The Greatest Music Teacher of the 20th Century

The words “great” and “greatest” appeared several times during my research into Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979), both on the Internet and from books that I own.

Why was I looking for references about her? Because I had come across her name yet one more time, recently, causing me to go over the tipping point, not able to resist getting to know her better.

Last week a friend had given me a book, What to Listen for in Music by the composer of quintessentially American music, Aaron Copland, and in the foreword by Alan Rich was a reminder that Copland had been a pupil of Boulanger.

Leonard Bernstein congratulating Nadia Boulanger, after she became the first woman to conduct the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in a full concert, February, 1962. [Secondary Source]

Most simply put, she can be considered “the greatest” because she was teacher to so many renown composers and performing artists, some of whom were great teachers in their own right—Aaron Copland, for one.

These are some of the American students of Nadia Boulanger:

Robert Russell Bennett (1894 – 1981) Marc Blitzstein (1905 – 1964) Elliott Carter (b. 1908) Aaron Copland (1900 – 1990) David Diamond (1915 – 2005) Philip Glass (b. 1937)

Roy Harris (1898 – 1979) Quincy Jones (b. 1933) Ned Rorem (b. 1923) Walter Piston (1894 – 1976) Roger Sessions (1896 – 1985) Virgil Thomson (1896 – 1989)

Although Leonard Bernstein’s name is linked for many reasons with that of Nadia Boulanger, he apparently was not a pupil of hers. But, he was a pupil of a pupil of hers: Walter Piston.

Boulanger, in 1928, rejected as a student one of America’s most important composers, George Gershwin. “What could I give you that you haven’t already got?” she asked him. [Source]

I most recently saw Boulanger’s name while reading Sylvia Beach and the Lost Generation, by Noël Riley Fitch. Beach was the owner of the famed “Shakespeare & Company” bookshop in Paris to which Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ford Maddox Ford, Ezra Pound and many other writers of the 1920s and 1930s gravitated, along with musicians and other artists. Several of these musicians and future composers were in Paris because of Nadia Boulanger, thus offering the creative and disciplined influence of these two remarkable women who apparently never met each other. In chapter seven of her book, Fitch offers these anecdotes:

Aaron Copland (1900-1900)

Most of the regular customers of the bookshop were writers, but among them were four composers: Satie, Antheil, Virgil Thomson, and Aaron Copland…Copland, who had joined the lending library [of the bookshop] had time to read [Sylvia’s] books in spite of being worked “terribly hard” by Nadia Boulanger, the great French teacher of musical composition to more than a generation of American composers…Because of Stravinsky, Ravel, Schönberg, Strauss, Satie and the music school of Nadia Boulanger, young American composers went to Europe, particularly Paris, to complete their professional education. In America, musical training was predominantly Germanic and old-fashioned, but in Paris, according to Copland, Boulanger knew “pre-Bach to Post-Stravinsky…cold.”

Although only the names of male composers have entered this narrative so far, Nadia Boulanger was teacher and mentor to a number of women in the field of music. In A History of Classical Music, on which I commented previously, the author, Barrymore Laurence Scherer writes:

Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953)

During [Ruth Crawford's] European travels she was embraced by such pre-eminent musical figures such as Bartók, Honneger, and Nadia Boulanger…Among Nadia Boulanger’s American students were other women who achieved positions of distinction as composers, among them Marion Bauer (1882-1955) and Louise Talma 1906-1996). Bauer…had learned French from her parents; when introduced to Boulanger…in 1906, she offered to give Boulanger English lessons in return for lessons in composition, and thus became Boulanger’s first American student.

But, what was it like to study with Nadia Boulanger; what was so special that the most talented people sought her out? We can get a glimpse from Philip Glass.

Around a year ago I bought the book Writings on Glass: Essays, Interviews, Criticism, edited by Richard Kostelanetz. I have been fascinated with Glass’s music for almost two decades, especially since having viewed and bought the film Koyaanisqatsi, for which he wrote the musical score. The film has no spoken dialog. “In the Hopi language, the word Koyaanisqatsi means ‘crazy life, life in turmoil, life out of balance, life disintegrating, a state of life that calls for another way of living’” [Source]

In an early chapter of the book we learn that Glass went to study with Boulanger in 1963, at age 26, because a musical colleague whom he admired had studied with her. Glass had already completed his studies at the Juilliard School of Music.

(Transcribed from an interview by Ev Grimes)

Boulanger wasn’t interested in the music I had written…I started studying first species counterpoint with her again…I studied counterpoint and harmony with her for over two years…

She had a variety of techniques that she was teaching. They included score reading, counterpoint, harmony, figured bass, and analysis…With Boulanger, nothing was theoretical; it was all practical. The rules of harmony she could describe in a few sentences, but you could spend years writing it, because to her the difference between technique and theory was that technique was practice. Harmony is practice, counterpoint is practice—neither is theory…

You took three classes with her a week…[The] Black Thursday class…was a special class…[Y]ou were asked to that class; you couldn’t request it. She put together six or eight students…It would start at nine o’clock and would go till noon. The subject of the class was announced at the beginning, and we rarely accomplished it…When we left the class, we would sit in the café across the street. No one would say anything; we would have our coffee or a beer, then we would part until we got together the next week. No one would say anything [repeated]. It was totally demoralizing in one way. We all knew we were either her best students or her worst students, but none of us knew which ones we were…

One can read more of Nadia Boulanger and her teaching goals and methods from these sources:

Fondation Internationale Nadia et Lili Boulanger

Kendall, Alan. The Tender Tyrant: Nadia Boulanger, a Life Devoted to Music. With an introduction by Yehudi Menuhin. London: Macdonald and Jane’s, 1976.

Monsaingeon, Bruno.Mademoiselle: Conversations with Nadia Boulanger. Translated by Robyn Marsack. Manchester: Carcanet, 1985.

Perlis, Vivian. “Boulanger—20th Century Music Was Born in Her Classroom.” The New York Times (11 September 1977), 25–26.

“Copland Salutes Boulanger” The New York Times (11 September 1977), 89.

Potter, Caroline. “Nadia and Lili Boulanger: Sister Composers.” Musical Quarterly 83: 4 (1999), 536–556.

Rosenstiel, Leonie. Nadia Boulanger: A Life in Music. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1982.

Thomson, Virgil. “‘Greatest Music Teacher’—at 75.” The New York Times Magazine (4 February 1962), 24, 33, 35.

List of students and others associated with Nadia Boulanger

[Click!]

The Dismal Record of African Leadership…

…and the Past Role of European Countries

Who am I to say this, and how dare I say it?

I am merely responding to the announcement made by the prize committee of The Mo Ibrahim Prize for Achievement in African Leadership that no prize will be awarded this year. Here is the press release. The main web page of the parent organization describes the nature and origin of the prize:

The Ibrahim Prize recognises and celebrates excellence in African leadership. The prize is awarded to a democratically elected former African Executive Head of State or Government who has served their term in office within the limits set by the country’s constitution and has left office in the last three years.

The Ibrahim Prize consists of US$5million over 10 years and US$200,000 annually for life thereafter. It is the largest annually awarded prize in the world. The Foundation will consider granting a further $200,000 per year, for 10 years, towards public interest activities and good causes espoused by the winner.

In October 2006, Dr. Ibrahim launched the Mo Ibrahim Foundation to support good governance and great leadership in Africa. In 2007, Dr. Ibrahim stepped down as Chairman of Celtel International to concentrate on this initiative.

Founded in 1998, Celtel International has brought the benefits of mobile communications to millions of people across the African continent. The company operates in 15 African countries, covering more than a third of the continent’s population, and has invested more than US$750 million in Africa. In 2005, Celtel International was sold to MTC Kuwait for $3.4 billion.

Before I tell you of the past winners of this prize, I want to draw a picture for you of the grievous state of governance and leadership throughout the continent of Africa by calling attention to a few historical and present facts and factors.

Facts on Africa

There are 53 internationally recognized countries in the continent of Africa, including the six island states of: Cape Verde, Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Seychelles.

Of these 53 states, 52 are former colonies of, or protectorates of, or were occupied by, one or more of several states in Europe: Belgium, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. The only country not so colonized or dominated, Liberia, was settled by freed slaves from the USA, its territory having been expropriated in 1822 from the many local tribes who had not formed a nation state.

[Image Source. Please click on the image for greater clarity]

The total population of the 53 countries in 2008 was over 929 million.

Seven of the 53 countries contain over 51% of the continent’s population: Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan and Tanzania.

Only six of the countries have annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per person greater than the world average of US $10,400. (GDP is a proxy for standard of living, rather than a direct measure of it): Equatorial Guinea, Seychelles, Libya, Gabon, Botswana, Mauritius.

To get a notion of the relative poverty of living even at the world average GDP per person per year of US $10,400, here are the figures (in US Dollars) of the top 20 countries and the European Union, which has 27 countries in its membership:

[Please click on the image for greater clarity]

Fifty-two of the world’s 192 countries have a GDP/person below $2,300 per year. Thirty-six of these countries are in Africa. Think of it: on average, the 689 million people in these 36 African countries subsist at a level approximately 7%, and less, of that enjoyed by the average person in a European Union country. The savagely-led country of Zimbabwe is at $200 per person per year. Zimbabwe’s dictator, President Robert Gabriel Karigamombe Mugabe, has been in power for almost 30 years, ever since the predecessor country, Rhodesia, was overthrown.

As mentioned above, every one of Africa’s countries, except Liberia, has been, at one time or another and in varying degrees, a vassal state of one or more European countries. It is well known that, with some exceptions, these states, while under foreign domination, were stripped of natural resources and essentially plundered. The stripping of natural resources continues in most of these countries today, with relatively few examples where a diversified economy under true democratic rule obtains.

Of the six countries currently at a GDP level above the world average, most are still extracting minerals from the soil as the major part of their economy: oil, diamonds, manganese, timber.

It is well known that the world’s major economies have poured money and aid into Africa, to no lasting effect, again with a few exceptions. This, in my view, shows the futility of sending money and goods into countries to help people who are ruled by despots and thieves.

Dr. Mo Ibrahim has the better idea, in my view. As can be seen above and under the links provided, his foundation will reward with significant money and recognition those African leaders who turn away from pillage and one-man rule, toward democracy that is not merely in name only; and, toward raising the standard of living for the people through good husbandry of resources and in diversifying the economy.

The prize has been awarded since 2007. Here are the awardees (text and photos taken directly from the foundation’s website):

Joaquim Alberto Chissano, 2007—Mozambique

In 1992, President Chissano helped to end Mozambique’s 16-year civil war and reconcile a divided nation, working tirelessly to negotiate piece with the RENAMO (Resistência Nacional Moçambicana) rebel group. To cement the reconciliation President Chissano offered 15,000 places in Mozambique’s 30,000-strong army to former opposition RENAMO soldiers.

President Chissano implemented a deliberate shift from Marxist-Leninist ideology to multiparty democracy and a mixed economy. He successfully negotiated a reduction in Mozambique’s debt repayments and oversaw reforms that have led to sustained economic growth. During his time in office, Mozambique began the journey of reconstruction and development, with improvements in healthcare, increased access to education and greater empowerment of women.

Between 2003 and 2004, President Chissano served as Chair of the African Union. During his presidency he was a powerful advocate for Africa on the international stage, particularly in promoting the debt relief agenda.

Festus Gontebanye Mogae, 2008—Botswana

At his inauguration ceremony in 1998, President Mogae vowed to address poverty and unemployment. His time in office was characterised by programmes to develop education and health infrastructure, and to privatise parts of the economy, notably the airlines and telecommunications industry.

Under President Mogae’s stewardship of the economy and careful management of the country’s mineral resources, Botswana experienced the steady economic growth that has characterised its post-independence history. Having been one of the poorest African countries at the time of independence, President Mogae consolidated Botswana’s place as one of the most prosperous countries on the continent.

After decades of enforcing strict anti-corruption measures, Botswana is regularly ranked as one of the least corrupt countries in Africa. Describing the principles that guided his time in office in his final State of the Nation address, President Mogae said that “prudent, transparent and honest use of national resources for your benefit has been my guiding principle and code of conduct”.

Following the Botswana Democratic Party’s victory in the October 2004 General Election, President Mogae was sworn in for a second term in November 2004. He again promised to fight poverty and unemployment, and pledged to halt the spread of HIV/AIDS in Botswana by 2016.

In April 2008, in accordance with Botswana’s constitution, President Mogae stepped down as President, having served two terms in government. He was succeeded by Seretse Khama Ian Khama.

—

Addendum

In the face of massive aid in money and goods perennially provided African people by other countries and NGOs through the governments of their respective countries, small and direct-to-the-people efforts pay off at least equally well. In the above photo showing orphans in Kenya, you will see Jacinta Njoroge Lahti, a native of Kenya and a resident of Sweden, who founded the depicted orphanage and school. She is a member of the Rotary Club of Stockholm International, which club continues to be a major supporter of the school.

Note on figures used in this article

All figures were derived from The CIA World FactBook

Should the USA Emulate Sweden in Financing and Managing Medical Care?

The quick answer is “no.”

My reasoning is that Sweden and the USA are so different, despite both having roots in European culture and values, that what works in Sweden will not work in the USA.

First, please let us agree that we are not discussing “health care” or “healthcare.” These are marketing abstractions having no basis in reality. We are discussing how to pay for medical and hospital care and how to assure that a basic acceptable level is available to all.

Here are some positive reasons to look at Sweden as an example for the USA:

The infant death rate in Sweden is among the lowest four in the world, the others being Iceland, Singapore and Japan. The USA is 33rd. [Source]

The average life expectancy at birth in Sweden is among the highest 10 in the world, and the USA is 50th. (I will argue, however, this disparity has less to do with medical care than with the quality of public health programs in each country). [Source]

Using the chart below to interpolate, the average American pays around 70% more for “healthcare” than does the average Swede.

[Please click on the image for clearer detail]

Here come the “howevers,” however…

Sweden is much smaller in size and population
The country is shaped similarly to California, but 10% larger. The San Francisco Metropolitan area has 7.4 million people; all of Sweden has less than 9.1 million. The total of the USA’s is estimated at 307.2 million. [Source]

Sweden has comparatively low military expenditures
The Swedes gave up warfare and being a world power 200 years ago after dominating northern Europe for the previous 200 years. Estimated figures for year 2005 show that the USA spent around 4.1% of its Gross Domestic Product on military expenditures while Sweden spent 1.5% of GDP. [Source]

Sweden has unique social traditions absent in the USA
I refer, here, mainly to the tradition of lagom. There is no equivalent in English, but it is often explained to English speakers as “not too much and not too little.” [Source] Having lived all but the last seven years in the USA, I confidently opine that there may be parts of the USA population that adhere to this spirit of moderation, but the most visible part of the culture seems to be saying (until the recent economic downturn, perhaps) “too much is not enough.”

Jante Law: There is another set of traditions, still prevalent in the Nordic (North) countries, named, in Swedish jantelagen. These are essentially unwritten laws that are strong social levelers.
 
The above may be sufficient to support my point, but it is at least interesting to note, in addition:
 
 

 
Sweden is a constitutional monarchy with an attractive royal family who represent the country well.
 
Sweden is, within its constitution, a parliamentary democracy with a single legislature (Riksdag or Parliament). As a transplanted American I have found one aspect of the political system very odd and frustrating: one votes for the party, not the person (there are around 8 parties, and the government rules through a coalition of parties). So, when I feel I have a complaint, observation or suggestion to make to my elected representative at the national level, I cannot identify one.

Population Centers: In year 2005, the five largest urban areas, Stockholm, Gothenburg, Malmö, Uppsala, and Västerås, all in the southern third of the country, contained around 2.3 million people, or 25% of the county’s population. The rest of the country is comprised of cities, towns and villages of less than 100,000 people each, most of them concentrated in the southern third of the country.

[Image source]

The personal habits of Swedes are different from those in the USA. As anecdotal evidence of this, whenever I visit my family in California and Alaska, I am surprised at the great number of people who are of an unhealthy size. One rarely sees an obese person in Sweden. On the other hand, I am constantly amazed at the number of young women in Stockholm, at least, who smoke cigarettes. And, I am informed that many young men are addicted to snus, powdered tobacco in small pouches placed in the mouth.

In testing the comments in this article against the opinion of my friend, the Hairy Swede, he points at the movement towards privatization of service here in Sweden, as well as there being long waits for certain elective services. (There is a “single payer,” the government, but you can pay privately from your own pocket).

My retort to the perceived long waits, which I have heard about from other Swedes, is that additional taxes from the people could solve this, if effectively and efficiently used. After all, they spend ‘only’ around 9.2% of the country’s GDP on “healthcare,” and have a long way to go to catch up with the USA at around 15.5%.
 

 
So, just because the Swedish way promotes better health at lower cost for its people as compared with the USA, at least according to the few measures I use here, this doesn’t mean a Swedish approach would work similarly for the people in the USA, given population and cultural differences.

That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

If you want to know what I think is a good start toward something better in the  USA, see my article of 30 December, 2007.

Skål! (a wish for good fortune and good health).

Back in the USSR

Been away so long I hardly knew the place
Gee, it’s good to be back home
Leave it till tomorrow to unpack my case
Honey disconnect the phone
I’m back in the USSR
You don’t know how lucky you are, boy
Back in the US
Back in the US
Back in the USSR
(Lyrics by John Lennon & Paul McCartney)
© SONY BEATLES LTD; SONY/ATV TUNES LLC

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) dissolved 25 December 1991, almost 18 years ago. There were 15 “republics” in the union. What, now, are the names of these countries? How are they doing?

I asked myself these questions as I prepared to write an article on Uzbekistan, a former republic of the USSR.

As for how the fifteen, individually, are “doing,” the answer has to be, in part: “compared to what?” I chose to compare a few demographic statistics with The World as the reference point. As I have so often in these pages, I went to the The World Factbook of the Central Intelligence Agency of the USA.

I chose seven demographic measures:

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita

Life expectancy at birth for females

Life expectancy at birth for males

Net migration per 1000 population (number of immigrants minus number of emigrants)

Infant mortality (usually within 30 days of birth) per 1000 live births

Fertility rate (number of births per year, per the number of all women)

The live birth rate per thousand population, minus the death rate per 1000

I arrayed these seven measures by country and compared each characteristic to that of the world, whether more, or less, favorable.

[Please click on the image for clearer detail]

For the specific data in each country and the world, click here

I then gave a score to each country by subtracting the number of negative results, compared to world averages or ratios, from the number of positive results (a positive number shows a positive comparison to the world, and the converse for negative number):

Countries Scoring “+3″: Belarus, Kyrgyzstan

Countries Scoring “+1″: Armenia, Estonia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Russia, Uzbekistan

Countries Scoring “-1″: Turkmenistan

Countries Scoring “-3″: Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Ukraine

So what makes Belarus and Kyrgyzstan so special—at least with respect to world averages and ratios? (One must keep in mind that probably none of the readers of this article would care to live in an area where these demographics are at or near World averages and ratios; and, that the data aggregation agency, in this case the CIA, is at the mercy of the quality of data collection and reporting in each country).

Belarus
Despite low fertility and high overall death rate, Belarus has high GDP per capita, low infant mortality, high life expectancy at birth for both females and males, and more people are entering the country than leaving it. So, the overall population is growing. It does seem counter-intuitive for the population to be growing despite low fertility and high death rate, but perhaps there is still some in-migration of ethnic Belarusians from the other former republics who were dispersed during the Soviet era.

“Since 1996, Belarus has been negotiating with Russia to unify into a single state called the Union of Russia and Belarus.” [Source]

In looking at the nature of Belarus’s government before and since the dissolution of the USSR (see under the “Belarus” link, above), there is much room to doubt the accuracy of information coming from, essentially, a totalitarian state in existence for 70 years.

Kyrgyzstan
More people leave Kyrgyzstan than enter it, as residents, and GDP per capita is low, but all the life and health data are high. “Kyrgyzstan has undergone a pronounced change in its ethnic composition since independence [1991]. The percentage of ethnic Kyrgyz increased from around 50% in 1979 to nearly 70% in 2007, while the percentage of European ethnic groups (Russians, Ukrainians and Germans) as well as Tatars dropped from 35% to about 10%. The Kyrgyz have historically been semi-nomadic herders, living in round tents called yurts and tending sheep, horses and yaks. This nomadic tradition continues to function seasonally as herding families return to the high mountain pasture in the summer.” [Source]

Nine countries are scored “+1.” Rather than list and discuss them individually, I will present what they have in common.

Statue of Lenin, founder of the USSR, in Tiraspol, Moldova [Source]

The life expectancy at birth for females is higher than The World average.

Other than for Kazakhstan and Russia, the life expectancy at birth for males is higher than the world average. Russia is lowest at 59.3 years, compared to the world average at 64.5 years. It is remarkable that the life of expectancy at birth for females in Russia is 73.2 years, almost a 14 years more than for males.

All, except Russia, have more people leaving than entering the country as residents. Note, again, that there has been a general migration of expatriates toward their countries of origin after the dissolution of the USSR.

The infant death rate for all 15 countries is lower than the world average. The three Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) are lowest in this measure, by far (a good thing), between 6.5 and 8.8 deaths per thousand births. The world average is 40.9. Armenia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are highest, at 20.2, 23.4 and 25.7 infant deaths per thousand births, respectively.

The fertility rate of all 15 countries is well under the World average of 2.6 children per woman. A country needs around 2.1 live births per woman in order to maintain the country’s population at a given level.

Except for Uzbekistan, the difference between the birth rate and the death rate (BR minus DR) is lower than the world average of 11.8 per thousand population (not good). Russia is lowest at a difference of (negative) 5.0 per thousand people.

Turkmenistan (“-1″)
The only three positive factors for this country are life expectancy for males and females, and the birth rate minus the death rate. “The former Communist Party, now known as the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan, has been the only one effectively permitted to operate. Political gatherings are illegal unless government sanctioned. Turkmenistan is among the twenty countries in the world with the highest perceived level of corruption …” [Source]

Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Ukraine at “-3” score
The GDP per capita of all three countries is below the World average of $10,400, with Tajikistan by far the lowest at $1,800. Life expectancy for males born today is less than the World average, for all three. Except for Ukraine (at 8.9) the infant death rate is above the world average of 40.9 deaths per thousand live births. The fertility rate for Azerbaijan and Tajikistan is well above the World average, but Ukraine is among the lowest countries at 1.3 births per woman. Similarly, the birth rate far exceeds the death rate in Azerbaijan and Tajikistan, but Ukraine is the lowest of all fifteen countries in this measure at (negative) 6.2; that is, the there are 6.2 more people dying than being born, per thousand population, in the current year.

1 Armenia 2 Azerbaijan 3 Belarus 4 Estonia 5 Georgia 6 Kazakhstan 7 Kyrgyzstan 8 Latvia

9 Lithuania 10 Moldova 11 Russia 12 Tajikistan 13 Turkmenistan 14 Ukraine 15 Uzbekistan

There is hard living almost everywhere in the former USSR. Look at the averages of these seven measures for the 27 countries of the European Union vs. those of Russia, the largest country, by far, of the former SSRs, and the most dominant, politically and economically:

European Union GDP per capita: $33,700 Life expectancy, female: 82.0 Life expectancy, male: 75.5 Net migration: 1.5 Infant death rate: 5.7 Fertility rate: 1.5 Birth rate minus death rate: -0.4

Russia GDP per capita: $16,100 Life expectancy, female: 73.2 Life expectancy, male: 59.3 Net migration: 0.3 Infant death rate: 10.6 Fertility rate: 1.4 Birth rate minus death rate: -5.0

I have been to two countries of the former USSR: Estonia and Latvia. Despite the obvious enthusiasm of the people for their freedom from totalitarianism, and the resultant social and economic progress, the ravages of the Soviet rule are still quite apparent.

With all respect to the poetry of Messrs. Lennon and McCartney, let’s not go back to the USSR.

Political Correctness and the “Cult of Personality”

Image Source [Please click on the image]

The phrase “politically correct,” or “PC,” didn’t begin in the 1960s in the USA. It was first publicly used by a British Ministry of Information official during the First World War. It later appeared in Mao Zedung’s “Little Red Book” in the early 1960s and was adopted, originally tongue-in-cheek, by the radical left in the USA. In Marxist–Leninist and Trotskyist vocabulary, “correct” was the common term denoting the “appropriate party line” and the ideologically “correct line.” [Source]

What brings me to discuss this today is my current reading of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Cancer Ward:

Solzhenitsyn’s novels are autobiographical, presenting a vivid account of a man maintaining his freedom against the vicious repressions of an authoritarian regime. Clearly a novelist in the 19th-century tradition, he is often considered Russia’s greatest 20th-century novelist.

His difficulties with the authorities began on Feb. 8, 1945, when he was arrested for having written critical remarks about Joseph Stalin in a letter to a friend that was intercepted by the censors. Sentenced without a trial to 8 years of hard labor, he remained until 1953 in a number of labor camps, one of which was a research institute where he worked as a mathematician. In 1952 he contracted cancer of the skin, and was treated in a hospital in Tashkent (the setting for Cancer Ward). Pronounced cured, he completed his sentence a year later and, although still in exile, was able to teach mathematics and to begin writing. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn received the Nobel Prize for literature in 1970 “for the ethical force with which he has pursued the indispensable traditions of Russian literature.” [Source]

There are many reviews of Cancer Ward on the Internet, so it would be superfluous to offer my own review here, except to talk about one of the characters who exemplified the totalitarian state that was the USSR:

Bureaucracy and the nature of power in Stalin’s state is represented by Pavel Nikolayevich Rusanov, a “personnel officer.” The corrupt power of Stalin’s regime is shown through his dual desires to be a “worker” but also achieve a “special pension.” At the end, Rusanov’s wife drops rubbish from her car window, symbolising the carelessness with which the regime treated the country. [Source]

I pause here to give some background for the ensuing comments on political correctness. It is important to know the period in which the action of Cancer Ward takes place. Here are the leaders of the USSR, in date order:

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, 26 Oct 1917 – 21 Jan 1924
Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin, 3 Apr 1922 – 5 Mar 1953
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev, 7 Sep 1953 – 14 Oct 1964
Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev, 14 Oct 1964 – 10 Nov 1982
Yuriy Vladimirovich Andropov, 12 Nov 1982 – 9 Feb 1984
Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko, 13 Feb 1984 – 10 Mar 1985
Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev, 11 Mar 1985 – 24 Aug 1991

Please note the hiatus of top leadership between March and September, 1953. After Stalin died there was a political struggle among several pretenders to Stalin’s throne. Stalin held the top post in several functions and, after his death, there was a dispersion of these duties to several people so no one could claim to be Stalin’s sole heir, until Khrushchev finally gained the support necessary.

Khrushchev began a gradual change in the legacy of Stalin and, suddenly, in a 1956 speech “On the Personality Cult and its Consequences” to the closed session of the Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party, he denounced Stalin’s dictatorial rule and cult of personality. He also attacked the crimes committed by Stalin’s closest associates.

This speech destroyed the legitimacy of Khrushchev’s remaining Stalinist rivals, solidifying his domestic power. He began to ease many restrictions, and freed millions of political prisoners from the “Gulag”–penal labor camps spread across the Soviet Union. (Read Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago).

This “thaw” in the political, cultural and economic life of the Soviet Union included some openness and contact with other nations and new social and economic policies, helping living standards to rise and promoting a higher level of economic growth. Censorship was also relaxed. Some subtle criticism of Soviet society was tolerated, and artists were allowed to produce some works that didn’t have government-approved political content–but there were still limits an artist or writer could not go beyond without reprisal.

The novel Cancer Ward is set in a hospital in Soviet Uzbekistan in 1955, before and during the period when the changes to Stalin’s policies and apparatus were culminating. One of the patients in the cancer ward was Pavel Nikolayevich Rusanov, as mentioned above. While in the hospital he learns from a newspaper, and from his visiting wife and daughter, that the Soviet regime is changing: prisoners are being released from the Gulag, having been officially “rehabilitated.”

One of these prisoners, Rusanov fears, is a man, a former friend and compatriot, whom he falsely denounced to achieve some advantage in the factory where they both worked. Here are some excerpts to show the disorientation and fear the new rules of political correctness engendered in him:

Now times had changed, things were bewildering, unhealthy, the finest civic actions of earlier days were now shameful. Would he now have to fear for his own skin?

[Rusanov mentally reviewing the past] The nature of Rusanov’s work had been…that of personnel records administrator. It was a job that went by different names…but the substance of it was always the same. Only ignoramuses and uninformed outsiders were unaware what subtle, meticulous work it was, what talent it required. It was a form of poetry not yet mastered by the poets themselves. As every man goes through life he fills in a number of forms for the record, each containing a number of questions. A man’s answer to a question on one form becomes a little thread, permanently connecting him to the local centre of personnel records administration. There are thus hundreds of little threads radiating from from every man, millions of threads in all…They are not visible, they are not material, but every man is constantly aware of their existence. The point is that a so-called completely clean record was almost unattainable, an ideal, like absolute truth. Something negative or suspicious can always be noted down against any man alive. Everyone is guilty of something or has something to conceal. All one has to do is look hard enough to find out what it is.

…The poetic side of [Rusanov's] work lay in holding a man in the hollow of [his] hand without even starting to pile on the pressure. (Emphasis added)

[Later, Rusanov talking with his daughter, Alla, a well-placed writer who has recently visited Moscow and who is visiting him in the hospital] ‘Listen,’ her father said quietly, do you remember. I asked you to find something out? That strange expression–you come across it sometimes in speeches or articles–”the cult of personality”–are those words an illusion to…?’ [He means Stalin]

‘I’m afraid they are, Father…I’m afraid they are. At the Writers’ Congress, for example, the phrase was used several times. And the trouble is, nobody explains what it means, though everyone puts on a face as if they understand.’

‘But it’s pure blasphemy! How dare they, eh?’

[Alla] ‘…Generally speaking, you have to be flexible, you have to be responsive to the demand of the times. This may annoy you Father, but whether we like it or not we have to attune ourselves to each new period as it comes! I saw a lot in Moscow. I spent quite a lot of time in literary circles–do you imagine it’s easy for writers to readjust their attitudes over the last two years? Ve-ry complicated! But what an experienced crowd they are! What tact! You can learn a lot from them!’

Well, this is enough, I hope, to elicit your interest in the book, and to provide some food for thought about the potential power of government to shape our lives.

Will Rusanov be cured of his neck tumor? Will his old “friend,” released from the Gulag, visit him? Will Oleg (the main character) find love and happiness with one of the two hospital workers he is romancing? Will Oleg be returned to the Gulag after he is cured (if he is cured)?

Don’t ask me… read the book!

Addendum: If you have an interest in the current debate regarding how to finance and array medical care in the USA, you should certainly read at least Part Two, Chapter 9, “The Old Doctor” in this book. Take your time with it; it is poetically written (and, apparently, faithfully translated)

Colin Wilson

I just finished reading The Outsider, by Colin Wilson. I will read it, I am sure, no less than two more times, and will make copious notes while doing so.

It is one of those rare books by a contemporary author, or author of any era, which helps one understand the works of celebrated writers, philosophers and a few artists, in this case, by putting them into perspective with each other and within a conceptual framework that gives the reader an overall comprehension of their respective contributions to man’s understanding of himself.

Another book which I found to be similarly helpful, although different in tone and approach, is one by philosopher and academic Philip H. Rhinelander which I recently reported on, in two parts:

July 1, 2009: Attempting to Comprehend Man, Part 1

July 8, 2009: Attempting to Comprehend Man, Part 2

I have long admired the written work of Colin Wilson and have also listened to him on taped radio interviews which, unfortunately, I have lost through being so peripatetic.

I believe the first book of Wilson’s I read is The Mind Parasites, around thirty-five years ago. Since then I have read many more of his books, having lent some out indefinitely, it seems. The ones I have managed to retain, in addition to The Mind Parasites, are:

Aleister Crowley: The Nature of the Beast

G.I. Gurdjieff: The War Against Sleep

Nikos Kazantzakis

Lord of the Underworld: Jung and the twentieth Century

The Philosopher’s Stone

The Strange Life of P.D. Ouspensky

The Outsider, first published in 1956 when Wilson was 24, rocketed him to fame, yet I hadn’t read his most widely known book until now. Here is a synopsis:

…an insightful work of literary and philosophical criticism—a timeless preoccupation which perhaps garners more mainstream attention than his subsequent writings on the occult and crime. The book is structured in such a way as to mirror the outsider’s experience: a sense of dislocation, or of being at odds with society. These are figures like Dostoevsky’s “Insect-Man” who seem to be lost to despair and non-transcendence with no way out.

More successful—or at least hopeful—characters are then brought to the fore. These include Steppenwolf and even the hero of Hesse’s book of the same name—and these are presented as examples of those who have insightful moments of lucidity in which they feel as though things are worthwhile/meaningful amidst their shared, usual, experience of nihilism and gloom. Sartre’s Nausea is herein the key text—and the moment when the hero listens to a song in a cafe which momentarily lifts his spirits is the outlook on life to be normalized. Wilson then engages in some detailed case studies of artists who failed in this task and tries to understand their weakness—which is either intellectual, of the body or of the emotions. The final chapter is Wilson’s attempt at a “great synthesis” in which he justifies his belief that western philosophy is afflicted with a needless “pessimistic fallacy”—a narrative he continues throughout his oeuvre under various names… [Source].

Colin Wilson

The Outsider has been, and will continue to be, especially valuable to me because in it Wilson discusses many of the authors and their works I have read, some mentioned in the pages of this blog, including:

Hermann Hesse

Thomas Mann

G.I. Gurdjieff and P.D. Ouspensky

Rainer Maria Rilke

William James

Aldous Huxley

In no way have I given you the essence of The Outsider in this brief discussion. It is a very important book to start one on one’s journey to self-realization, or to help the older of us to make course corrections toward realizing our fullest possible potential.

I can say that engaging in armchair philosophy might be helpful, but insufficient. One must act.

Civil Society Must Succeed Where Governments Have Failed

The headline for today’s column is an idea I took away from a peace conference, held two days ago in Stockholm, a paraphrase of what I heard from journalist and academic, Dr. Carmen Sammut, from Malta.

The conference and its workshops, press conferences and reception lasted the whole day and evening of September 21, “an auspicious day,” but I was able to attend only the morning session, which was sufficient for the purposes of this weekly blog article.

Anna Lindh, inspiration for The Anna Lindh Foundation, a co-sponsor of the conference

Many non-governmental organizations (NGOs), alliances and voluntary organizations had a role to play in this gathering of journalists, diplomats, academics and others under the heading Restore Trust, Build Bridges.

The label “auspicious” was given this gathering by one of the speakers due to the convergence around the date, September 21, of these of these events and traditions:

The autumnal equinox

The International Day of Peace has been established by the United Nations for this date

The celebration of Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year)

The end of Ramadan, in the Muslim faith

The Feast Day of Saint Matthew

In that the conflict most referenced during the morning’s session was that centering in Jerusalem, a holy city for the three faiths referenced above, the observation was apt. At least one other conflict was referenced, the one centered in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Another important point was made: those who are directly affected in local conflicts, and who support peaceful settlement, are more numerous than those who seek combat to resolve disputes. Their voices are poorly heard, however, under the noise and visual presentations of “mayhem” that capture the attention of the various news media. The three speakers representing the press told us of efforts by The Euro-Mediterranean Media Task Force to promote a proper balance between the immediate facts on the ground in a local area, and the larger picture including those who are relatively quiet (or inadequately reported on), the oft-referenced “grass roots.” Evidence of such grass roots peace efforts is found in the Blue and White Peace movement in Israel, promoting a two-state solution. A similar movement of Jews in the USA was cited, as well.

The keynote speaker in the morning session was André Azoulay, President of the Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue Between Cultures. Among many observations based in his extensive and high-level experience in both Arab and Jewish cultures, he cited the hopeful note and presence of the new U.S. President, Barack Obama, and the latter’s presentation at Egypt’s Cairo University, June 4, 2009. Mr. Azoulay dwelt a bit on Mr. Obama’s use of quotations from the Quran and his opening remarks in Arabic, showing “respect” and “humility” to his hosts, considering it “a major historical point”. This positive impression was buttressed by the later remarks of communications consultant, journalist and columnist Ramzi E. Khoury, a Jordanian by birth.

So, I have cited three major points from just the morning portion of a full-day and evening conference. I consider my time well-spent if I can come away with just one new idea or insight from a full day’s meeting.

China’s “New Cultural Revolution”

This was the title given to a presentation I attended, September 10, at the regular meeting of my Rotary club, the only English speaking Rotary club in Stockholm.

Dr. Tony Fang was the presenter. He is Associate Professor of International Business at Stockholm University, born in China and a resident of Sweden for many years.

To put the title and the substance of Dr. Fang’s presentation into perspective, one needs to review the first “cultural revolution” in China:

“The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution”, or simply Cultural Revolution, was a period of social and political upheaval in the People’s Republic of China between 1966 and 1976, resulting in nation-wide chaos and economic disarray.

It was launched by Mao Zedong, the chairman of the Communist Party of China, on May 16, 1966, who alleged that “liberal bourgeois” elements were permeating the party and society at large, and wanted to restore Capitalism. He insisted that these elements be removed through post-revolutionary class struggle by mobilizing the thoughts and actions of China’s youth, who formed Red Guards groups around the country. The movement subsequently spread into the military, urban workers, and the party leadership itself. Although Mao himself officially declared the Cultural Revolution to have ended in 1969, today it is widely believed that the power struggles and political instability between 1969 and the arrest of the Gang of Four as well as the death of Mao in 1976 were also part of the Revolution.

After Mao’s death, the forces within Communist Party of China that were antagonistic to the Cultural Revolution gained prominence. The political, economic, and educational reforms associated with the Cultural Revolution were terminated. The Cultural Revolution has been treated officially as a negative phenomenon ever since. The people involved in instituting the policies of the Cultural Revolution were persecuted. In its official historical judgement of the Cultural Revolution in 1981, the Party assigned chief responsibility to Mao Zedong, but also laid significant blame on Lin Biao and the Gang of Four. [Source]

During the 33 years since Chairman Mao’s death in 1976, Chinese leaders started their country on a bumpy road toward embracing many of the values in the West that Mao reviled and forbade. Deng Xiaoping (1904-1997) was the key person in this transformation:

Inheriting a country wrought with social and institutional woes left over from the Cultural Revolution and other mass political movements of the Mao era, Deng became the core of the “second generation” of Chinese leadership. He is called “the architect” of a new brand of socialist thinking, having developed Socialism with Chinese characteristics and led Chinese economic reform through a synthesis of theories that became known as the “socialist market economy”. Deng opened China to foreign investment, the global market, and limited private competition. He is generally credited with advancing China into becoming one of the fastest growing economies in the world and vastly raising the standard of living. [Source]

Dr. Fang offered these eight points toward understanding the China of today, as compared with, just a short while ago, the China that most of us may remember:

1. Changing symbols, heroes and rituals: Mao is no longer the national hero, now perceived more as an honored ancestor or quasi-religious icon (my interpretation). The term “comrade” has changed to mean partners in a homosexual relationship. Television programs hold competitions similar to “Idol” to elevate winners to cultural icons. Dr. Fang quotes Deng Xiaoping as saying “to become rich is glorious.”
2. Professionalism There is developing, among major enterprises, a strong service orientation.
3. Respect for knowledge
4. Self-expression
5. Direct and assertive communication
6. Individualism/individualization
7. Technology-driven
8. Emerging online civil society

Dr. Fang points out that in emulating many of the perceived values of the West, Chinese have not yet developed the inherent sense of social boundaries. As a result, certain “Western” behaviors in Chinese are perceived as excessive or out-of-bounds by Westerners. Dr. Fang asserts that there is a learning curve in this realm and that time and experience will bring the necessary corrections and definitions of proper boundaries.

I often go to the CIA World Factbook to get the most recently available information for any country in the world. Here are a few current demographics for China:

Population 1,338,612,968
Age structure 0-14 years: 19.8%, 15-64 years: 72.1%, 65 years and over: 8.1%
Median age 34.1 years
Population growth rate 0.655%
Urbanization urban population: 43% of total population
Rate of urbanization 2.7% annual rate of change
Sex ratio total population: 1.06 males/female
Life expectancy at birth total population: 73.47 years
Total fertility rate 1.79 children born/woman
Ethnic groups Han Chinese 91.5%; Zhuang, Manchu, Hui, Miao, Uyghur, Tujia, Yi, Mongol, Tibetan, Buyi, Dong, Yao, Korean and other, 8.5%
Religions Daoist (Taoist), Buddhist, Christian 3%-4%; Muslim 1%-2%. Note: [China is] officially atheist.
Languages Standard Chinese or Mandarin (based on the Beijing dialect), Yue (Cantonese), Wu (Shanghainese), Minbei (Fuzhou), Minnan (Hokkien-Taiwanese), Xiang, Gan, Hakka dialects, minority languages
Literacy (age 15 and over can read and write): total population: 90.9%

Please click on the map to enlarge it

In ending his presentation, Dr. Fang characterized modern China as “embracing paradox, dynamics and change.” This is buttressed by the statement of Robert Poole, vice president, China Operations, at the US-China Business Council in Beijing: “Change is a constant companion to those of us in the China business environment, as the results of 30 years of reform unfold and a dynamic economy emerges.” The China Business Review, March-April, 2009.

Playing Chopin with Great Respect, and other Musical Delights of the Evening

Once again, I have reason to wax enthusiastic about a musical event in Stockholm and about my personal discovery of a magnificent Swedish artist who enjoys world-wide acclaim, concert pianist Roland Pöntinen.

As I compose this article I am listening to a CD I bought at Berwaldhallen during a symphony concert there on 1 September. I attended, as I have before, with my friend Johannes from Uppsala. During the intermission, just after Mr. Pöntinen performed, Johannes and I visited the area of the lobby where CDs were for sale. We each bought one of Mr. Pöntinen’s many recorded performances, then stood in line to get the album notes signed by the artist. As Mr. Pöntinen signed mine I told him that I felt he had paid great respect to Chopin in the playing of this composer’s piano concerto (described below). He seemed pleased by the comment; Johannes and I then returned to the concert hall for the second part of the evening’s performance.

Here are the performers and the program we heard:

Sinfonia Varsovia, Conductor: Jacek Kaspszyk
Roland Pöntinen, piano

Program:
Felix Mendelssohn: Hebrides Overture op. 26
Frédéric Chopin: Piano Concerto No. 2
(Encore: Chopin Mazurka in b minor Opus. 33 No. 4
Johannes Brahms: Symphony No. 2
(Encore: not sure, but it seemed like one of Dvořák’s Slavonic Dances)

[Note: The links under specific pieces, above, are directed to "Youtube" sites and are not performed by the artists in this evening's concert]

The Hebrides Overture by Mendelssohn is one my favorite pieces because of its connection to my youth. There was a radio program, The Lone Ranger, which aired from 1933 until 1955, that had several pieces of music in its theme and during the program, including The Hebrides Overture. The main theme was from the “cavalry charge” finale of Gioachino Rossini’s William Tell Overture. Other borrowed music was by Peter Tchaikovsky and Franz Liszt.

Every late afternoon before Dad came home from work at the Richmond Navy shipyard, across the Bay from San Francisco where we lived during World War II, I would lie on the floor reading the newspaper comics and listen to the 15-minutes episodes of The Lone Ranger, The Green Hornet, Bobby Benson and the B-Bar-B Riders, The Cisco Kid, Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy, Captain Midnight, Tom Mix and many others. Not only did I find the adventure stories compelling, but the music became a permanent part of my life.

Back to the concert.

The next piece was the piano concerto by Chopin, one that I have long loved. What struck me about Mr. Pöntinen’s playing was that he did not, as so many performers of Chopin do, insert himself into the equation. There was no flash, no needless and ostentatious pounding of the keys, just a clear delivery of Chopin’s phrases and melodies. Perhaps it was the influence of the Swedish lagom: “not too much and not too little.” In addition, there seemed to be warm and relaxed rapport between the conductor and the solo pianist. Mr Pöntinen’s encore piece, also by Chopin, was similarly played. He was enthusiastically received by the audience.

During the concerto’s many cadenzas for the piano, written with the extraordinary embellishments that Chopin is well-known for, I was reminded of the stylistic playing of the great jazz pianist Oscar Peterson. As I later read in a biography of Mr. Pöntinen, he also has appreciation for the jazz idiom, as well as music for the cinema which is the subject of the CD recorded by him that I bought at the concert.

Upon returning to the auditorium after the paus (intermission), I allowed by myself some anticipatory pleasure in knowing that one of my favorite composers was about to be presented to me, and through a piece I often play at home. My father preferred Beethoven above all, although he had a high opinion of Brahms. Over time I have grown to prefer Brahms. His wistful and sometimes melancholic phrases, all laid on a foundation of latent power that often emerges, full-throated, resonate in me more than any composer–with the sometimes exceptions of several of the Nordic composers, particularly Grieg and Sibelius.

The first movement of the symphony is long, around 21 minutes of the symphony’s approximately 45 minutes, but the remaining three are shorter, the third movement being quite short at five and one-half minutes.

As the playing of the familiar symphony unfolded, I reminisced on anecdotes about Brahms I had read and heard about over the years. I recalled that the great German conductor, pianist and composer Hans von Bülow called Brahms’s first symphony “Beethoven’s Tenth” (Beethoven wrote only nine) because of many similarities in the two pieces. I recalled also this quote of Brahms, when comparing himself to Beethoven in 1870: “Composing a symphony is no laughing matter. You have no idea of how it feels to hear a giant’s footsteps behind you!”

Brahms spent at least fourteen years completing this work, whose sketches date from 1854. Brahms himself declared that the symphony, from sketches to finishing touches, took 21 years, from 1855 to 1876. Source

I speculated, as the playing of the symphony proceeded, that Brahms, now having been freed from the terrible burden of composing a great symphony under the shadow of the god-like Beethoven, felt much lighter and gayer, hence the mood of this second symphony. My notes during this first movement contain the words: “triumphant,” “joyful,” “lyrical, “pastoral” and a reference to Brahms’s penchant for walking in the woods while composing in his head.

There is a part in the first movement I always anticipate with great joy: the full orchestra is in a long passage which culminates in a loud, grand chord that creates an image in my imagination of a magnificent pipe organ in a cathedral coming to the end of an important statement.

I am not scholarly enough in musical forms to vouch with authority for the following observation: Brahms seems to employ the major and the minor modes alternatively and often in any piece and in any movement or section of the piece. Further, he does a counter-intuitive thing: when the music is in major mode, the pitch of the notes progresses generally downward (lower), and when in minor mode, the notes progress generally upward (higher) in pitch. I think this is what gives his music the “wistful” character I perceive.

To hurry things along here, I’ll make some short comments about the remaining three movements:

Movement No. 2, pastoral

Movement No. 3, country dance

Movement No. 4, triumphant, with a chorale-like ending

In sum, Johannes Brahms knows how to employ an orchestra, every section, every instrument.

And, finally, it was a great pleasure to listen to mature, accomplished, confident musicians, led by a conductor, similarly imbued, so that I could relax and enjoy the music in full.

Here is the entire discography of Roland Pöntinen at Naxos Records.

Position of Elsewhere

This abstract phrase is the title of an hour-long piece in the repertoire of the Cullberg Ballet troupe, danced to the music of Jean-Louis Huhta. It was my great pleasure to see it performed recently at the Vitabergs Park Theatre, an amphitheatre, in Stockholm (Parkteatern, Vitabergsparken).

One cannot successfully describe (literally, put into writing) the sublimity of the graceful, intricately simple, competent and just plain beautiful movements of dancers who are so fully integrated in their movements they often appear as a single living organism.

There. I tried to put the experience into words, anyway.

Here is a Youtube presentation of a rehearsal of “Position of Elsewhere” by the Cullberg Ballet.

Diane Pavellas, a student of Ephraim Geersh, around age four, Brooklyn, New York

It has been too long since I have seen ballet performed by professionals; that is, dancers who have as a basis for their art the movements and other attributes of classical ballet. Members of my family have appreciated classical ballet since I can remember. My younger sister, Diane, took ballet lessons for eight years in Brooklyn, then in San Francisco (with the Christiansen Ballet) when the Pavellas family moved back to their home town.

A cousin through marriage, Christine Sarry, influenced by Diane’s love of ballet, began lessons also and eventually was a major dancer with at least two ballet troupes in New York: The Eliot Feld Ballet and the American Ballet Theater.

Christy was a principal dancer in Aaron Copland’s Rodeo, choreographed by Agnes De Mille.

…producers were hard-pressed to replicate the skill with which de Mille had portrayed the lead (“Cowgirl” in Rodeo). De Mille retained veto power over any casting of the ballet, which often sent companies to extremes in order to find a worthy Cowgirl.” (Source)

Here is Christy dancing as “The Cowgirl.” Agnes de Mille’s will has a provision granting Christine Sarry exclusive rights to approve dancers for the role of (or for a certain dance of) “The Cowgirl”.

This reminiscence has value, perhaps, in establishing a small measure of authority in my remarks here about the Cullberg Ballet.

Members of the Cullberg Ballet taking their final bows at the performance of August 24, 2009 at Parkteatern, Vitabergsparken

From the Fall schedule of Dansens Hus (The House of Dance), I see that the Cullberg Ballet will perform “Matter of a Maker” in Stockholm in November, the 21st, 22nd and 24th. The music will be by Owen Belton and Beastie Boys.

They will also perform “Xpectacle” by Crystal Pite November 25-27.

I’ll be sure to get my tickets early.