Where Does Domenico Scarlatti Belong?

by Anitra Pavlico “Vivi felice (live happily)” —Domenico Scarlatti, in the introduction to his Essercizi per Gravicembalo (Exercises for Harpsichord), 1738 Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) refuses to be put into any particular category, despite generations of music historians’ efforts. Scarlatti scholar W. Dean Sutcliffe begins his 2003 book The Keyboard Sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti and Eighteenth-Century…

Mindfulness Magic Fades

by Anitra Pavlico It is difficult nowadays not to be mindful of how ubiquitous the mindfulness movement has become. A Fortune article from 2016 described meditation as a “billion-dollar business”: “From Bridgewater’s Ray Dalio and Salesforce’s Marc Benioff to Goldman Sachs traders and Google programmers, Big Business loves meditation.” This is perhaps reason enough to…

Are There Life Lessons In Fiction?

by Anitra Pavlico The Anna Karenina Fix, by Viv Groskop, is subtitled “Life Lessons from Russian Literature.” It is an entertaining book, part memoir, part cultural criticism. Each chapter takes on a different work from Russian literature–mostly novels, although it also features Anna Akhmatova’s poetry. Interwoven with plot synopses are biographical details about the authors,…