Something in the tune

Tangent to the day's research: Jack Berger and His Hotel Astor Dance Orchestra's 1932 performance of "Something in the Night," with a vocal refrain by Jack Pearl, who was born Joshua Perelmuth, and who later changed his name to Jan Peerce.

BONUS RELATED TANGENT TO TODAY'S RESEARCH:

Agonistes

In memoriam Jon Vickers, who forged inimitable dramatic steel from the physical and moral contests of opera.

Adventures in postdating

It is time for the quarterly ritual of keeping this space on life support by at least linking to everything I've been doing elsewhere. That's three months of old-new articles to peruse (including a new batch of columns)—along with (as per usual) a compensatory drink:

Slow Watch

Equal parts:

  lemon juice
  Cynar
  peach liqueur
  rye

plus a healthy dash of orange bitters

Shake it up with small ice, strain into a rocks glass with big ice.

Sip while reading good stuff elsewhere:

Robin James on the privilege of post-genre and Attali and neo-liberalism.

Ethan Iverson on James P. and also killer robots. (The conscious-to-subconscious progress of Doctor Who fandom described is my experience, too, although the differences between my personality and Ethan's can be pretty efficiently summed up by mentioning that my DW touchstone was not Genesis of the Daleks, but rather The Deadly Assassin.)

Peter Pesic and Axel Volmar on the musical rhetoric of string theory.

Charles Ames on the history of automated composition (including a lead sheet for "Push-Button Bertha").

Felix Arndt, "An Operatic Nightmare (Desecration no. 2)" (1916).

Hit the North

Reviewing Blair McMillen.
Boston Globe, July 1, 2015.

Met the gazes, observed the spaces

Reviewing "Song Cycle" at the Peabody Essex Museum.
Boston Globe, June 29, 2015.

Listen to me, don't listen to me

Digital to Analog: Needle and Thread.
NewMusicBox, June 24, 2015.

And let your arrow fly

Reviewing Aston Magna.
Boston Globe, June 19, 2015.

Ringmasters

Reviewing SICPP and the Callithumpian Consort.
Boston Globe, June 17, 2015.

Tying the knot

Reviewing Chorus pro Musica's Les Noces.
Boston Globe, June 1, 2015.

Behold, I build an house

Reviewing the Lorelei Ensemble.
Boston Globe, May 25, 2015.

Voice over

Reviewing Chameleon Arts Ensemble.
Boston Globe, May 19, 2015.

Ghost, writer

Reviewing Guerilla Opera and Per Bloland's Pedr Solis.
Boston Globe, May 17, 2015.

Marginal utility

Reviewing the Talea Ensemble in Georges Aperghis' Happy End.
Boston Globe, May 11, 2015.

The cinema firmament

Reviewing ALisa Weilerstein and Inon Barnatan.
Boston Globe, May 3, 2015.

A feeling that no one can ever reprise

Reviewing the Boston Symphony Chamber Players.
Boston Globe, April 27, 2015.

The very minute bids thee ope thine ear

Reviewing the International Contemporary Ensemble.
Boston Globe, April 20, 2015.

You can hear from far and near

Reviewing Boston Musica Viva.
Boston Globe, April 14, 2015.

So many people you can check up on

Reviewing LAN, Anne-F. Jacques, and Benjamin Nelson.
Boston Globe, April 7, 2015.

Hit parade

Reviewing Third Coast Percussion.
Boston Globe, March 23, 2015.

Déjà vu all over again

Reviewing the Boston Symphony Chamber Players and Emanuel Ax.
Boston Globe, March 17, 2015.