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The Problem of Authorial Intention
In Reading Chekhov – A Critical Journey, Janet Malcolm discusses an aspect of Chekhov’s work that is focused on by the so-called Jacksonian critics, namely his repeated references to religion. It is a kind of ‘Purloined Letter’ situation: the references to the Bible and to the Russian Orthodox liturgy have always been there, but we […]
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The Failed Strife-To-Victory Metaphor in Tchaikovsky’s 6th Symphony
The great innovation of Tchaikovsky’s 6th symphony is a structural one, in its undermining of the standard symphonic formal pattern. In the nineteenth century, the form of the symphony was firmly established as expressing the concept of ad aspera ad astra – through adversity to the stars. This was usually achieved by concluding with a […]
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Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts – Layers of Meaning
This post is a response to Tom’s comment on a previous post, where he asserts the following about the Dylan song Lily, Rosemary And The Jack Of Hearts: But I think it’s right to say that Dylan produces atmosphere but that’s about all isn’t it? So, I like the Virginia Woolf quote as well [‘It […]
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Chekhov’s Uncle Vanya and the Theme of Romantic Love
In her excellent book Reading Chekhov – A Critical Journey, Janet Malcolm discusses Chekhov’s attitude to romantic love and beauty. She refutes Gary Saul Morson’s view, as expressed in his essay ‘Prosaic Chekhov: Metadrama, the Intelligentsia, and Uncle Vanya’, which reads the play as the apotheosis of the prosaic. Morson understands Chekhov to be faulting […]
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How To Avoid Getting Chekhov Wrong – A Short Guide
Richard Gilman has written a very good introduction to the Penguin edition of Chekhov’s plays. I always read introductions after I’ve got myself thoroughly familiar with the works in question, and I found the following passage illuminated some of the issues I was grappling with around the two Chekhov plays we’re looking at (The Seagull […]
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Audiobooks of Chekhov’s Plays at iTunes Store
When we read drama we’re really only getting half the experience, and to fully appreciate a play one must see it performed. Having two children, one only two weeks old, has meant that my time is heavily restricted at the moment. So I’ve unhappily not been able to see the highly rated production of The […]
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Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin – Best Recorded Version
The Gramophone Good CD & DVD Guide 2005 praises the recording of Eugene Onegin conducted by Semyon Bychkov with the Orchestre de Paris and the baritone Dmitri Hvorostovsky on Philips: ‘[They] make the finale the tragic climax it should be; indeed the reciting of this passage is almost unbearably moving. Bychkov illuminates every detail of […]
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Russians Rated Highly in All Time Favourite List
125 leading authors, including Norman Mailer, Tom Wolfe and Peter Carey, have listed their top reads in a new book to be published by W W Norton in March called The Top Ten (full story at the Times Online: When serious writers relax, they’re always in the mood for a romance). It struck me that […]
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Video: Bob Dylan, When The Deal Goes Down
My favourite track from the 2006 Dylan album, Modern Times, is the song When The Deal Goes Down. The video casts a different angle on the song, and features current it-girl Scarlett Johansson in a nostalgia-drenched American dreamscape. Not too sure what the relevance to the song is, but it’s worth a look if you […]
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Tchaikovsky, Swan Lake and the Supernatural
I’ve often heard people say that ballet is overrated: dance set to substandard music packed with rather gushy, romantic lightweight boy-meets-girl themes. I would agree that ballet is all about sex (albeit of a highly cultivated nature) but I don’t see anything intrinsically wrong with that. There is also something ethereal about an art form […]