Lists, lists, lists: top tens; the greatest this, the most insignificant that; the best dressed, the worst hair, whatever — we love ‘em all. And thanks to the internet – that great purveyor of useless, bite-sized bits of info — lists have become an omnipresent cultural fetish. Among the most interesting such lists — for me — are the “most hated person” lists, not because I, myself, am a hater but because of what such lists tell us about contemporary values and culture. “Most hated.”That’s a powerful combination of words, one loaded with NEGATIVITY AND HOSTILITY, MAN. Personally, my motto has always been (at least for the last few minutes) “don’t hate: masticate ’n refrigerate” (chew it over and chill out). Nevertheless, it behooves us to consider what someone actually has to do in order to be included on such a list. At the top of pretty much all “most hated” lists are those individuals whose deeds and actions — perpetrated across their lives — smack of irredeemable evil, “lifetime evil-doers” as Bush 43 might call them: leaders of rogue states like Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Caligula, Attila the Hun, and Vlad the Impaler; mass murderers like Ted Bundy, John […]
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Robert Greenberg
Historian, Composer, Pianist, Speaker, Author
Author Archive for Robert Greenberg – Page 76
Carlo Gesualdo, Prince of Venosa and Count of Conza (1560-1613), was one of the richest men in Italy and among the most original composers of his time.He was also a very, very bad man.He murdered his older brother in order to inherit the family fortune and titles.He murdered his wife Maria and her lover the Duke of Andria when he learned of their affair.(These murders were particularly gruesome; the court report reads like something from Bret Easton Ellis’ American Psycho. Details so salacious are irresistible, so of course I will quote that report at length during my Scandalous Overtures expose!) It is likely that Gesualdo also murdered his infant son by Maria because he doubted the boy’s paternity. It is also likely that Gesualdo had his father-in-law killed (that would be Maria’s father) when he learned of his intention to seek revenge. For now, let us turn to Gesualdo’s very public murders of his wife and her lover.After the deed was done and after the bodies were sufficiently mutilated, he had them hung upside-down outside his palace in Naples for everyone to see.The murders and subsequent court inquest were THE Italian media events of 1590.Eager to cash in on the […]
Continue ReadingWXXI Connections welcomed Robert Greenberg to the program December 12th to talk about The Great Courses and Scandalous Overtures: We welcome one of the most dynamic music educators in the country, professor Robert Greenberg. He’s hosting a new online show on Ora TV and has taught dozens of classes on music for The Great Courses series. http://cpa.ds.npr.org/wxxi/audio/2014/12/Connections-12-12-14Hr2.mp3 Visit WXXInews.org for more!
Continue ReadingI’m so looking forward to my Reddit AMA on December 19! I will do my level best to answer – politely and accurately – all questions, up to and including whether (or not) one should kiss on a first date (although I still have yet to determine why you drive on a parkway and park in a driveway or whether Certs is, indeed, a breath-mint or a candy-mint). As for places to start: I would remind us all that the period between December 16 and 22 might well be called a “Beethoven-rich temporal environment.”December 16 marked his 244th birthday and December 22 the 206th anniversary of the single most famous concert of all time, which saw the premieres of Beethoven’s Fifth and Sixth Symphonies, his Fourth Piano Concerto, his Choral Fantasy Op. 80 as well as performances of a host of other works.Forget the Stones at Altamont; Beethoven’s concert was an EVENT. Join us on Reddit Music for musings and more this Friday at 12pm PT. UPDATE: See the Answers NOW!
Continue ReadingThe Fine Line Between Depression and Genius Where have we heard this before? A beloved, supremely gifted performing artist appears to be at the top of his game and on top of the world. However, unbeknownst to all but a few friends and relatives, he harbors a great darkness within him, a despair that motivates and inspires his art. He is then diagnosed with a progressive and incurable disease, one that will eventually destroy his ability to perform. In his anguish, his mind turns to the most extreme option: suicide. It sounds awfully familiar in light of Robin Williams’ recent passing. But I am referring here to another performing artist, Ludwig (“my friends call me Louis”) van Beethoven. The parallels between Louis van Beethoven and Robin McLaurin Williams are striking, even extraordinary, although in the end the manner in which they dealt with their respective catastrophes were entirely different. Beethoven grew up hard and fast in the backwater German city of Bonn. His astonishing musical talent landed him in Vienna – the capital city of Euro-music – a few days shy of his 22nd birthday.He built his initial fame and fortune on his spectacular improvisations at the piano. Williams grew […]
Continue ReadingConspiracy Theories Pssst! Did you know that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld knowingly allowed Mossad to blow up the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001? Did you know that the fluoridation of our water is a communist conspiracy meant to contaminate our precious bodily fluids? Are you aware that global warming is fake, the moon landing was staged, vaccinations cause autism, Paul McCartney is dead (that’s why he’s barefoot on the Abbey Road cover) and has been portrayed by a double since 1966? Are we all cognizant of the fact that — along with Queen Elizabeth II and most other world leaders — Obama is a shape-shifting space lizard, a blood-sucking repto-humanoid alien from the Alpha Dragonis star system?(Check out the oeuvre of journalist David Ickes, who has made a career writing and lecturing on just that topic.) Oh those whacky conspiracy theories and the Internet that proliferates them. And yet, so desperate are some people to perceive logical narrative in the chaos of everyday events, so desperate are some people to see government as representative of evil, so desperate are some people to have something or someone to blame for their own misfortunes that they […]
Continue ReadingRobert Greenberg discusses his new OraTV show “Scandalous Overtures” on Larry King‘s “King’s Things” and William Shatner‘s “Brown Bag Wine Tasting.” Watch both of the interviews with these highly engaging hosts below: King’s Things: Brown Bag Wine Tasting: Scandalous Overtures
Continue ReadingWhy would anyone want to hack the head off of Joseph Haydn’s corpse, scoop out its eyes and brain, boil off its hair and skin, bleach the skull, and then mount it on a black velvet pillow? This strikes us as gross and more than a little weird, like preserving and mounting Kim Kardashian’s buttocks for permanent display at the Mutter Museum of human abnormalities in Philly. But happen it did; at least, the part about Haydn. Some context is called for. Souvenirs, keepsakes, and mementoes: we’ve all got them. Most of them sit quietly in drawers or closet shelves gathering dust, like the memories they presumably represent. The important ones, though, go on permanent display somewhere in our homes, there to become constant reminders of a person or an experience: a memory in concrete form. Among the many such objects in my home (I’m not a hoarder, but I am, admittedly, an accumulator who attaches great sentimental meaning to objects inanimate) is a hubcap from my first car, a 1957 Ford. When we scrapped “The Bomb” (as we called it) in 1972, it was nothing but a rust bucket held together with dental floss and chewing gum, a rolling […]
Continue ReadingPeter Ilyich Tchaikovsky and William Bruce Jenner: really, can we imagine a more unlikely pair? Tchaikovsky was a nineteenth century Russian composer of exquisitely lyric music; a shy and sensitive man, fastidious in his habits and Victorian in his manners and bearing. Bruce Jenner is a dyslexic jock from Westchester County in New York. When his football career was cut short by a knee injury he went on to track and field and won a gold medal at the 1976 summer Olympics in Montreal. He has been squarely in the public eye since, as an athlete, actor, racecar driver, businessman and, since 2007, a reality TV star. Their differences aside, both Tchaikovsky and Jenner led secret lives of remarkable similarity. That Tchaikovsky’s secret killed him while Jenner’s has inspired fascination and no small degree of public support has much to tell us about the environments in which they lived. Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a deeply neurotic man. His neurosis sprang from a personality so over-sensitive that his governess called him a “porcelain child”; from his inferiority complex as a composer; and from his sexuality. Tchaikovsky was a died-in-the-wool homosexual living and working in one of the most homophobic cultures of […]
Continue ReadingI received an email from a friend yesterday inquiring about my “radio silence” over the last few weeks. Aside from the occasional notice posted on this site, silent I have been: I have not actually blogged in over 6 weeks, since October 4th. Not that I have been missed what with all the other nonsense going on in the world, but I would still offer up the following explanation, if only as a cautionary tale for those who might make the same mistake that I did. October is, for me, a month of difficult anniversaries. I have learned, then, to occupy myself with mundane, repetitive tasks that preclude me from “thinking too much.” Consequently, this year I decided to begin a project I’ve been putting off for years: scanning family photos. I do not have an addictive personality. Neither am I particularly obsessive, though my first spousal unit – not without justification – considered me to be an obsessive collector. However, nothing could have prepared me for the single-minded, all-encompassing obsession of going through and scanning photographs once I began the process. Cliché though it sounds, the experience was drug-like at times, as people, places and time flew past in […]
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