Publications
The list of selected staff publications may be searched by keyword or author and can be sorted by year.
CD recording of Bach’s dramatic narrative of the Passion According to St. John, played on period instruments and sung by a 12-voice chorus of soloists. The two discs can be programmed to allow listeners to compare the standard version of the work with the version Bach re-wrote for a 1725 performance. Slowik’s extensive accompanying essay has been cited as among the best of its kind for the detailed introduction it provides to the work’s history and structure.
The first period-instrument CD recording of the complete Beethoven piano trios, played by the Smithsonian Chamber Music Society’s Castle Trio. The Trio’s Grammy Award-winning pianist Lambert Orkis uses five different fortepianos, illustrating the rapid development of the instrument during Beethoven’s lifetime, including one made by Conrad Graf (maker of Beethoven’s last piano) now in the Smithsonian collection. Slowik’s accompanying essays discuss the music, the instruments, and the Castle Trio’s approach to the works, which was influenced by Beethoven pupil Carl Czerny’s treatise, "On the Proper Performance of Beethoven’s Works for the Pianoforte."
CD recording of two important works by the German Romantic violinist and composer Louis Spohr, played on eight Stradivarius instruments, including the Ole Bull and Greffuhle violins, the Axelrod viola, and the Servais and Marylebone cellos from the Smithsonian collection. Slowik’s accompanying essay discusses the works, including reflections on Brahm's debt to Spohr’s Sextet.
CD recording of the great cello quintet of Schubert, played on five Stradivarius instruments, including the Ole Bull and Greffuhle violins, the Axelrod viola, and the Servais and Marylebone cellos from the Smithsonian collection. Slowik’s cello colleague is the legendary Dutch cellist, Anner Bylsma, who is joined by his L’Archibudelli colleague violinist Vera Beths, soloists in the recording of the Schubert Rondo for solo violin and strings that rounds out this CD.
Entries in specialized science and technology encyclopedia about the invention and development of irons, stoves, and washing machines in America, with links to other inventions featured in the publication.
Online biographical profile of inventor Percy Spencer (1894-1970), who is best known for his discovery of microwave cooking but also earned the US Navy's Distinguished Public Service Award and was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for his magnetron research at Raytheon.
Places of Invention tells the stories of people who lived, worked, played, collaborated, adapted, took risks, solved problems, and sometimes failed--all in the pursuit of something new. It dispels the myth of the lone inventor and shows that invention and innovation abound--not just in the Silicon Valleys of America but in hometowns across the country.