Message to Dorothy

We're not in Kansas.

So says Jonathan Leaf in a promo note for an upcoming piano feast of sorts in New York City.

key graf

Saturday night, the handsome Norwegian wunderkind Leif Ove Andsnes pairs with pretty-boy English tenor Ian Bostridge—the most popular lieder singer in the world right now—performing songs by Beethoven and Schubert in the hall’s smaller and more intimate downstairs space, Zankel Hall. Think of it as blue-eyed soul without the close vocal harmonie.

Please, calm down Ms. Moneypenny.

That's got to be the most laugh out loud promo note I've read in a good long while.

And "blue-eyed" soul? Puhleeze. And perhaps "smaller" and "intimate" can be ran thru the super-secret hermeneutic decoder ring and rendered as "sans vocal heft"? Just wondering. Can you still be called a "wunderkind" in your mid 30's.?

then there is this:

Mitsuko Uchida, the world’s greatest player of Mozart, plays his sonatas.

Be still my heart.

I like the ending.

"No, we’re not in Kansas anymore—and thank goodness"


Do tell. I think someone needs to get out more often.