Pluralism is the defining feature of music at the end of the 20th century – from the minimalist film music of Michael Nyman to the lush sounds of Toru Takemitsu to the spectralist works that explored sound itself, writes Gillian Moore
"We live in a time not of mainstream but of many streams," John Cage mused as he surveyed the musical scene shortly before his death in 1992, "or even, if you insist upon a river of time, then we have come to the delta, maybe even beyond a delta to an ocean which is going back to the skies … "
The 12th and final episode of The Rest Is Noise festival is called New World Order. It may still be too early to have the historical distance to tell what really mattered in classical music at the end of the 20th century. What is clear, however, is that in the closing decades...
"We live in a time not of mainstream but of many streams," John Cage mused as he surveyed the musical scene shortly before his death in 1992, "or even, if you insist upon a river of time, then we have come to the delta, maybe even beyond a delta to an ocean which is going back to the skies … "
The 12th and final episode of The Rest Is Noise festival is called New World Order. It may still be too early to have the historical distance to tell what really mattered in classical music at the end of the 20th century. What is clear, however, is that in the closing decades...
- 12/4/2013
- by Gillian Moore
- The Guardian - Film News
When I was growing up, New York 's best (now long-defunct) classical radio station, Wncn, played only American composers' music each Fourth of July. With the classical world dominated by Europeans, this was a welcome and educational corrective. In the history of American music, independence wasn't achieved until the 20th century; 19th century composers such as John Knowles Paine and George Whitefield Chadwick studied in Europe and blatantly imitated European models. Listening to their music "blind," few would guess they were Americans. There was Revolutionary War-era vocal writer William Billings, but his originality was more a lack of proper technique. Continuing Wncn's tradition, here's a look at true American classical. music.
There is a bit of chauvinism in this article, as "American" here refers not to all the Americas (North, Central, and South) but rather the colloquial usage in the United States to mean that country's residents (hence, the Mexican Carlos Chavez,...
There is a bit of chauvinism in this article, as "American" here refers not to all the Americas (North, Central, and South) but rather the colloquial usage in the United States to mean that country's residents (hence, the Mexican Carlos Chavez,...
- 7/4/2012
- by SteveHoltje
- www.culturecatch.com
Children's author and illustrator best known for Where the Wild Things Are
Maurice Sendak, who has died aged 83, was both one of the most individual and one of the most successful illustrators of the 20th century. Since 1951 his 90-odd titles have sold nearly 30m copies in the Us alone. His renowned work Where the Wild Things Are (1963), with worldwide sales of more than 19m, was a turning point not only in his own career but in the history of children's books.
The bulk of his work lay in illustrating other writers, but it was his own, far fewer, books which brought him countless international awards and academic honours, and made him the subject of many a thesis. At first, Where the Wild Things Are and its follow-up, In the Night Kitchen (1970), caused outraged shock at their robust portrayal of children's fears and aggression; Sendak's fantasy was always "rooted 10ft deep...
Maurice Sendak, who has died aged 83, was both one of the most individual and one of the most successful illustrators of the 20th century. Since 1951 his 90-odd titles have sold nearly 30m copies in the Us alone. His renowned work Where the Wild Things Are (1963), with worldwide sales of more than 19m, was a turning point not only in his own career but in the history of children's books.
The bulk of his work lay in illustrating other writers, but it was his own, far fewer, books which brought him countless international awards and academic honours, and made him the subject of many a thesis. At first, Where the Wild Things Are and its follow-up, In the Night Kitchen (1970), caused outraged shock at their robust portrayal of children's fears and aggression; Sendak's fantasy was always "rooted 10ft deep...
- 5/8/2012
- by Stephanie Nettell
- The Guardian - Film News
Once the hippest name in music videos, the 40-year-old director will this week terrify children with his adaption of Maurice Sendak's adored tale
A large rubber-band ball sits on the bedside table of the wilful young Max, hero of the new Spike Jonze film, while overhead, on a shelf, sits a bird's nest. Early shots of these odd objects cleverly prelude the virtuoso visual style of this audacious adaptation of a children's classic: the 1963 picture book Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.
In the hands of the Oscar-nominated Jonze the island of fearful monsters that Max discovers one night when he has been sent to bed without supper becomes a perilous wasteland dotted with spherical wickerwork huts, nest-like forts and rounded boulders. Although Max, along with his ugly, untamed group of new friends, is clearly recognisable from Sendak's book, any parent who returns to their nursery copy...
A large rubber-band ball sits on the bedside table of the wilful young Max, hero of the new Spike Jonze film, while overhead, on a shelf, sits a bird's nest. Early shots of these odd objects cleverly prelude the virtuoso visual style of this audacious adaptation of a children's classic: the 1963 picture book Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.
In the hands of the Oscar-nominated Jonze the island of fearful monsters that Max discovers one night when he has been sent to bed without supper becomes a perilous wasteland dotted with spherical wickerwork huts, nest-like forts and rounded boulders. Although Max, along with his ugly, untamed group of new friends, is clearly recognisable from Sendak's book, any parent who returns to their nursery copy...
- 12/7/2009
- by Vanessa Thorpe
- The Guardian - Film News
The fuss over Spike Jonze's film forgets that there was an even more ambitious version of the children's book - an opera
All the fuss over Spike Jonze's film version of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are overlooks that there was a previous, and in a way, even more ambitious adaptation of the piece: the "fantasy opera" that Oliver Knussen composed on Wild Things nearly 30 years ago. Sendak himself wrote the libretto for Knussen, expanding the 338 words of his original book to a larger scale. Not that much bigger, though: the opera only plays for about 40 minutes, and avoids what Xan Brooks described in his review of the film as the "extrapolation and explanation; a cinematic York Notes" in the script, the narrative that Jonze and novelist David Eggers invent to make the story work on celluloid.
The brilliant thing about the opera as opposed to the film – Ok,...
All the fuss over Spike Jonze's film version of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are overlooks that there was a previous, and in a way, even more ambitious adaptation of the piece: the "fantasy opera" that Oliver Knussen composed on Wild Things nearly 30 years ago. Sendak himself wrote the libretto for Knussen, expanding the 338 words of his original book to a larger scale. Not that much bigger, though: the opera only plays for about 40 minutes, and avoids what Xan Brooks described in his review of the film as the "extrapolation and explanation; a cinematic York Notes" in the script, the narrative that Jonze and novelist David Eggers invent to make the story work on celluloid.
The brilliant thing about the opera as opposed to the film – Ok,...
- 12/3/2009
- by Tom Service
- The Guardian - Film News
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