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: mahler
This Past Month or So
It’s a truism, I suppose, that there is no such thing as listening objectively to music. But criticism is somehow built on the idea that the critic is doing exactly that—bringing her expertise to bear on the sounds emerging from … Continue reading
Czechs, Etc.
This week the Czech Philharmonic came to Carnegie Hall for three concerts in a row, and so did a huge number of Czechs. You could distinguish them from the normal Carnegie denizens because a) they were all dressed up—the men … Continue reading
Britannia in Berlin
A couple of weeks ago I attended two terrific concerts as part of Berlin’s Musikfest, and both, by chance, had British links. This was not why I picked them—I chose them for their intriguing programs and their great conductors—but this … Continue reading
Another Mahler’s First
Well, that’s Berlin for you. No sooner have I pronounced a favorite performance than another leaps in to take its place. I am now in a divided state, and wouldn’t know how to choose between listening forever to Daniel Harding’s terrific version … Continue reading
A Three-Rattle Week
Even in Berlin, where he has lived for more than a dozen years while conducting the Berlin Philharmonic, you would be hard put to hear Simon Rattle in three different venues in the course of a week. But last week … Continue reading