The rather brilliant and awesomely cultured Elisabeth Vincentelli, my TONY colleague and the voice behind the excellent Determined Dilettante, has just put up a long post on the WNET/Channel 13 SundayArts blog that I reckon a bunch of you will want to read.

The title is "How to sell art to the masses," and the subject is Gérard Mortier — specifically, his views on building an audience through challenging people, and what he really thinks of some of the more populist ventures his soon-to-be new neighbor on the Lincoln Center plaza has engaged in. The quotes come from a recent hourlong interview on French public radio, which Elisabeth translated herself. One sample:

Interestingly, Mortier credits his Jesuit education in Ghent with his intellectual training, reading Sartre, Camus, Ibsen, Nietsche in 1961. “I loved the dialectic spirit of that education. Everybody had to be intellectually involved. It was always about dialogue and debate. Debate is what makes the world move forward.”

All this, and David Lynch, too. Go, see.

Playlist:

Silvestre Revueltas – Sensemayá; Inocente Carreno – Margaritena; Antonio Estevéz – Mediodia in el Llano; Arturo Márquez – Danzon No. 2; Aldemaro Romero – Suite para cuerdas; Alberto Ginastera – Estancia: Danzas del Ballet; Evencio Castellanos – Santa Cruz de Pacairigua (Suite Sinfoníca); Leonard Bernstein – Mambo – Simón Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela/Gustavo Dudamel (Deutsche Grammophon download; CD out now in Europe, due for U.S. release July 22)

Morbid Angel – Altars of Madness (Earache)

Opeth – Still Life and The Roundhouse Tapes (Peaceville); Blackwater Park, Deliverance and Damnation (Koch); Ghost Reveries (Roadrunner)

Bolt Thrower – War Master (Earache)

Terrorizer – World Downfall (Earache)

Marduk – Panzer Division Marduk (Regain)

Autopsy – Severed Survival (Peaceville)

Entombed – Left Hand Path (Earache)

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart – The String Quintets – Griller String Quartet with William Primrose (Vanguard)

Charles Wuorinen – Tashi; Fortune – Group for Contemporary Music; Percussion Quartet – New Jersey Percussion Ensemble (Naxos)

Colin Matthews – Fourth Sonata; Suns Dance; Broken Symmetry – London Sinfonietta/Oliver Knussen (Deutsche Grammophon)

Poul Ruders – Four Compositions; Hans Abrahamsen – Winternacht; Walden – London Sinfonietta/Oliver Knussen (Paula)

Terry Riley – Salome Dances for Peace – Kronos Quartet (Nonesuch)

Michael Tippett – The Mask of Time – Faye Robinson, Sarah Walker, Robert Tear, John Cheek, BBC Singers, BBC Symphony Orchestra and Chorus/Andrew Davis (EMI Classics)

Confessor – Condemned (Earache)

Exhorder – Slaughter in the Vatican and The Law (Roadrunner)

Pestilence – Spheres (Roadrunner/Metal Mind)

Leyla Gencer – Arias & Scenes, Volume 1 (Opera d’Oro)

Giuseppe Verdi – La Battaglia di Legnano – Leyla Gencer, João Gibin, Ugo Savarese, Coro e Orchestra del Teatro Giuseppe Verdi di Trieste/Francesco Molinari-Pradelli (Gala)

Gasparo Spontini – La Vestale – Leyla Gencer, Robleto Merolla, Renato Bruson, Agostino Ferrin, Coro e Orchestra del Teatro Massimo di Palermo/Fernando Previtali (Gala)

Luigi Cherubini – Medea – Leyla Gencer, Daniella Mazzucato, Aldo Bottion, Ruggero Raimondi, Coro e Orchestra del Teatro la Fenice (Gala)

Carlisle Floyd – Susannah – Phyllis Curtin, Norman Treigle, Richard Cassilly, New Orleans Opera Orchestra and Chorus/Knud Andersson (VAI Audio)

John Adams – Nixon in China – Carolann Page, Trudy Ellen Craney, John Duykers, Sanford Sylvan, James Maddalena, Thomas Hammons, Orchestra of St. Luke’s/Edo de Waart (Nonesuch)

Ralph Vaughan Williams – Symphonies Nos. 1-9 – Sheila Armstrong, Margaret Price, Norma Burrowes, New Philharmonia Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir/Adrian Boult (EMI Classics)