Posted 4 months ago
Stephen Fry’s brilliant speech on Classical music - openness to differences is essential! Well said, Mr. Fry!
Posted 4 months ago
Brigitte Fassbaender: “Höre mit Sinn, was ich dir sage!” (Götterdämmerung) by Wagner (by operazaile)
Posted 4 months ago
Urban planning has gone awry in the fictional suburbs of digital artist Ross Racine.
From Racine’s statement:
Encouraging a reflective attitude by its distant viewpoint, the aerial view is used here to comment on society’s occupation and transformation of nature.
In addition, these invented suburbs exaggerate existing situations and drive the subject matter into the investigative domain of science fiction. Examining the relation between design and actual lived experience, the works subvert the apparent rationality of urban design, exposing conflicts that lurk beneath the surface. Beyond the suburban example, these digital drawings are a way of thinking about design, the city and society as a whole.
Posted 4 months ago
Standards of beauty describe in precise terms the relationship that an individual will have to her own body. They prescribe her motility, spontaneity, posture, gait, the uses to which she can put her own body. They define precisely the dimensions of her physical freedom. And of course, the relationship between physical freedom and psychological development, intellectual possibility, and creative potential is an umbilical one.
In our culture, not one part of a woman’s body is left untouched, unaltered. No feature or extremity is spared the art, or pain, of improvement….From head to toe, every feature of a woman’s face, every section of her body, is subject to modification, alteration. This alteration is an ongoing, repetitive process. It is vital to the economy, the major substance of male-female differentiation, the most immediate physical and psychological reality of being a woman.
In our culture, not one part of a woman’s body is left untouched, unaltered. No feature or extremity is spared the art, or pain, of improvement….From head to toe, every feature of a woman’s face, every section of her body, is subject to modification, alteration. This alteration is an ongoing, repetitive process. It is vital to the economy, the major substance of male-female differentiation, the most immediate physical and psychological reality of being a woman.
Andrea Dworkin, Woman Hating (via)
Posted 4 months ago
My biggest memory is of the Chopin competition, which in Poland is bigger than football. I remember my aunts and great-aunts arguing about who played the mazurkas better in 1956.
Piotr Anderszewski (via weknowtheidiom)
Posted 4 months ago
A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that’s just how the world will come to an end: to the general applause of wits who believe it’s a joke.
Soren Kierkegaard (via cosmicpebble)
Posted 10 months ago
[Flash 9 is required to listen to audio.]
From Massenet’s Cherubin, an opera dedicated solely to Beaumarchais’ Cherubino. :)
This is Cherubin’s first aria, sung by the one and only Flicka. This music is so French that it hurts. I LOVE IT. I wish people performed this opera more often. It is absolutely adorable.
Posted 10 months ago
![operarox:
facepalmmozart:
The child Handel discovered by his parents [painting by Margaret Dicksee] ‘Handel had discovered such a strong propensity to Music, that his father who always intended him for the study of the Civil Law, had reason to be alarmed. He strictly forbade him to meddle with any musical instrument but Handel found means to get a little clavichord privately convey’d to a room at the top of the house. To this room he constantly stole when the family was asleep.’
Right on, Handel!!](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lnxmsdpPSy1qgfl6zo1_500.jpg)
The child Handel discovered by his parents [painting by Margaret Dicksee]
‘Handel had discovered such a strong propensity to Music, that his father who always intended him for the study of the Civil Law, had reason to be alarmed. He strictly forbade him to meddle with any musical instrument but Handel found means to get a little clavichord privately convey’d to a room at the top of the house. To this room he constantly stole when the family was asleep.’Right on, Handel!!
