I had the pleasure of listening to a few of Georges Bizet's suites from his masterpiece, Carmen, on Chicago's WFMT 98.7 FM during my drive to work this morning. Carmen is one of my favorite classical music pieces partially because I remember my mom playing it when we were kids and I also studied the opera in Humanities 101 in college. (Remember that, Mark?)
The selection I listened to was performed by Les Musiciens du Louvre, conducted by Marc Minkowski. Minkie (as those industry like to call him) relishes Bizet's "rich sonorities and glorious melodies, while at the same time investing them with a serious-minded sensitivity," -- Gramophone [6/2008].
Word on the street is that this is the "finest disc of Carmen and L'Arlésienne suites since Markevitch with the Lamoureux Orchestra," --David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com. Wow! The best since Markevitch's triumphant lead of the Lamoureux's gallant performance. Now that's saying something. Wham, bam, thanka ma'am.
I do remember studying it in that Humanities class. I vividly remember watching the movie "Carmen" in Sheehan Library. I sat off to the right of the checkout desk on the main floor. They had a small TV set up in one of those little nooks with a hard wooden chair.
I also remember that class being one of the easiest I ever took at IWU. It would have been really hard to get anything less than a "B" in that class.
Or maybe it just seemed easier because I had that "Survey of Western Art" class immediately before the Humanities class and they overlapped quite a bit in terms of material.
Regardless, I enjoyed both classes and that Art class professor (Garvey maybe???) was a machine. He would rattle off fact after fact of countless art works without ever looking down at his notes.
Posted by: Mark R on Jun 25, 08 | 10:04 am
Dr. Garvey is a machine. A lot of art students found fault in that. They wanted more social implications of art. They just wanted art history to be all touchy feely fluffy nonsense. What idiots. I thought Garvey was really great. I love how he crammed in all those factoids and whatnot. I wish I could watch podcasts of his seminars. I'd pay a subscription fee for that. I'd easily do $30 a month for that.
What was the Humanites teacher's name? I know her first name was Barbara. You took Survey of Western Art first semester freshman year? (We took Humanities second semester freshman year). I forgot when I took Survey. I wanna say it was the same time as Humanities. And I took Printmaking I that semester too. Second semester freshman year totally rocked.
I also vividly remember watching "Carmen" in Sheehan. You watched it on your own??? I don't remember having that opportunity. I guess it makes sense. You just ask the student workers in the media department of the library for the Carmen video cassette and watch it right there. I watched it with the entire class. We were in some crazy room in the basement (or lower-level) of Sheehan. It was a kind of stadium-style seating arrangement. It wasn't a huge room, but it wasn't small either. It was more wide than long. They might have had two TVs synced up at the same time. That was the only time I was ever in that room. I think we watched it over a period of two or three class sessions. We'd watch a chunk of the movie, then critique certain parts. I thought was so cool. I don't remember where we watched Dr. Strangelove.
I was well aware of Dr. Garvey's style before I took that class as I had a couple friends who had taken it previously. Honestly, that's why I took it. I had perused the textbook and even helped them study for a couple of the tests and found it interesting. Of course it didn't hurt that they passed along their notes and an incredible collection of 3x5 note cards with notes and even some sketches of all the different artworks on them. It made getting a good grade in that class fairly painless.
I remember that I had Survey of West. Art immediately before the Humanities class. The Art class was on M/W/F at 8:00am, and then I immediately went to Humanities after that. That semester was incredible because I was able to get all of my classes on M/W/F, which left my Tuesdays and Thursdays totally free. I remember M/W/F's being a little rough though. Especially having to get up early and then sit in a dark auditorium and look at slides of art while Garvey talked non-stop.
I don't even recall there being a class-wide viewing of Carmen in that basement theatre. (Maybe I skipped those classes or something.) Regardless, they had it on reserve at Sheehan and I had to watch it in a little nook. Wow, I almost forgot that we watched Dr. Strangelove for that class as well. I don't remember exactly where I watched it either, but for some reason I want to say I saw it in Buck.
