Populus: Living and Dying in Ancient Rome, by Guy de la Bédoyère (University of Chicago Press): A public-education campaign was launched in A.D. 45 when the emperor Claudius learned that an eclipse would occur on his birthday, August 1. His reign had seen enough bad omens, the historian Cassius Dio tells us, and he didn’t want the solar event to be taken as another. So we can infer that, at the appointed hour and with advance warning, thousands upon thousands of Romans must have stepped outside for a view. One of many choice episodes in Guy de la Bédoyère’s delightful survey Populus, the story reminds us how, for all the distance between us and ancient Romans, daily life was shaped by many of the same concerns. (Another point in common is that they couldn’t stop thinking about the Roman Empire, either.) —RE
The Marriage: The Mahlers in New York & The Propaganda of Freedom: JFK, Shostakovich, Stravinsky, and the Cultural Cold War, by Joseph Horowitz (Blackwater Press & University of Illinois Press): Soon after meeting her future husband Gustav Mahler, Alma Schindler wrote, “I love and honour him as an artist, but as a man he doesn’t interest me at all.” Gustav told Max Burckhard: “I didn’t care for her.” But any indifference was short-lived—the Fifth Symphony’s Adagietto, dedicated to Alma, bears witness to this. The couple spent their tempestuous final years together in New York, a period recently captured by Joseph Horowitz’s imaginative novel The Marriage: The Mahlers in New York. Horowitz, who hosts the “More than Music” podcast on npr, has also recently written a pressing history of the Cold War’s cultural front, The Propaganda of Freedom, examining the respective roles of freedom and tyranny on art’s creation. Both books are worth picking up. —LL
Mitsuko Uchida & Jonathan Biss perform Schubert duets, at Carnegie Hall (April 9): Franz Schubert spent the summers of 1818 and 1824 teaching piano to the beautiful Caroline von Esterházy at her family’s estate in Zseliz, Hungary. It was a formative time for the young composer, whose interest in Hungarian culture bore fruit in a number of pieces and whose passion for Caroline was, it is speculated, unrequited. His Divertissement à la hongroise for piano four hands comes to us from the autumn after that second tenure, and will be played by Mitsuko Uchida and Jonathan Biss in a program of Schubert duets at Carnegie Hall this Tuesday. Though we once more wander into the world of speculation in doing so, it is hard not to imagine that Schubert’s time playing alongside Caroline did not leave some imprint on this Hungarian duet. Also on the bill will be the Allegro in A minor, “Lebensstürme”; the Grande Marche No. 5 in E-flat minor; and the Rondo in A major. —IS
Symphony No. 7, by Gustav Mahler, with the Philadelphia Orchestra, at Carnegie Hall (April 12): Mahler’s Symphony No. 7 is potentially his strangest and most complicated work, full of prickly harmony, shifting tempi, and parodic insertions of light operetta and Wagner, with parts for guitar, mandolin, and Alpine cowbell for good measure. Unofficially nicknamed the “Song of the Night,” it explores a shadowy nocturnal streetscape in its middle three movements. Its finale is one of Mahler’s grandest, yet unlike the famous, rather straightforward apotheosis of Symphony No. 2, “Resurrection,” the Seventh’s crescendoing brass hoots away like a vaudeville orchestra, while cowbells shake with wild abandon—before a trick ending brings things to an ambiguous close. Yet maybe Mahler had another, earthly kind of resurrection in mind here, one of the city returning to teeming life on a busy market morning. Hear Yannick Nézet-Séguin conduct the Philadelphia Orchestra at Carnegie Hall this Friday, opening with music of Alma Mahler featuring the mezzo-soprano Karen Cargill. —IS
Dance Theatre of Harlem performs at New York City Center (April 11–14): At a time when too much choreography comes from the head, Robert Garland leads from the heart of dance tradition. Two years ago I wrote about the New York premiere of Higher Ground, Garland’s ballet for Dance Theatre of Harlem set to the music of Stevie Wonder. Now Garland returns for Dance Theatre’s annual residency at New York City Center as the company’s newly minted artistic director. The four-performance run includes three of Garland’s repertory works, a New York premiere by Robert Bondara, a reprisal by William Forsythe, and a company premiere by George Balanchine—who encouraged his dancer Adrian Mitchell, the first black principal dancer to join New York City Ballet, to found the storied Harlem company fifty-five years ago. On Friday, Dance Theatre’s gala program will feature a special performance of Mitchell’s own Balm in Gilead with vocalists from the Abyssinian Baptist Church. —JP
By the Editors:
“Bath’s Royal Crescent Cuts a Majestic Swath”
Benjamin Riley, The Wall Street Journal
Podcasts:
“Adam Kirsch & James Panero discuss the April poetry issue”
Peter Vertacnik reads from The Nature of Things Fragile.
Dispatch:
“Oh, my word!” by Joshua T. Katz. On harmful language at the ACLU.