Sullivan's Travelers

…and something to think about.

Pathological Altruism.

Pathological altruism is at the root of the liberal left’s crisis of authority, which we discussed in our May 20 column. The left derives its sense of moral authority from the supposition that its intentions are altruistic and its opponents’ are selfish. That sense of moral superiority makes it easy to justify immoral behavior, like slandering critics of President Obama as racist–or using the power of the Internal Revenue Service to suppress them. It seems entirely plausible that the Internal Revenue Service officials who targeted and harassed conservative groups thought they were doing their patriotic duty. If so, what a perfect example of pathological altruism.

Late Romanticism and Atonality, Both Crystal Clear, by Eric Simpson at The New Criterion.

The opening bars of Prokofiev’s first violin concerto always remind me of the start of the Sibelius concerto. Both begin sotto voce, with the violin wandering through a lyrical melody over a string tremolo. Both have a searching quality, but whereas the Sibelius broods with lingering regret, the Prokofiev offers a sense of hope.
That sense of hope came through in Lisa Batiashvili’s stirring and visceral performance with the New York Philharmonic on Saturday night. “Ease,” for which performers are so roundly praised, is not a word I would use in describing her playing. I don’t mean to say that she struggled with the piece’s technical challenges, because she most certainly did not; what I mean is that she doesn’t toss off a concerto with minimal effort as though it were a mere trick. I heard her play the Brahms concerto with the Dresden Staatskapelle earlier this year, and my reaction then was the same: She is keenly attuned to the music’s emotional urgency, avoiding the nonchalance into which performers of all kinds are too often content to sink.

That is something that I’ve sensed at times, Mozart and Mendelsohn come to mind, where the performer has performed the piece so many times with such technical ease that the life is sucked out of the music but hadn’t figured out what the problem is. It may also have something to do with hearing the music too many times, should stop listening to the radio where they cater to the casual listener and play the well known pieces over and over and are too unadventurous. An exception to this is WNED Buffalo 94.5 fm which I can receive here in the Great White North, there are no doubt others.

The rest of the program was Luigi Dallapiccola’s Il prigioniero, premiered in 1949. The one-act (twelve-tone) opera

Love this comment:

Might I ask a question of the music critic? Did the performance of The one-act twelve-tone opera contain any wrong notes? Musicians here in England tell me that whenever they are forced to play such rubbish they deliberately play wrong notes knowing that no one will ever notice.