In Fellini’s 1983 film “And the Ship Sails On,” a luxury ocean liner departs to scatter the ashes of a deceased opera singer. Like the big ship in the film, an opera house inevitably reflects the sociopolitical situation around it. When decadent, they inevitably fail. Yet the occupants of an opera house can fall into […]
Author Archives: Eleonore Büning
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The Last of the Kapellmeisters
“He who has no time must make time” is a Confucian maxim with dangerous implications for musicians. The line separating the moment of satisfaction from an expanse of respectable boredom is thin. And it’s different for everyone, informed by mood or previous experience. As I got on the bus at the Elbphilharmonie after a recent […]
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Go Out, Keep Playing
Let’s get one thing out of the way: I’m a fan. In the last 30 years I’ve heard him play many times, many more than any other pianist or conductor: Bach, Liszt, Mahler, Schoenberg. My main motivation was curiosity. You could call it professional curiosity. But you could also call it professional bias. Why do […]