Greg Mitchell's Blog, page 269

Sunday Morning in the Church of Beethoven

For the weekly feature this time, just a bit of Leonard Bernstein conducting the finale of the Ninth Beethoven at the famous 1979 concert in Berlin in 1979 to mark the falling of the Wall, substituting "Freiheit" so it is the "Ode to Freedom."   This is featured in the new chapter by Kerry Candaele in the just-published expanded edition of our book Journeys With Beethoven .   Kerry's film that inspired the book gets its world premiere in Santa Barbara on June 4.  The full Bernstein here.

For Memorial Day: A Purple Heart (and a Monkey on His Back)

John Prine's classic, "Sam Stone."

For Memorial Day: "Rich Man's War"

From Steve Earle, and it was often so.  Rich men on all sides.

For Memorial Day: 'Ira Hayes'

Classic from Johnny Cash.  Still recall Lee Marvin playing him in late- '50s TV drama.

For Memorial Day: Young Ideas

Neil Young, "Flags of Freedom."

For Memorial Day: Getting the Kinks Out

Not very famous Kinks' 1969 antiwar song, universal, "Some Mother's Son."

Wikileaks-Gibney Battle Intensifies

As I noted in intro to my interview with Alex Gibney, director of the new We Steal Secrets film re: WikilLeaks, he has been slammed by Julian Assange and the WikiLeaks Twitter feed for months, for various reasons, no doubt.  It seems that Assange early on got some kind of leaked script or transcript for the film in process.  Gibney hit back for basing a critique on some words on the page, when a film is a quite different experience. 

This week, with the film's release date in the U.S. approaching--that is, today--the Twitter feed said it had been leaked the finished film and posted a nearly point-by-point "fact check."  Gibney responded by pointing out, among other things, that the transcript was missing a key and substantial part of the film--Manning's words from the chat logs and elsewhere.  These appear in the film typed on the screen but not spoken, so he surmises that someone made an audio copy of the film at a screening and leaked it to WikiLeaks.  This morning he tweets: "WL has published an incomplete and inaccurate transcript based on non-final version."

Anyway:  We likely won't see a Gibney point-by-point rebuttal of WikiLeaks' point-by-point rebuttal.  But here he responds to a fairly critical review of the film by my former colleague Kevin Gosztola, co-author of my book about Manning, Truth and Consequences.  Note: I have not yet seen the film myself.

Hammer Time

A friend is learning, practicing, now obsessed with Beethoven's "Hammerklavier" piano sonata.  And no wonder.  This late work includes the greatest single movement in the history of piano,  and apt for (here in the East) a cool, rainy weekend.  New edition of my Beethoven book here.

Friday Night Music Pick

For Bob's 72nd birthday, Jimi rolls away the "Stone."

Billy Joel Like...Beethoven?

Never been a Billy Joel fan at all, but here I will note lengthy Q & A with him at NYT today in which he discusses my hero, Beethoven.   Note:  Most of Mozart's 40 symphonies were NOT "phenomenol."   Still, we will take the point.  New edition of my Beethoven book here.  Billy:

Some writers can write reams of great books and then J. D. Salinger wrote just a few. Beethoven wrote nine symphonies. They were all phenomenal. Mozart wrote some 40 symphonies, and they were all phenomenal. That doesn’t mean Beethoven was a lesser writer, it’s just some guys are capable of more productivity, some guys take more time. Mozart pisses me off because he’s like a naturally gifted athlete, you listen to Mozart and you go: “Of course. It all came easy to him.” Beethoven you hear the struggle in it. Look at his manuscripts, and there’s reams of scratched-out music that he hated. He stops and he starts. I love that about Beethoven, his humanity shows in his music. Mozart was almost inhuman, unhuman. 

Yeah, I relate to Beethoven. I write backward — I write the music first and then I write the words.