Top Ten for December 28, 2022
Robert Wilson’s staging of the 2000 John Eliot Gardiner production of Gluck’s Orphée et Eurydice should not work at all but it’s brilliant
In honor of the TV adaptation concluding, Tony Watkins on the anti-religiousness of His Dark Materials
A Spy Among Friends, marvelous and dense series about Kim Philby – the show begins with the revelation of his being a Soviet agent, so this is not a finding-the-mole story a la Tinker Tailor (itself based on Philby and the four other agents planted in the UK) but more of a who-is-this-person tale akin to A Perfect Spy. One of the great pleasures of the show is its meticulous period references: in the first episode alone a Philby press conference is lovingly recreated, and Morecambe and Wise appear
Fabulous radio documentary with photographs on composer Arnold Bax, and a review of Bax’s symphonies by conductor Vernon Handley. Currently enjoying the piano sonatas
Cy Twombly – some day I’ll see his work in Houston or elsewhere; I think his work much more than others suffers in reproduction. Over time he’s begun to exert a fascination over me, even though I think his classical fixations are more inspirational catalysts than claims to significance
Situating Xinjiang in its historical context
Jim O’Rourke on his Roland Kayn remasters
Xenakis révolution: Le bâtisseur du son – easily the best and most creative documentary ever made on the composer
AI-corrected footage: just astonishing, when I think of what footage like this will look like in just a few years ...