Podcasts Education Self-Improvement Conversations with Tyler Alex Ross on Music, Culture, and Criticism

Alex Ross on Music, Culture, and Criticism

Published: Sept. 22, 2020, 7:44 p.m.

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To Alex Ross, good music critics must be well-rounded and have command of neighboring cultural areas. \\u201cWhen you\'re writing about opera, you\'re writing about literature as well as music, you\'re writing about staging, theater ideas, as well as music,\\u201d says the veteran music journalist and staff writer for The New Yorker. His most recent book, Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music, explores the complicated legacy of Wagner, as well as how music shapes and is shaped by its cultural context.

Alex joined Tyler to discuss the book, what gets lost in the training of modern opera singers, the effect of recording technology on orchestras, why he doesn\\u2019t have \\u201cguilty pleasures,\\u201d how we should approach Wagner today, the irony behind most uses of \\u201cRide of the Valkyries\\u201d in cinema, his favorite Orson Welles film, his predictions for concert attendance after COVID-19, why artistic life in Europe will likely recover faster than in America, Rothko\\u2019s influence on composer Morton Feldman, his contender for the greatest pop album ever made, how his Harvard dissertation on James Joyce prepared him for a career writing about music, and more.

Read a\\xa0full transcript\\xa0enhanced with helpful links, or watch the\\xa0full video.

Recorded August 20th, 2020

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