For all the praise that has been lavished on Franz Schubert’s shade for the past two centuries, his skill at string quartet writing is sometimes underappreciated. The earliest of his quartets are often dismissed as half-successful attempts at imitating Beethoven and Haydn, but I’ve yet to hear any quartet of his that didn’t contain some substantial moments of freshness and … [Read more...]
Weekend arts picks: April 30-May 5
Art: Florida Atlantic University’s current Master of Fine Arts Graduate Exhibition at the Dorothy F. Schmidt Gallery on the college’s Boca Raton campus features the work of painter Christina Major and ceramicist Bethany Cohen. Cohen’s exhibit, An Intimate Encounter, is a display of miniature repositories that the artist says reflects America’s “need for more in contrast to the … [Read more...]
Anne Frank, literary genius
The Diary of Anne Frank is arguably one of the most widely read and influential books of the last century. Author Francine Prose has now penned a brilliant analysis, in which she asserts that the diary is a “work of literature” that has not been given its due. “How astonishing,” Prose writes, “that a teenager could have written so intelligently and so movingly about a … [Read more...]