The Berkshire Review for the Arts

Obituary: Michael Miller, Writer, Editor of Hudson-Housatonic Arts and New York Arts, Dies at 73

November 21, 2021November 22, 2021Arts Press

Michael James Miller, writer and arts critic, died aged 73 on November 14th, 2021, after a long illness with cancer. He was at home in North Adams, MA, his partner Joanna Gabler and youngest son, Lucas, beside him. His last word was “Peace.”

Michael was born on January 10th, 1948, in Miami, FL, the son of Max “Ike” Miller, a restauranteur and later a successful commodities trader. His mother was Helen (née Briggs), a homemaker and devoted parent to him and his elder sister, Anne.

A Crop of Recordings XXXVII: Schmitt/Honegger, Furtwangler, Sibelius, Ondine

November 8, 2021November 8, 2021Steven Kruger

Here is one of the strangest living bits of ceremonial history you will ever encounter, along with some fine, nearly forgotten music ever since. The year 1937 witnessed Paris’s International Exposition, the last continental world’s fair to take place before the Second World War, and something of a nervous set piece for political tensions of the day.

Bella Merlin, co-author of When Action Is Eloquence, talks with Michael Miller about Shakespeare and Company

November 8, 2021Michael Miller

In her interview about the book she has co-authored with Tina Packer, When Action is Eloquence, the distinguished actor and teacher Bella Merlin reflects on how she came into contact with Shakespeare & Company and her three year progression through the completion of a manuscript based on her own deep knowledge of acting and her participation in the Company’s month-long intensive course.

The Belcea Quartet plays Szymanowski and Schubert – Capital Region Classical

October 31, 2021October 31, 2021Seth Lachterman

It may be unnecessary to claim that the Belcea Quartet is one of the most esteemed string ensembles performing today. However, being based abroad, and having been founded over twenty-seven years ago by Romanian violinist Corina Belcea and Polish violist Krzysztof Chorzelski, their artistic uniqueness and stature has eluded wide recognition in the U.S.

Herbert Blomstedt conducting Brahms 4 with BSO. Photo Hilary Scott.

Brahms in Good Hands

September 9, 2021Larry Wallach

Traditionally, the BSO’s Tanglewood season concludes with a performance Beethoven’s Ninth, an overplayed sound-track triggering optimistic images of brotherhood and the profound goodness of the human heart. The mere fact that this became a ritual has drained it of musical significance—which has been replaced by its function as an ambiguous signifier; it has been pulled out to celebrate great occasions, cultural and political movements of all stripes, including by the Nazis.

Disparities, Intended or Otherwise: House-Blend III at PS 21, Chatham

September 9, 2021Larry Wallach

Ligeti’s Trio for horn, violin, and piano is subtitled “Hommage à Brahms” since it was commissioned, in 1982, as a companion piece to Brahms’ trio for the same instruments. This is a rare instrumental combination owing to radical disparities in color, volume, and methods of tone production that challenge the composer to balance and blend their sounds. It was probably this quality that acted as one of the inspirations for this piece, which marked a turning point in the career of this composer. Ligeti does not consciously emulate Brahms in this work; if anyone, it is Beethoven who serves as a distant presence.

A Crop of Recordings XXXVI: Mozart/Muti, Gershwin/Rodziński, Prokofiev and Miaskovsky/Vasily Petrenko, Brahms/Iván Fischer, Handel/Haselböck

August 22, 2021August 22, 2021Steven Kruger

Welcome to the world of unselfconscious Mozart as it once was. When this LP first arrived in record bins in 1977, there was nothing stylistically unusual about romantically phrased performances of the composer’s music, delivered by large orchestras with substantial masses of strings. Herbert von Karajan, Bruno Walter, Karl Böhm, George Szell, all recorded “big” Mozart. Towards the end of the decade Josef Krips would turn out some nicely crisp late symphonies with the Concertgebouw for Phillips, a bit reduced in scale, but we were still a long way from the aggressive small dog Mozart which bites at our ankles today and answers to the word “Authenticity.”

Composer Alan Feinberg, Curator of PS21's "House Blend" Series

House-Blend II: The Long Baroque Era?

August 22, 2021August 22, 2021Larry Wallach

Alan Feinberg, curator of the House Blend concert series at PS 21 in Chatham, has interesting ideas about how to bring together seemingly disparate repertory to provoke new perspectives. My second reaction to the unusual programming of the second concert was “what do these pieces have to do with each other?” (My first reaction was “Cool: I get to hear Biber, Wolpe, and Nancarrow, all in the same program?”) It makes you think as you listen, which is not a bad thing if what you are thinking about is the music you are (carefully) listening to; and the thoughts accumulate as you listen. My thought about the Biber Passacaglia for solo violin, composed in 1676 and a powerful precursor to Bach’s solo violin music, was this: Biber makes the violin sound like several voices singing in counterpoint. This is not something the violin normally does, but after Biber, it became conceivable.