Tag Archives: Music

O’Brian’s game of composers

Posted on January 18, 2021 by David Brussat

Having just had a capital meal of lasagna to celebrate a removal of sutures from the gap left by an extracted tooth, I am reminded of a passage I marked years ago in Patrick O’Brian’s The Nutmeg of Consolation, 1991, … Continue reading →

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Songs of electric car silence

Posted on July 6, 2019 by David Brussat

One of the endearing features of electric and hybrid cars is the silence of their engines. So of course that feature is about to meet its maker. U.S. and E.U. regulators are calling for noisemaking electric engines for safety reasons. … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Humor | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Manhattan puddle mystery

Posted on June 6, 2017 by David Brussat

Here is a story worthy of the literary bent of the author of the book A Burglar’s Guide to the City.” Geoff Manaugh has a blog, wittily framed as BLDGBLOG. The letters seem to read “blog-blog” until you look at … Continue reading →

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S.J. Perelman in Wash. Sq.

Posted on March 23, 2017 by David Brussat

Who hasn’t seen a musical that makes you want, in the spirit of the moment, to leap up and dance down that stone balustrade past the water fountain and into the dappled park, singing a Broadway tune to beat the … Continue reading →

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Music and architecture, cont.

Posted on December 13, 2016 by David Brussat

In October, Roger Scruton visited the belly of the musical beast, in Germany, to deliver a lecture against atonal composition. It was as if  the superhero of classical architecture, Henry Hope Reed, arose from his grave to address the celebrants … Continue reading →

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The architecture of music

Posted on September 30, 2016 by David Brussat

And vice versa, with painting thrown in. This is the subject of a fascinating essay written a decade ago by Steven Semes, author more recently of one of my bibles, The Future of the Past: A Conservation Ethic for Architecture, … Continue reading →

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The 4th w/out the Overture

Posted on July 8, 2016 by David Brussat

I am still suffering from Tchaikovsky’s Retreat from Providence. Last year the Rhode Island Philharmonic gave a bravura performance of “The 1812 Overture” for the city’s Fourth of July celebration at India Point Park. Not this year. I have no … Continue reading →

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Hail buildings archaeology!

Posted on May 13, 2016 by David Brussat

Hugh Kavanagh, an Irish student of architecture from Cobh, Ireland – a seaside town known also as Queenstown, which was the Titanic’s last port of call and boasts Pugin’s St. Colman’s Cathedral – sends me an extraordinarily sensible essay. He … Continue reading →

Posted in Architects, Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Preservation, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Skandalkonzert vindicated?

Posted on April 13, 2016 by David Brussat

A post on the website Artlark, “Skandalkonzert: The Battle for Modernism,” describes a riot that had classical concertgoers in Vienna battling amongst themselves in the pits and with the musicians and the even the composers. Pieces by Schonberg, Weber and … Continue reading →

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Krier’s symphony for London

Posted on February 13, 2016 by David Brussat

On my first trip to London in 1979 I took in a classical performance of the London Symphony Orchestra at the Royal Festival Hall on the Southbank embankment of the Thames. I felt the hall’s demerits as architecture even back … Continue reading →

Posted in Architecture, Architecture Education, Architecture History, Art and design, Books and Culture, Development, Landscape Architecture, Other countries, Urbanism and planning | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments