'Even as a bird...'

Detail from print of the drowned Leander in the arms of Hero

'His admiring eyes more pleasure took...'

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Composers Datebook for November 21, 2011

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      SPONSOR Produced in association with the American Composers Forum Monday, November 21 Play today's show | How to listen Hindemith in E-flat (and in Minneapolis) On today's date in 1941, the famous Greek-born conductor, Dimitri Mitropoulos, led the Minneapolis Symphony in the premiere performance of a new symphony by the German composer, Paul Hindemith, who came to Minnesota for the performance. Mitropoulos was an ardent promoter of new music, but few of the contemporary works he programmed were welcomed by audiences or the critics with much enthusiasm. Hindemith's reputation as an atonal composer had preceded him, but, surprisingly, his new piece for Minneapolis was billed as a "Symphony in Eb Major" and, much to the delight of all concerned, featured recognizable tunes. "His themes were melodious, instantly recognizable and easily followed," wrote the critic of the Minneapolis Tribune, concluding, "It was mar...
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# Bildbauten by Philipp Schaerer

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The series of images created by Philipp Schaerer entitled Bildbauten (built picture in German) includes twenty five rendering of monolithic buildings that seem to have been produced by their environment in some sort of camouflaged bunkers. Here is the description thanks to which the Swiss artist describes his work: The series of images with the title „Bildbauten“ deals with the effect and the claim to credibility of images of architecture that appear to be photographs. It further questions the medium “photograph” as a documentary piece of evidence depicting reality. Frontal views of fictional architectures serve as an example. By means of their exaggerated and orchestrated way of representation, they model themselves on the object-like appearance and the formal language of contemporary architecture in a rather ironic way. All images try to reproduce a reality. They are not a photograph; instead, they were newly designed and constructed from scratch by means of image synthesis and dig...
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Composers Datebook for October 28, 2011

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  Prompt to hear today's music is just under the date header.         SPONSOR Produced in association with the American Composers Forum Friday, October 28 Play today's show | How to listen A "pathetic" symphony by Tchaikovsky In St. Petersburg on today's date* in 1893, Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky conducted the first performance of his latest Symphony, his Sixth. From the beginning, this symphony has been commonly known by its French subtitle, the "Pathétique," a designation suggested by the composer's brother, Modest. Now, in Russian,"pathétique" translates into something like "passionate" or "emotional," with overtones of "pathos" and "suffering," but in plain old English,"pathétique" translates as "pathetic," a word with a whole slew of negative connotations.** The French sounds much better, thank you. Tchaikovsky himself had originally intended ...
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