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Rossini’s sins

newcriterion.com

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Re: Rossini’s sins

#11

Post by ohthehugemanate »

p15 wrote: post #8

As someone who didn’t know much about Rossini, this was both entertaining and enriching. == New Criterion is in my view the best magazine around, so always love seeing it on HN! Hilton Kramer, the late New York Times Critic, founded it to pursue a Modernist, as opposed to Postmodernist, approach to criticism. It is unabashedly highbrow. While certainly accessible to a cultured layman, it is not dumbed down, and there…

As a professional classical musician who thought he knew a lot about Rossini... This article was fantastic.

Unfortunately it didn't mention that he wasn't just getting fat off of crap food. He was friends with the greatest celebrity chefs in Europe, including Antonin carême ("the father of haute cuisine", inventor of souffle), Casimir Moissons, and Francois Chateaubriand (yes, that's where the steak comes from). Rossini himself published two cookbooks, one exclusively about recipes with truffles, and invented many dishes. The most enduring dish is probably Tournedos Rossini, which he invented with Moissons to top the Chateaubriand steak. It's a filet mignon with foie gras, and about $200 (today's price) worth of black Périgord truffle. The legend is that when Rossini described his custom order to a cook, the man said he couldn't bear to see it made. "So turn your back, then!" Said Rossini - "tournez le dos".

Two favorite anecdotes: a biographer was interviewing people in Rossini's neighborhood, and asked the grocery owner up the street about the composer. The guy had no idea Rossini was a great composer, but "if he knows as much about music as he does about food, he must be a very great composer indeed!"

And Rossini himself used to say that he had only ever cried three times in his life. Once, when his first opera flopped. Once, when he first heard the great violinist Paganini play. And once, when he attended a boat party, and witnessed a beautiful truffle-stuffed turkey fall overboard.

For more about Rossini and food, this is probably a good start: https://behind-the-french-menu.blogspot.co.at/2012/06/tourne...

Re: Rossini’s sins

#12

Post by DanielBMarkham »

p15 wrote: post #8

As someone who didn’t know much about Rossini, this was both entertaining and enriching. == New Criterion is in my view the best magazine around, so always love seeing it on HN! Hilton Kramer, the late New York Times Critic, founded it to pursue a Modernist, as opposed to Postmodernist, approach to criticism. It is unabashedly highbrow. While certainly accessible to a cultured layman, it is not dumbed down, and there…

A classical liberal, modernist approach to culture and art in a magazine would be both innovative and refreshing. I find current tastes mechanistic, repetitive, and quite frankly boring after a while. Thanks for your thoughts! I just bought my first magazine subscription in 20 years or more. (And I thought I'd never do that again)

Re: Rossini’s sins

#13

Post by bambax »

ohthehugemanate wrote: post #11
p15 wrote: post #8

As someone who didn’t know much about Rossini, this was both entertaining and enriching. == New Criterion is in my view the best magazine around, so always love seeing it on HN! Hilton Kramer, the late New York Times Critic, founded it to pursue a Modernist, as opposed to Postmodernist, approach to criticism. It is unabashedly highbrow. While certainly accessible to a cultured layman, it is not dumbed down, and there…

As a professional classical musician who thought he knew a lot about Rossini... This article was fantastic. Unfortunately it didn't mention that he wasn't just getting fat off of crap food. He was friends with the greatest celebrity chefs in Europe, including Antonin carême ("the father of haute cuisine", inventor of souffle), Casimir Moissons, and Francois Chateaubriand (yes, that's where the steak comes from). Ross…

"Francois Chateaubriand" (François-René de Chateaubriand -- he would not have been pleased if one forgot the de) was no chef at all. He was a writer, the most famous French writer of his time (early 19th century).

The Chateaubriand steak was indeed named after him but he didn't create it. One story says it was invented by his personal chef, another story asserts it was created to honor the publication of one of his books.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chateaubriand_steak

Here's his tomb at the outskirts of Saint-Malo in northern Brittany https://i.imgur.com/jVwuEdU.jpg

Re: Rossini’s sins

#14

Post by mmjaa »

saghm wrote: post #2

I'm not familiar with this publication, so it might just be that I'm not the target audience, but it throws me that there are a bunch of French phrases used in the article without translations being provided. Is this intended to just be for people who can read them, or am I supposed to just keep reading and pretend that I understand what's being said?

I think its intended to enrich your literate senses in that, you probably could google these phrases and learn something new, while at the same time expanding your own perception of the subject of the article. I mean, there is a time and place for "I don't have time to look that up" and there is also a time and place for "I will take the time to look that up", and the only divider between is whether the source material is coming from a high-brow, intellectually stimulating source .. or not.

Re: Rossini’s sins

#15

Post by bambax »

p15 wrote: post #8

As someone who didn’t know much about Rossini, this was both entertaining and enriching. == New Criterion is in my view the best magazine around, so always love seeing it on HN! Hilton Kramer, the late New York Times Critic, founded it to pursue a Modernist, as opposed to Postmodernist, approach to criticism. It is unabashedly highbrow. While certainly accessible to a cultured layman, it is not dumbed down, and there…

I almost subscribed but:

1/ they don't accept Paypal

2/ they insist on typing in a physical address even for electronic subscriptions

Why do they make it hard to love them.

Re: Rossini’s sins

#16

Post by jstewartmobile »

About what I expected for a piece on classical music.

Composer writes a batch of pleasant little ditties, critic spins that in to page-after-page of breathless prose as though they were the second coming.

No 19th century salon piece is going to live up to that.

Re: Rossini’s sins

#17

Post by cafard »

bambax wrote: post #13
ohthehugemanate wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a professional classical musician who thought he knew a lot about Rossini... This article was fantastic. Unfortunately it didn't mention that he wasn't just getting fat off of crap food. He was friends with the greatest celebrity chefs in Europe, including Antonin carême ("the father of haute cuisine", inventor of souffle), Casimir Moissons, and Francois Chateaubriand (yes, that's where the steak comes from). Ross…

"Francois Chateaubriand" (François-René de Chateaubriand -- he would not have been pleased if one forgot the de ) was no chef at all. He was a writer, the most famous French writer of his time (early 19th century). The Chateaubriand steak was indeed named after him but he didn't create it. One story says it was invented by his personal chef, another story asserts it was created to honor the publication of one of his…

In Nabokov's novel Pnin, there is the academic Blorenge, who somebody says calls to mind the legendary head of a French Department who thought that Chateaubriand was a famous chef. His interlocutor says, "Be careful! That story is told of Blorenge, and it is true." (From memory, probably slightly wrong.)

Re: Rossini’s sins

#18

Post by p15 »

bambax wrote: post #15
p15 wrote: post #8

As someone who didn’t know much about Rossini, this was both entertaining and enriching. == New Criterion is in my view the best magazine around, so always love seeing it on HN! Hilton Kramer, the late New York Times Critic, founded it to pursue a Modernist, as opposed to Postmodernist, approach to criticism. It is unabashedly highbrow. While certainly accessible to a cultured layman, it is not dumbed down, and there…

I almost subscribed but: 1/ they don't accept Paypal 2/ they insist on typing in a physical address even for electronic subscriptions Why do they make it hard to love them.

Yeah they’re a bit old-fashioned. I ended up subscribing through the iPad app.

Re: Rossini’s sins

#19

Post by barrkel »

p15 wrote: post #8

As someone who didn’t know much about Rossini, this was both entertaining and enriching. == New Criterion is in my view the best magazine around, so always love seeing it on HN! Hilton Kramer, the late New York Times Critic, founded it to pursue a Modernist, as opposed to Postmodernist, approach to criticism. It is unabashedly highbrow. While certainly accessible to a cultured layman, it is not dumbed down, and there…

The opinion pieces are uncritically conservative. That's not a dealbreaker, mind. Personally, I find both left-wing and right-wing media tedious to read when they display their biases; it's normally when they assert something baldly without considering obvious counter-examples. I read both sides to try and avoid the groupthink.

For example: https://www.newcriterion.com/issues/2017/11/scouts-dishonor :

Our first question on reading that was: is there anything that feminism cannot spoil?

The answer to that query, we are confident, is “No, it ruins everything it touches.”

I don't think feminism has ruined everything it touches; and I don't think feminist critiques of socially and economically embedded power structures are all invalid. There really is something there, and it should be challenged. But criticism of the hierarchy of victimhood is also legitimate (https://www.newcriterion.com/issues/2017/11/devouring-its-ow... ); it's certainly gone too far.

The way I see it, criticisms are used as a way to power; the criticisms have effectiveness because of the truth of their claims, but people then pick up the criticisms and use them as clubs to bludgeon their way towards the top of the heap. The heap, and its hierarchy, never goes away.

Re: Rossini’s sins

#20

Post by Bromskloss »

saghm wrote: post #2

I'm not familiar with this publication, so it might just be that I'm not the target audience, but it throws me that there are a bunch of French phrases used in the article without translations being provided. Is this intended to just be for people who can read them, or am I supposed to just keep reading and pretend that I understand what's being said?

I enjoy them, even in cases where I don't understand them, because I get a sense of setting the bar high, and that much is expected from me.
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