Artists & Authors: A Life in Good Company, by Charles Scribner III (Lyons Press):“Founding a family business for the ages? Think big.” Advice that would not have been out of place in Scribner: Five Generations in Publishing (2023) comes instead from Charles Scribner III’s newest book, Artists & Authors, under the heading “Five Best Books on Family Businesses.” That the relevant “family business for the ages” is the Julio-Claudian dynasty (book rec: I, Claudius) lets you know where this scion of the Scribner clan takes his bearings. The charming and illuminating essays collected here could have been penned by none other, ranging from the correspondence of “Dad” (Charles Scribner Jr.) and “Papa” (Hemingway), to conversations with the immortal soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf (about whom Scribner has also written in our pages), to the author’s involvement in an undercover operation to recover a stolen Rubens, and more. A life in good company, indeed. —RE
“Art, Place and Imagination in Nocturne,” featuring Simon and Simone Dinnerstein, at the Center for Brooklyn History (March 30): On Monday, March 30, the pianist Simone Dinnerstein will join her father, the painter Simon Dinnerstein, at the Center for Brooklyn History for a discussion about Simon’s Nocturne. The stunning 1982 work—created in Conté crayon and colored pencil on paper—depicts a man sitting at his Brooklyn window. It is a recent addition to the center’s collection and will serve as a starting point for a conversation about aspiration, place, and legacy. Simone, whose father has been painting her since her infancy, has a new album out in June and has recently incorporated Simon’s images into her performances. The evening talk at the Gilded Age Brooklyn Heights building designed by George B. Post promises to continue this intergenerational dialogue between the two Brooklyn-based artists. —JP
Orchestra of St. Luke’s at Carnegie Hall (March 26): Charles Ives’s short composition The Unanswered Question (1908) is at once ethereal and unsettling. Structurally, it is simple: a solo trumpet poses an atonal “question” phrase seven times, and a woodwind quartet attempts, with increasing dissonance and frustration, to answer, giving up before the seventh try. Soft, unchanging strings play tonal triads offstage throughout. Many—most famously, Leonard Bernstein in his Harvard lectures that borrowed Ives’s title—have read into the piece intimations of the twentieth century’s open questions of philosophy and aesthetics. On Thursday night at Carnegie Hall, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s will pose Ives’s Question at the beginning of a concert of American music—and provide a few answers, courtesy of Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, and Bernstein himself. Louis Langrée conducts, with the pianist Gerald Clayton soloing in the Ellington. —IS
“The Pursuit of Liberty: How Hamilton vs. Jefferson Ignited the Lasting Battle Over Power in America,” featuring Jeffrey Rosen in conversation with David W. Blight, at the New-York Historical Society (March 24): As figures left, right, and center bemoan how divisive our politics have become, it is easy to forget that several of the political fault lines now dividing the nation have been with us since the beginning. Among these is the question of just how much power the federal government should have. The conflict between Thomas Jefferson, who argued for the importance of states’ rights, and Alexander Hamilton, who wanted an energetic central government, defined George Washington’s presidency and laid the groundwork for two centuries of partisan politics. This week, the legal scholar Jeffrey Rosen, who has recently written a book on the Hamilton–Jefferson rivalry, will discuss the two men and their competing views with the historian David W. Blight at the New-York Historical Society. In-person tickets are sold out, but those interested can still tune in via livestream. —AG
TNC Events:
Poetry party with David Lehman
Thursday, April 9
If you have not already, become a member of the Friends and Young Friends of The New Criterion here.
Dispatch:
“Badgering Churchill,” by Joshua T. Katz. On a recent decision by the Bank of England.
By the Editors:
“Trump has given America back its heroes”
Roger Kimball, The Spectator World
From the Archives:
“Demystifying Lincoln,” by James Tuttleton (November 1995). On Lincoln, by David Herbert Donald.
