George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue was first performed by him in a concert with the Paul Whiteman orchestra on Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, February 12, 1924. We’re hearing a recording from 1927, with Gershwin himself at the piano and in an arrangement for jazz band created by Ferde Grofé, Whiteman’s chief arranger. The sound of this […]
Roughness & Grace in “They Can’t Take That Away from Me”
Originally presented at the Aesthetic Realism Foundation, NYC
A recording I love is the great Louis Armstrong singing “They Can’t Take That Away from Me” by George and Ira Gershwin. His solo rendition comes in the midst of a duet with Ella Fitzgerald from the 1956 album Ella & Louis, one of my all-time favorites. And I think the very opposites we studied […]
A Class on Alexander Pope’s Poem “An Essay on Criticism”
Report of an Aesthetic Realism class in which Eli Siegel discussed Alexander Pope's poem on criticism and Shakespeare's "Hamlet."
In a class he gave on September 14, 1975, Eli Siegel, Founder of Aesthetic Realism, read and discussed lines from what he has described as “one of the great poems of English literature,” Alexander Pope’s “An Essay On Criticism.” Written in 1709, the poem is, Mr. Siegel said, “still alive,” and he discussed it in […]
What Does Poetic Music Go For?
Report of an Aesthetic Realism class in which Eli Siegel speaks about Alfred de Musset and his poem "À la Malibran"
I’m reporting on a historic lecture Eli Siegel gave on December 3, 1969, titled “What Does Poetic Music Go For?” He is the critic who has explained what makes for music in poetry—poetry of any time from Sappho to Shakespeare to Elizabeth Barrett Browning. “Poetry,” Mr. Siegel stated, “is the oneness of the permanent opposites […]
Pride & Humility, Assertion & Yielding in Pablo de Sarasate’s “Ziegeunerweisen,” played by Jascha Heifetz
Originally presented at an Aesthetic Realism seminar: "What Music Tells Us about Our Lives: A Celebration!"
I care very much for this recording of Pablo de Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen, played with great feeling and power by Jascha Heifetz, accompanied by the RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra and conducted by William Steinberg. Zigeunerweisen means “the ways of the gypsies.” What we just heard is rich with the opposites which, I believe, are central […]