Adolphe Appia: Theatre Artist (Directors in Perspective)

Customer Reviews:

I LOVE this book!!!.......2007-05-30

I bought this book in the Louvre Museum in Paris, where we were able to see some of the originals. They're compelling and just draw you in! This book allowed me to bring the paintings home, and study them. It's easy to read, and goes into detail explaining not only about Bouguereau, but also explains a lot of the detail and symbolism that he used in his paintings. So now I can enjoy them on a whole new level. I'm not a big art buff, but I know I'm drawn to his paintings, this was just a perfect book to cut my teeth on, and help to develop a better understanding of some very famous paintings. Buy the book. You won't regret it!

Bouguereau did paint from photos contrary to authors comment........2007-05-08

Yes the reproductions are great and deserve full stars yet there is much fault with Wissman's ignorant statement that Bouguereau did not use (paint from) photographs. This comment potentially questions the creadability of what otherwise would have seemed to be a very good analysis. For alternative comments, see "W.B" - Montreal Museum's '84 publication for a traveling show. It offers more "behind scenes" info. about the production of his work and their authors more credibly state, he "actively collected photographs" but "he almost never worked from photos" which is still an understatement. Included are photos of him in his studio painting and with another photo of Mich's. Pieta in background. I found a used copy here on Amazon, ISBN 2-89192-047-3 Mr. B. was a transitional figure in art history, caught between early 19th C. "tail end" classical art and late 19th C. art when photorealism began rearing its evil head, destroying classical art and bringing this "ism" to a point of extreme today. It is impossible to determine what extent he used them, yet it is clearly evident to a more trained eye, that he used photos, particularly with some of the complex children/cherubs he incorporated. This occasionally created a quality which, no doubt, helped to inspire criticism (noted in Wissman's bk)regarding the overly polished, sometimes cut-out and outlined aspects of some of his figures. He was able to get away with it for the most part because he had a more proper training as a student prior to exposure to photos. (I myself am a painter/sculptor studying classical art - I admire B. greatly yet to say he was a purest would be false since he clearly had an opportunist streak about him as many others did, and to a certain extent I can't blame him. But he helped to start a terrible trend which has turned classical painting and sculpture into a virtually lost art).

Bouguereau was a low-brow purveyer of cotten candy..........2007-03-02

Good reproductions and an honest view of the paintings artistic worth. This is what happens when you paint for success. You are as corny as your public. Bouguereau has good,not great, painting chops. Caravaggio, Vermeer, Ingres; THOSE are great painters! But Bouguereau's paintings are humorous in a Thomas Kincaid(R) kind of way.

From the book:
Bouguereau never forgets that he is painting pictures that are to be bought by rich people for the adornment of their drawing-rooms, and he takes care that nothing in them shall be out of keeping with the tasteful and elegant things that surround them. Since one of the things that rich and fashionable people take pleasure in, is the knowledge that there are others in the world who are not as well off as themselves, Bouguereau has provided for his admirers an ample supply of pretty beggar-children, young peasants, mothers of the picturesque poor, and so forth and so on, who are in truth people of the upper class, or seem to be such, with beautiful faces, fine heads of hair, rich eyes, chiseled lips, ivory skins, hands that never wore gloves, feet that never wore shoes, and all in a state of immaculate cleanliness, and in garments where, if a patch or two is to be seen, it is accepted as mere symbolism, and offends nobody. An irreproachable refinement of sentiment goes hand in hand with this irreproachable taste. The French "freedom" which offends so many people here and in England, and many people, be it said, in France as well, is never betayed in Bouguereau's pictures; they are as pure, as passionless and as cold as an anchorite could desire. Now in an orderly society regulated by wholesome rules dictated by conventional propriety, such a painter is sure of his reward; and as such a society is naturally founded on sound commercial principles, it is an added recommendation that whoever gets a picture by Bouguereau gets the full worth of his money, in finished painting, first-rate drawing, and a subject and treatment no well-bred person can find fault with.

Bouguereau.......2006-07-05

The art of Bouguereau is stunning. It stirs a beauty from deep within us that blooms in recognition of a beauty made visible by the stroke of his brush. So full and intoxicated with passion, his work seems an extension of gratitude for life itself. Through the canvas of this fine French Academic Artist, we witness how love is truly more persistent than time.

I am so taken by the art; I have yet to read what Wissman has written about his life. I think his art speaks with such clarity; he must have been a man with a great capacity to fully embrace the nature of the life he was given.

In a World of his Own.......2005-09-10

Adolphe-William Bouguereau (1825-1905) is in many ways the French equivalent of the British Victorian class of figurative painters - Lawrence Alma Tadema, Lord Leighton, JW Waterhouse - and had he lived in England rather than in the Impressionist laden France, he would be much better known today. Not that Bouguereau is unfamiliar to collectors and museums: in his time his portraits and luxurious paintings of shepherdesses and mythological creatures in a world of eternal beauty were popular and were added to important collections. It is only now with the new respect for the figure in painting that his name is becoming more recognizable.

Fronia E. Wissman has written a concise and illuminating text for this monograph and her style of exposition matches her subject. The book is filled with magnificent illustrations of Bouguereau's paintings with details and full-scale works allowed the prestige of excellent color reproductions. This is a fine monograph and one that belongs in the libraries of collectors and art historians who remain fascinated with the fin de siècle schools of painting. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, September 05

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One of the BEST BOOKS of 2001 !!!
This is a true depiction of the Tahitian woman
Exotic Natural Beauty in Paradise

Sylvain's Tahiti
Adolphe Sylvain
Manufacturer: Taschen
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 3822860530

Book Description

Adolphe Sylvain (1920-1991) stopped off in Tahiti in 1946 and, enchanted by the beautiful landscape, welcoming people, and a certain island beauty who called herself Tehani, decided to stay. He settled in and eventually married his hypnotic lover, working as a correspondent for magazines such as Paris Match, Life, and National Geographic. Drawn by an irrepressible desire to capture his surroundings and to share this lost, unknown world with those outside of it, he dedicated himself to photographing the island's many delights. Like Rousseau and Gauguin before him, he was captive to the people and places of a land so radically different from his own and chose it as his principal subject matter. Sylvain's rich, skilled black-and-white images are like visions of an earthly paradise, peopled with half-clad women wearing flowers in their hair, the sun reflecting off of their glowing skin. His images, capturing the timeless beauty of Tahiti, are a testament to the island's powerful magnetism.

After Sylvain's death, his widow Jeanine-Tehani had a dream that a European embarked upon her island country and that she gave to this person all of her husband's photos to be made into a book. In a storybook twist of fate, it just so happened that Tehani's dream became a reality when photographer Gian Paolo Barbieri- born on the same day and hour as Sylvain- stopped off for a visit a few years later. He was mesmerized by Sylvain's photographs and eagerly gathered together his work to take back to Europe. Thus was born Tahiti, woven together by the strands of destiny and the vision of an impassioned photographer.

Tahiti begins with a preface by Barbieri and an introduction by biographer, journalist, and longtime friend of Sylvain, Jean Lacouture, followed by Sylvain's best works, including landscapes, portraits, and images of celebrities visiting the island (such as Brigitte Bardot, Marlon Brando, and Charles de Gaulle). With these luscious, sensual images as evidence, it's not hard to see why Sylvain was enraptured by Tahiti's exotic, ethereal atmosphere, nor why he felt the need to photograph it. Sylvain's work has not met the success it deserves until now, as fate finally brings his photographs to the world with this retrospective tribute.

Customer Reviews:

One of the BEST BOOKS of 2001 !!!.......2001-12-03

This might be the most exciting publication of the entire year! It's certainly one of the most thrilling books published in recent times. It recounts the life's work of Adolphe Sylvain who visited Tahiti in 1946 and, enchanted by the landscape, the people, and a girl named Tehani, decided to stay. He settled in, married his lover, and dedicated himself to photographing the island's many delights while working as a correspondent for magazines such as Paris Match, Life, and National Geographic. His black & white photos are spectacular visions of the earthly paradise that is Tahiti and showcases the splendid beauty of the landscape and its people, especially its girls (...).

This is a true depiction of the Tahitian woman.......2001-08-20

Contrary to what Mr. Mitchell mistakenly states, most of the models in this book are not Madame Sylvain. They are women of Tahiti plain, simple and beautiful. I actually bought this book while in Tahiti and each time I leaf through it I remember the wonderful moments I had in Tahiti. Tahitian people are quite possibly the most beautiful people in the world and Sylvain captures this perfectly.

Exotic Natural Beauty in Paradise.......2001-06-25

Summary: Adolphe Sylvain had an eye for the images that people in developed countries imagine about a fairy tale South Pacific. Many of our ideas about what a tropical paradise is come from his photographs. For a few minutes, you can imagine yourself to be part of a local village of people who fish for a living back in the 1940s and 1950s. This book is dominated by scenes of native Polynesians enjoying the natural beauty of Tahiti. The model is most frequently M. Sylvain's Tahitian wife, nee Ms. Jeanine Tehani Vidal, whom he married in 1946.

Content Caution: Before proceeding further, please realize (as the cover image indicates) that this book is filled with photographs of topless and nude female models, usually the photographer's wife. These images would earn this book's material an R rating if it were a motion picture.

Review: M. Sylvain's photography makes unusually good use of black-and-white contrasts for capturing lush tropical landscapes, lagoons and beaches, nudes, and everyday scenes in Tahiti. His work benefits from the frequent use of his wife, Tehani, as a model. She is remarkably relaxed and happy in these images, and helps to set a mood of natural enjoyment of nature that will have the viewer yearning for Tahiti. Lest you think these scenes are very overposed, I saw scenes very much like these during a vacation in Tahiti in the mid-1980s.

Some of the images are ragged around the edges, which reflects the terrible loss of much of M. Sylvain's work during a fire in his studio. Some of these images were rescued from the debris that remained. As a result, these images almost all date from 1946-1957.

Ms. Sylvain will remind you of a sea otter in some of the images, as she glides effortlessly through the crystal lagoon water. Her connection with nature is direct and joyous. Her apparent pleasure in what she is doing is infectious.

The images themselves are well composed, technically very fine, and the reproduction quality is excellent.

Towards the end of the book, you will also see some photographs of famous visitors to the island like Brigitte Bardot and Charles de Gaulle.

My original interest in visiting Tahiti was tied to having watched a television series, called Adventures in Paradise. The stories related to a schooner captin operating out of Papeete. When I read the book, I was interested to see that M. Sylvain had been an adviser to that series as well as other major filming in Tahiti over the years.

Many people also know Paul Gauguin's paintings of Tahiti, which have also helped form expectations about the islands and their people. In particular, James Michener with his Tales of the South Pacific helped created an image of beautiful, winning Polynesian maidens that is echoed here. Ms. Sylvain observes that her husband played a key role in creating the myth of the vahini, as a result.

After you look at these dreamscapes of Tahiti, you should sit back and think about what your ideal image of life is. What would you be doing? Where would you be? Who would be with you? What does that picture tell you about yourself?

Dream boldly . . . and recognize the opportunity to life your dreams as Adolphe Sylvain did!

Book Description

Adolphe Appia razed the edifice of traditional theatre and set the new foundations for the development of theatrical practice in this century. Widely acknowledged as the most important innovator in the use of stage lighting, Appia's imagination ranged far beyond this arena, developing new approaches to scenic design, directing, and the use of theatrical space.

In Adolphe Appia, richard Beacham brings together for the first time selections from all his major works. The publication of these writings, many of which have long been unavailable in English, represents a significant addition to our understanding of the development of the theatrical arts.

Adolphe-William Bouguereau: A Book of Postcards

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More like this
From the Publisher
BEAUTIFUL POSTACRDS. I RECOMMEND THEM.

Adolphe-William Bouguereau: A Book of Postcards

Manufacturer: Pomegranate
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0876543654

Customer Reviews:

More like this.......2006-08-05

As an artist myself, I appreciate the incredible work of this fabulous artist. I wish someone would publish a book of his works. The skin tones are beyond comparison. If you're not familiar with him, buy this little book so you can savor true artistic genius.

From the Publisher.......2005-11-13

"French painter Adolphe-William Bouguereau (1825-1905) created more than seven hundred finished works and achieved a remarkable level of popular acclaim and financial success. The tenderness with which he portrayed children and domestic scenes, his technical skill and passion for the classics, and his love of rich color are hallmarks of Bouguereau's exquisite paintings. This book of postcards presents thirty of his beautiful works.

"Pomegranate's books of postcards contain thirty top-quality reproductions bound together in a handy, artful collection. Easy to remove and produced on heavy card stock, these stunning postcards are a delight to the sender and receiver. Note: postcards are oversized and may require additional postage. ISBN: 0-87654-365-4; size: 4 3/4 x 6 7/8"."--© Pomegranate

BEAUTIFUL POSTACRDS. I RECOMMEND THEM........2004-03-02

YOU WILL WANT TO FRAME THESE POSTCARDS AND HANG THEM ON THE WALLS. I MIGHT JUST DO THAT.

The Spiritual Life: A Treatise On Ascetical And Mystical Theology

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One of the best Spiritual guides ever written
Fantastic Reference
A must have

The Spiritual Life: A Treatise On Ascetical And Mystical Theology
Adolphe Tanquerey
Manufacturer: Tan Books & Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0895556596

Customer Reviews:

One of the best Spiritual guides ever written.......2007-10-09

This book is a compilation of saintly progress that is unmatched
in variety and summation of the spiritual life. Anyone who reads
this book with an open heart will be changed for life.

Fantastic Reference.......2006-10-07

A Catholic priest recommended The Spiritual Life to me. The book is both a great guide to Christian Mysticism, and to the Catholic faith. The descriptions of the spiritual journeys of various saints described in the book are fascinating.

A must have.......2004-02-24

This book is simply a must have for the spiritual life. It is long but it is definately worth the read.

One reason this book is set above others is that it goes through all the doctrinal and dogmatic foundations of the spiritual life giving us the reasons why we should serve and love God. The author says himself that he doesn't think a work on the spiritual life should omit a review of what exactly God has done for us. Also placing himself on solid dogmatic grounds the author avoids falling into subjectivism or a undue focus on ourself. This is the first (and shortest) part of the book.

Secondly the author goes in depth to the three ways. That is, the purgative, the illuminative, and the unitive. He thoroughly treats all of them so you can get plenty of help in the one that you may happen to be in, but you will also learn to look forward to what may come. It is, of course, important to know what you are working towards in addition to knowing what to do in your present state.

The author treats just about everything imaginable in the spiritual life. He treats the gifts of the Holy Ghost, meditation, contemplation, perfection, interior graces, mystical phenomena, trials, the "dark nights", beginning the SL, advancing in virtue, Communion/confession, combatting the passions, growing in charity, and many other things.

The author bases his teaching mainly on Scripture, Saint Thomas, the so-called "french school" (Olier,Berulle,Eudes, etc,), Saint Theresa and Saint John of the Cross, and Saint Francis de Sales. Although he does quote many others and has a very wide knowledge of spiritual authors.

The author also maintains the traditional teaching on the spiritual life: that love of God is perfection. The modern era has made achieving various "mental states" as perfection. This is of course very wrong. This book will help you to grow in love for God. Whether you acieve any extraordinary gifts is God's decision. God's free gifts cannot be attained by any "technique".

Finally I would recommend this book because it not only only inflames your will with a desire to love God and serve Him as some books do, it also give real concrete steps to achieve this. God Bless.

Average customer rating:

It has it's good sides...

Borrow this Bouguereau

William Bouguereau, 1825-1905: Musee du Petit-Palais, Paris, 9 February-6 May 1984, the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 22 June-23 September 1984, the Wadsworth ... Hartford, 27 October 1984-13 January 1985
William Adolphe Bouguereau
Manufacturer: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 2891920473

Customer Reviews:

It has it's good sides..........2006-11-12

This book is invaluable to me. My art teacher had a photocopy version of it that I've gone to again and again. I finally found myself a copy and happily shelled out 85$ for it. The reason I found this book far more valuable than the Wiseman book is probably because I'm a student.

This book has more pictures of his drawings, studies, and cartoons than any other I've seen. As well, it has a more thorough description of his working method than any other. I dont mind the black and white nature of most of the book, as most of the book is drawings and sketches, compositional studies and beautiful tracings.

Until the catalog that the ArtRenewelCenter is releasing, (and shamelessly, severely overcharging for, imo) I consider this book to be the best on Boug available. Though, this is the perspective of a student, and it colored by my love of technique and drawing.

Borrow this Bouguereau.......2004-06-11

This is the official catalog of the 1984 Paris-Montreal exhibition that helped restore some of the luster to Bouguereau's reputation. It contains several critical essays and dozens of reproductions. However - I prefered Wiseman's more recent book for several reasons. Firstly, while Wiseman has fewer reproductions of paintings, they tend to be in colour and printed full-page. Most of the reproductions here are in black and white and small. Secondly, Wiseman includes most of the best-known Bouguereau paintings. Thirdly, Wiseman is simply more readable to a non-professional reader. Much of the information isn't very enlightening to someone who simply wants to learn a bit about Bouguereau's life or enjoy some of his paintings. If you are a professional art historian specializing in pompier art, then I can understand seeking out a copy of this book for your collection. Otherwise, just borrow it from a library.

Average customer rating:

Please Buy This Book!
PLEASE DON'T BUY THIS BOOK!
Beautiful, evocative writing...
A Great Book

What to Listen for in the World
Bruce Adolphe
Manufacturer: Limelight Editions
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0879100850

Book Description

With disciplined lyricism and entirely devoid of technical jargon, Bruce Adolphe's book probes into the heart of such matters as the role of memory and imagination in creative expression, the meaning of inspiration, spirituality in music, the challenge of arts education and how music communicates.

Customer Reviews:

Please Buy This Book!.......2006-06-09

This is a book about music for musicians who don't want to read about music.

I completely disagree with the previous reviewer. Perhaps, the book may require some knowledge as a musician to truly be meaningful.

Adolphe's non-technical musical meanderings are perfect get-away for someone who is around music all the time. I've owned this book for 5 years and I always come back to it. This book is not a cover-to-cover book, but rather a collection of thoughts about our world and music. Sublime.

I have given this book as a gift on several occaisions and each person has been delighted upon reading it.

PLEASE DON'T BUY THIS BOOK!.......2005-03-16

This book is awful. Get a different book about music, or better yet get some good music and listen to that, but don't waste your time on this book. This book only serves to make broad statements that seem to say nothing. If anything this book may be valuble to someone only interested in poetry, but as it tries to be about music it dissapoints.

Beautiful, evocative writing..........2000-08-09

I loved this book. You can read it in an hour...or take weeks. It soothes the musician's soul with its words of beauty about our art...and the later pages that deal with specific composers will bring tears to your eyes. I highly recommend this book to all musicians...and all who wish to understand musicians.

A Great Book.......2000-02-08

This book takes all the things you want to say about music and puts it into words. As it contains many short quotes along with chapters, it is a great book for anyone who loves music; even if they don't love reading.

Image and Enterprise: The Photography of Adolphe Braun

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Adolphe Braun publisher of stereographs

Image and Enterprise: The Photography of Adolphe Braun

Manufacturer: Thames & Hudson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Book Description

Ever since their creation in nineteenth-century France, Adolphe Braun's photographic images have been uniformly praised for their beauty. Braun was a trained textile designer who initially used the nascent technology of photography to document the French landscape and architecture, traditional regional costume, animal breeds and husbandry, and the events and legacies of the Franco-Prussian war. Braun's opulent bouquets of flowers are at once lush, delicate, and richly tonal; his landscapes are breathtaking and immediate; his animal studies arresting; his war photos dramatic and unrelenting. He created thousands of visual souvenirs of pristine alpine sites and would ultimately become one of the first to reproduce works of art photographically for a mass audience. Although the creation of "fine art" was not his intention, Braun produced work that was (and still is) synonymous with superb technical and artistic resolution, as he sought to identify popular uses for the process of photography. Through Braun's provocative work, Image and Enterprise explores the origins of contemporary visual communication--from the evolution of photography to the means of dissemination to the public. The introductory essays give an overview of Braun's photographic enterprise, his use of new technology, and the political and economic climate in which his business flourished. Other essays examine discrete aspects of Braun's work in the context of contemporary social, economic, and cultural history. Published to accompany an exhibition at the Rhode Island School of Design and the Cleveland Museum of Art.

Customer Reviews:

Adolphe Braun publisher of stereographs.......2006-02-24

Adolphe Braun was one of the biggest French publishers of photographs. The book gives a very good overview of the various activities of this important photographer, who started a publishing business. Adolphe Braun published many stereographs. The text does not pay much attention to Adolphe Braun and this popular Victorian invention. Not all information is new. Anne MacAuley mentioned the use of photography in textile and wall paper design by Braun in her book "Industrial Madness". Gisele Freund described the art reproductions bij Braun in her book "Photography and society". The design of the book is excellent

Of Mozart, Parrots, Cherry Blossoms in the Wind: A Composer Explores Mysteries of the Musical Mind

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Of Mozart, Parrots, Cherry Blossoms in the Wind: A Composer Explores Mysteries of the Musical Mind
Bruce Adolphe
Manufacturer: Limelight Editions
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Mind's Ear: Exercises for Improving the Musical Imagination for Performers, Listeners and Composers

ASIN: 0879102861

Amazon.com

The majority of musicians, it seems, are pretty much in the same position as Plato's Homeric rhapsodists: for all the compelling intensity with which they practice their art, whenever they attempt to explain to the uninitiated just how it's done--what lies behind "inspiration"--the whole process remains shrouded in mystery. In particular, there are precious few composers who can write with insight and lucidity about the trade they have chosen. (Literary giants who have succeeded through their trade in conveying something of the reality of music--such as Thomas Mann and Aldous Huxley--are also conspicuous for their rarity, but that's another discussion.) All the more reason, then, to savor the unusual talents of Bruce Adolphe in this collection of essays, aperçus, and provocative speculations.

Adolphe is a sort of musical polymath who wears the hats of composer, teacher, and writer. He's written operas, song cycles, chamber music, and musical fables for children and leads seminars at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. In his writing on musical education, Adolphe is especially drawn to meditations on the role of memory in shaping the imagination and creative process (as in his book What to Listen for in the World). Of Mozart, Parrots, and Cherry Blossoms in the Wind offers a pleasurable assortment of self-standing feuilletons that flit hummingbird-like from topic to topic. There are reflections on the metaphoric meanings of sonata structure and the fugue, on the subtext of George Bernard Shaw's contempt for Brahms, on silence in the traditions of East and West, and on how much a composer "contrives" in conceiving the complexity of a piece of music.

Yet several underlying themes recur and intersect throughout the essays, coming up in different contexts but always inviting the reader to reconsider pat opinions and take a closer look at what is really going on in this language that is simultaneously so abstract and so sensuous. Perhaps the most compelling of these Grundthemen involves the relation of tradition to originality, the tension between our collective "musical art gallery" and the desire to say something new (Adolphe is understandably fond of alluding to T.S. Eliot). Instead of vaporizing into overgeneralized platitudes, the discussion gets firmly rooted in considerations of specifics. Adolphe clarifies, for example, Beethoven's act of balancing the weight of the past with his individual genius through a particularly clever comparison of the Grosse Fuge with a Native American myth and Sam Shepard's play True West.

Adolphe has a sure touch for the helpful, colorful analogy. Sonata form is like a "courtroom trial"; late Beethoven is the "counterpoint of conflicting states of mind," similar to the therapist's use of free association; dissonant "passing tones" resemble "people who briefly obstruct your view in the theater by moving to one side or the other." Along with this, the reader must be warned, comes a weakness for puns that can make you wince: in his piece on George Crumb's whale music, there is mention of the time before humans "beat logs (creating the early logarithms)."

Adolphe's arguments do not always convince. His attempt to deflate the concept of postmodernism as just another chapter in the anxiety of influence, for example, doesn't fully account for the specific and unique predicament of contemporary composers. But he does seriously engage the issues that matter, and he does so entertainingly, in a superbly tuned and perspicuous style. There are many moments when one would like him to burrow into a particular point in greater depth. Yet even if we don't get a full meal, such is Adolphe's epigrammatic knack that the hors d'oeuvres are pure pleasure in themselves. --Thomas May

Book Description

The exhilarating mix of humor, philosophy, fact and whimsy that marks these essays derives from more than 200 lectures Bruce Adolphe has given over most of the past decade, at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and at music festivals around the country. The composer of four operas as well as chamber music, concertos and orchestral works, Adolphe has written for Itzhak Perlman, David Shifrin, Beaux Arts Trio, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and many other renowned musicians. His essays, however divergent their apparent subjects, all serve a common purpose: to deepen our understanding of how music comes to be and how it may be enjoyed.

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