Posted in reseña, tagged film, Jason Bourne, Matt Damon, reseña on December 26, 2007| Leave a Comment »
My 19-year-old son doesn’t go for trends and obsessions. So, when home from college on this Christmas break, he agrees to spend two hours with us around the second of his preferred triad of films, we seize the moment by its skinny little cinematic throat.
Two hours later … Wow! (more…)
Posted in reseña, tagged music, reseña, Third Day on December 24, 2007| Leave a Comment »
I suppose the best evidence of how I view this album would be to confess that I’ve sat here through the morning with tears on my cheeks as I absorb the potency of its tribute, truly a well-rendered offering.
Third Day, a band of gravelly-voiced, southern-fried rockers in alignment with their Maker offer up a slough of worship songs possessed of an edgy sweetness. (more…)
Posted in missio dei, reseña on December 24, 2007| Leave a Comment »
South African institutions exert an inordinate influence over the African continent, often for good and occasionally for ill. If this is true in the economic and political arenas, it is doubly the case when one considers Christian theology and the preparation of an emerging generation of African Christian leaders. When it comes to influence, the center of gravity of this enormous continent swings low and slightly to the west. (more…)
Posted in reseña, tagged Academy of St Martin in the Fields, Mozart, Neville Mariner, Robert Lloyd, Sylvia McNair on December 24, 2007| Leave a Comment »
When the Carmelite priest Roland Murphy penned an exquisite commentary on the amorous biblical book called the Song of Songs, it was observed that this might well stand as final evidence that experience is not a prerequisite of true knowledge.
From what this non-professional reviewer has gleaned of Mozart’s life, the colorful composer was unacquainted both with penitence and the spiritual sublimities of which this Requiem sings. Ditto the experience of death, though he (rightly) believed his own was impending. (more…)
Posted in reseña, tagged Alison Krauss, music, reseña, Robert Plant on December 8, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Full product information for this item, together with my review, my rating of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.
Good grief, the monster stole the maiden and there’s no time left in the movie for rescuing maidens!
But listen to the music they make … (more…)
Posted in reseña, tagged Berliner Philharmoniker, Maurice Ravel, music, Pierre Boulez, reseña on December 2, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Full product information for this item, together with my review, my rating of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.
I remember reading years ago of some brain surgeons–maybe they were cardiac surgeons, the important thing is that they knew–who customarily piped Maurice Ravel’s Boléro into the operating room for the calming effect of its rhythmic regularity. (more…)
Posted in reseña, tagged film, Helen Mirren, Stephen Frears on December 2, 2007| Leave a Comment »
Full product information for this item, together with my review, my rating of the product, and any reader comments, can be found at http://www.amazon.com.
Few books or films about a living monarch can avoid caricature. Royalty as a fact on the ground runs so contrary to the spirit of modernity—yet there they are!—and still holds such sentimental power for many ‘subjects’. The result is the virtual impossibility of a civil discussion about gradated pros and cons. (more…)
Posted in reseña, tagged film music, music, reseña on November 28, 2007| Leave a Comment »
One wonders what people will say about John Williams in the year 2050. The man just keeps producing scores that, if it were possible, surpass the prior one in elegance, emotional weight, and sheer, gorgeous, spellbinding beauty.
Gushing?
I don’t think so. Listen to this soundtrack before you conclude that this reviewer has gone out-of-his-mind starry. (more…)
Posted in reseña, tagged classical music, Johannes Wildner, music, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra, reseña, Robert Schumann on November 28, 2007| Leave a Comment »
The six-note motif that introduces Robert Schumann’s Overture (later Scherzo and Finale), Op. 52 is the calling card of a formidable Romantic composer. In the main, the Schumann pieces included in this anthology of his overtures make due on the promise put down by those first six notes.
The Overture to Genoveva is as evocative as the tale its opera tells. The overtures to ‘Bride of Messina’, ‘Julius Caesar’, ‘Hermann and Dorothea’, ‘Faust’, and ‘Manfred’ are all beautifully performed on this 1992 Naxos recording by the Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Johannes Wildner.
The market for operatic overtures is not huge. Naxos has done us a service with this serviceable presentation.
Posted in reseña, tagged classical music, Leos Janacek, music, Prazak Quartet on November 26, 2007| Leave a Comment »
From the heart of Central Europe in the first quarter of the twentieth century comes this penetrating, challenging, occasionally disturbing, and ever rewarding music for small ensembles. The Prague-born Prazak Quartet is of course equal to the challenge.
Leos Janacek’s music for string quartet show what the genre can be. Easily mistaken for a weak, limpid subset of classical music, music for quartet a la Janacek is as sinewy and energetic as it gets. (more…)
Canter Bridge 