Magazine

Ecclesiastes, or the Hebrew name I prefer, “Kohelet,” used to delight me.  I found when I mentioned this reaction to others, it often elicited a skeptical response:  No, that is a book of depression, the mournful elegy of Solomon’s old age, futility and even despair.  Why should the same text elicit such optimism and liberation to some, including me, and pessimism and darkness to others?  Jewish communities read the text each year at Sukkot, the Autumn harvest festival.  Is it the joy of the harvest or the dire onset of Winter that we bring to mind?  Of course it is both.  Moreover, bleak winter is a crucial moment in the cycle of fertility.

The physicality of Beethoven, the squalor of his apartment, his short temper and absentmindedness, his isolation and his being a social “misfit,” even before deafness set in – all only stand in contrast to his work. They are the shell, the leftovers of a life given over entirely to his art. He is to be found alive and vibrant in the architectural marvels-in-time of his work – in the dramatic chiaroscuro of roughness and tenderness, majesty and playfulness, the rage and the humor, at times Olympic and Promethean, at others mischievous and childlike, covering the spectrum of human experience and aspiration.

Liu Fang’s mastery of the pipa and the guzheng has established her international reputation as one of the great young interpreters of traditional Chinese music. She aspires to combine her knowledge and practice of Eastern traditions and Western classical music, contemporary music and improvisation, thereby creating new forms, uniting different cultures and discovering new audiences.

Berlin, Paris, New York—such exciting places to be during the 1920s, an era variously known as “The Jazz Age” or “The Roaring Twenties,” but certainly never The Age of Innocence, which was merely the title of a book, albeit one of Edith Wharton's most successful tomes.