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Anthony Princiotti

@tonyprinciotti.bsky.social

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Conductor, Violinist, Teacher; Longtime Producer of Digital Engagement Materials for @BostonSymphony. Juilliard/Yale grad. E-mail: [email protected] Newsletter: http://therefuge.substack.com (new editions on Wednesdays and Sundays)

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Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 3d

In this Week's Edition of "The Refuge":

Lully's Bizarre End: The Full Story
Murphy's Law and the Opera
Johan Strauss Heals a Political Divide
A Missed Opportunity

therefuge.substack.com

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Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 8h

Democracy presumes an electorate that's prevailingly rational. Our current information ecosystem, fueled by the perverse incentives of digital media, all but nullifies that presumption, which is why we see democracies around the world teetering. If we don't address this successfully, we're done.

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 19h

'Lenny is the only conductor I have ever seen who simultaneously gasps into a respirator and lights up a cigarette the minute he comes off the stage.''

- Orchestra Administrator, Summer, 1990

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 19h

I worked with Bernstein one summer at Tanglewood, and I can testify that he was very likely unsurpassed as a chain smoker. He was so addicted that he came to appreciate a basic limitation he experienced as a conductor: "When you're on the podium, you can't smoke."

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 19h

Bernstein's final concert has been, in my view, inappropriately framed as a great musical event. He was simply too ill, and he ended up conducting just half the concert, a leaden performance of Beethoven's 7th. But as a cultural event, it was certainly hugely meaningful.

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 19h

In a terrible-yet-fitting irony, Bernstein's final concert was at Tanglewood, where he'd gotten his start and which had always been a source of revitalization. It became the place where he finally admitted that he'd reached the end, telling colleagues "I can't do this anymore."

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 19h

35 years ago today, Leonard Bernstein died in New York of a heart attack caused by progressive emphysema. Although members of the musical community knew he was very ill, his death - which came just a week after he announced his retirement - was still a great shock.

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Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 1d

My guess is that Netanyahu agreed to this deal now because 1) the terms are incredibly vague, and 2) it allows Israel to maintain its post Oct. 7th presence in Gaza while encouraging the expansion of Israeli settlements, thus eliminating any possibility of Palestinian state.

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 1d

The ability to lie as easily as they breathe is apparently genetic.

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 1d

It was good for grabbing a few news cycles. On to the next. By filling the media ecosystem with garbage, they garner far more attention than they merit while exhausting the capacity of reporters and citizens to hold them to account. All "good."

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 1d

I think it's a better-than-even bet that the internet and the discourse it elicits will turn out to be the most effective tool for engineering epistemic collapse (and thus undermining democracies) ever invented.

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 1d

He's their Golden Goose, the source of the kind of continual outrage and conflict that drives engagement - and revenue - in the digital age. It may turn out that the internet, for all its benefits, is the most effective tool for undermining democracies ever invented.

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Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 1d

"I wish you well, and much more fully than most people you've known. You have not looked for many friends, and indeed, haven't had many."

- Hugo von Hoffmansthal, letter to Strauss (1918)

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 1d

"Macbeth" gave Strauss so much trouble that his 2nd tone poem, the critically-acclaimed "Don Juan", was performed first. Its success made the subsequent failure of "Macbeth" more painful. Previously hailed as a "young genius", he was suddenly considered a "flash in the pan."

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 1d

Strauss dedicated "Macbeth" to Alexander Ritter, a violinist he met when he was 21 who introduced him to the tone-poems of Liszt. It was a turning point. Strauss, who'd grown up in a musically reactionary home, began to embrace the "New German" School of Wagner and Liszt.

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 1d

On this date in 1890, Richard Strauss' tone poem "Macbeth" was premiered in Weimar. His first essay in a form he'd eventually bring to its highest state of development, it was also his least successful, an attempt to combine Lisztian musical description with classical form.

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Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 3d

Emperor Franz Joseph II:
"Herr Bruckner, I bestow upon you the Imperial Order of the Austrian Crown. Is there anything else I can do for you?"

Bruckner:
"Oh yes, Your Majesty! Would you ask that critic Mr. Hanslick to stop writing such awful things about my Symphonies?!?"

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Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 3d

Anton Bruckner, in younger days.

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 3d

Bruckner had pronounced necrophiliac tendencies. When his mom died, he had a photo taken; he kept it on his desk. When Beethoven and Schubert were exhumed for reburial in a different cemetery, he jumped in the graves and kissed their skulls. He even left instructions for his own embalming.

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 3d

Bruckner's sarcophagus in the crypt of the St. Florian monastery, which is located beneath the organ he played during his long tenure as the cathedral's organist. Those objects at the back are skulls.

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 3d

On this date in 1896, the Austrian composer and organist Anton Bruckner died in Vienna at the age of 72. After many years of struggle, he'd recently begun to develop a following in the German-speaking world. International recognition would require an additional 6 to 7 decades.

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 4d

Trumpites reflexively reframe even the most obvious facts as opinions. They consider a decent respect for empirical reality as evidence of Trump Derangement Syndrome. Truth is whatever The Dear Leader says it is.

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 4d

"You may have the universe if I may have Italy."

- Giuseppe Verdi

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Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 4d

Verdi in Russia in 1861, clearly enjoying the climate.

Anthony Princiotti @tonyprinciotti.bsky.social · 4d

Although the operas of Verdi have long been associated with La Scala in Milan, the composer and the opera house had a fraught relationship. In fact, the house's low standards and the sharp business practices of its management led him to boycott the place for 24(!) years

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