6 November 2024, 4:30am—Wisconsin calls it at 277!
I quote to you from the first page of conductor John Mauceri’s 2022 book, The War On Music (entire book available here in PDF):
In the first months of the third decade of the twenty-first century, an executive order emerged from Washington DC, that was called “Making Federal Buildings Beautiful Again”. It mandated that new federal buildings in the United States must be designed according to the classical architectural style of Roman temples as the “default style”. Predictably, this caused outrage among many and set up fake battle lines between America’s conservatives (the Republicans and President Donald Trump) and liberals (the Democrats and so-called progressives). Predictably, on February 24, 2021—a mere five weeks after his inauguration—Democratic President Joe Biden revoked the order. Beauty was the justification for the Trump’s administration’s order. Consistency and reference were the means to that end.
This is how young and free and full of hope Cantara’s feeling today. I just woke up with this song in my head:
Above: My cousin, Grammy-Award winning guitarist Larry Ramos with his old group, The Association, doing my favorite of theirs, “Goodbye, Columbus”, an upbeat song about youth and new roads, a jukebox tie-in with the 1969 film based on Philip Roth’s novella of the same name, about a couple of Jewish kids escaping boring old Ohio.
And where’s Korngold? Here he is, just for my bonny John Wilson! Charles Gerhardt conducting the Reader’s Digest Orchestra in their 1965 recording of Erich Korngold’s Overture to The Constant Nymph. A prize from that wonderfully revealing 48-minute interview you gave with that OAE lady last February where you brought up this piece, John.
"I'll Be Dead Before You Break My Heart" 