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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Tag Archives: beethoven
Surrounding Beethoven
Whenever a Beethoven piano concerto with a prominent soloist appears on an orchestral program, it is likely to be the highlight of the evening. Yet concert protocol dictates that something more traditionally “substantial,” like a symphony, has to come last, with the piano concerto appearing … Continue reading
Pacifica Shostakovich
When I’m in New York, good music is only a short subway ride away. But now that I’m back home in Berkeley, I have to range somewhat farther afield. Last night, my husband and I drove for well over an … Continue reading
Filling Carnegie Hall
In the middle of April I heard three chamber-music concerts on the main stage of Carnegie Hall, and they were all, quite frankly, great. The first was the complete Brahms piano quartets, played by a dream ensemble that included Leif Ove … Continue reading
Four Quartets
Not T. S. Eliot’s, but real string-playing musicians. Over the course of less than a month, I recently had the opportunity to hear four first-class quartet groups who were visiting the Bay Area. The string quartet is a strange beast: … Continue reading
Up Close
I have always loved the Pacifica Quartet, but I have never before listened to them play from five feet away. Last night, sitting in the front row of the Cosentino Winery’s barrel room, I was practically as close to the … Continue reading
The Pacificas (Again)
I’ve already had my say, at length, about how great the Pacifica Quartet is, so when I set off for their Zankel concert last night, my only intention was to listen for the pleasure of it. The performance was so … Continue reading
All Hail the Pacificas!
I’ve been following the Pacifica Quartet for a few years now, and I’ve come to the conclusion that, despite some very fierce competition, they are my favorite string quartet. This is largely, of course, because of the way they play. … Continue reading
Conductors
For the first twenty or thirty years of my concert-going existence, I thought that the composer was everything. And then, a few years back, I began to notice how much difference a conductor could make. But even this realization did … Continue reading