At the Met Museum

From what I can discern, it appears the last time I visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art was in June 2019. What drew me back, booster in hand and case numbers down, was Susan Tallman’s review in the New York Review of Books, and in particular her observation that “[o]ne century’s wavering is another’s experimentalism.” [cite]

In The Galleries: Philip Guston and Gilbert & George

Philip Guston, Sleeping (1977)

Philip Guston 1969-1979 is on view at Hauser & Wirth through October 30, 2021.

Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks

Viktor Hartmann’s sketch of unhatched canary chicks for a ballet called Trilby or The Demon of the Heath made its way, in musical form, into Musorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (1874). While written originally for piano, I suspect many of us were introduced to the work through Ravel’s orchestration. From that perspective, listening to the original piano version offers several orders of revelation.

Happy Holidays!

Mostly Cut Paper, with Tailleferre

Scraps of colored paper, a Greek stamp, a Portuguese sticker, and a background of magazine cuttings accompany Henry Sibley’s Keyed Bugle in e-Flat (1840).