About
I decided to start a blog for three reasons:
1) People felt that there should be a part of the Threepenny website that was available only online, not in the printed magazine.
2) Some of the things I wanted to write about seemed as if they would benefit from a slightly more timely response than our usual quarterly publication permitted.
3) I was seeing and hearing so much interesting art — especially in the areas of dance and music, though also in literature, theater, and the visual arts — that I couldn't fit everything I wanted to say into The Threepenny Review without taking over the whole publication. And if you are not Diderot or Karl Kraus (and I am certainly neither), it is never a good idea to write the whole magazine yourself. But I figured the rules of blogs would allow me to monopolize one of those.
I struggled to come up with a good title for the blog and at first resisted using my own name, feeling (as those named Lesser are bound to feel) that diminishment is not necessarily a selling point. But then I figured that if people named Grudge or Drudge can use their names on websites, I should certainly not be abashed at calling this The Lesser Blog. So here it is, and I hope you enjoy it.
Wendy Lesser
Editor, The Threepenny Review-
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Category Archives: The Lesser Blog
More Than One Tetzlaff
Since Christian Tetzlaff is‚ and has been for decades, my favorite violinist in the whole world, I take every available opportunity to hear him. And this has meant that two or three times I’ve been privileged to hear the Tetzlaff Trio—most recently … Continue reading
The Look of Love
Like Pepperland, the evening-length work set to Beatles songs that Mark Morris created a few years ago, Morris’s new Burt Bacharach production, The Look of Love, is pure pleasure. I went twice when it appeared at Berkeley’s Cal Performances this past weekend, and I … Continue reading
A Thrilling Wozzeck
I’ve attended at least four other productions of Alban Berg’s marvelous opera, and all but one have been excellent. It’s almost a sure thing, if you have good enough singers, competent musicians, and a simple enough staging. That’s the only … Continue reading
Chamber Music
It is foolish to wade into the mild controversy currently surrounding the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, but I have never been afraid of appearing foolish. It kind of goes with the territory. The controversy, typical of our day and … Continue reading
A Reopened Carnegie Hall
On Thursday night I took a friend to Carnegie Hall to hear Leonidas Kavakos and Yuja Wang play a concert of Bach, Busoni, and Shostakovich. My friend hadn’t heard live music in nearly two years, and she was utterly thrilled to be back … Continue reading
A Random Opera Thought
I’m listening to the Elisabeth Schwarzkopf recording of Così fan tutte and am struck by the same thought I always have when hearing or seeing this opera: How is it that Mozart’s greatest music belongs to his most hateful plot? … Continue reading
Esa-Pekka Times Three
People I know were delighted when they learned, a couple of years ago, that Esa-Pekka Salonen had agreed to take over the leadership of the San Francisco Symphony. I too would have been delighted if I had known then what … Continue reading
Joy, Delight, and Jeremy Denk
Okay, granted it’s been fifteen months since anyone in San Francisco was able to attend a live concert in Davies Symphony Hall. Granted that we were all starved for a real musical performance—not live-streaming, not carefully curated videos of past pinnacles, but … Continue reading
Back in Berlin!
I’ve been here a little over a week now, and for the first time in seven or eight months, I am getting to hear live music again. It is so thrilling that I can barely analyze or even fully take … Continue reading