginie foreshadows her fiery destructions throughout her journals. Other forms of suspense are similarly lacking; the second story recapitulates the first with increasing listlessness. If Hawkes...