Why I havent been blogging and have been listening: A recap and mea culpa at the 9 month mark.

Over the past month, the birth of my sons (Twins!) has derailed my formal “Year of Living Classically” experiment but certainly has not stopped me from listening. I have tried to play classical for the boys, sometimes with more success than others. We have found that they really like reggae, although it may be that they just love my singing.

When I began this process, it was intended to help me learn about classical. I do NOT get my 2 hours in a day any longer, but I do make an effort to spend some portion of my day listening to or at least reading about classical music.

I bit off more than I could chew, or listen to. That’s certain. Still it has opened doors and for that I am certainly glad. My guess is that for the next few months this blog will morph into an occasional posting of what my boys enjoyed listening to most. There was a particularly fussy night that began with Glenn Gould, but I do NOT blame Gould. If there is a repeat performance, we will reevaluate.

Tech & Classical - some thoughts and links

Whether it is with music criticism, studying sheet music or the actual physical product of an album, these 3 people have changed what is available to us as listeners...and have given us new opportunities to participate.

Robert Taub's work has lead to a variety of developments, from a Auto-tune style App called ImproVox to a completely new way to read and practice music. The NY Times did a great profile of him and the work that his company MuseAmi is doing.

Tristan Perich's new digital music making album in a CD case called 1-Bit Symphony from Bang on a Can. Watch the video at 1-Bit Symphony really fantastic...looking forward to getting mine.

Christopher Weingarten gives us 1,000 Times Yes. Music review authorship in the age of Twitter makes for these short poems of music criticism. It is entertaining and informative and lets not forget it is the kind of funny that music geeks love!

Classical music an effective antidepressant

Hi All,

An interesting little tidbit off the Twitter wire: Classical music an effective antidepressant

"The Mozart Effect — the notion that listening to classical music will turn your infant or toddler into an intellectual titan — has been largely debunked. But a growing body of research suggests music can play an important role in certain aspects of health care, including pain management.

A newly published study from Mexico reports repeated listening to certain classical works — including one by Mozart — helps ease the debilitating symptoms of clinical depression."

Blog love for Philharmonic, Street Photography and Clams

Here are a few good posts I wanted to draw your attention to:

Classical:

NY Philharmonic gives you the Concerts in the Parks. Video and pics blogged!

Non-classical:

Katie Commodore describes our journey to the House of Yong Gee & the Clams of God

Jeremy Dine takes it to the street and brings you images of small moments as a commuter in New York

6 Months & 6 thoughts on a half year of classical

Hello All,

To those few of you who have paid attention for the past 6 months I am most grateful. I have a few thoughts on the state of my year of classical.

6 Month/ 6 Note Recap:

1. Classical music is MANY things. This may sound like a general statement that lacks depth and very possibly is but still I am learning this day by day. Modern Instrumental music, Opera, Chamber, Choral...subtle differences between and of these and the Classical Music we are all supposed to know a tiny bit about are lost on many. Those of you in the know, please help us. There are many organizations trying to reach out. PLEASE TRY HARDER. People (some people) want to enjoy Opera and Symphony and Phillip Glass. Give them a chance. More free concerts, More free programs. Teach the kids in school in ways they can understand and enjoy. I have never met a small child who didn't enjoy banging a drum or symbol as hard as they can. Consider this my plea to all those who are in a position to do so...give the world more music and they will listen. Otherwise its more of the same.
2. Opera isn't easy, but it is worth it. I won't say too much on this because I still don't know much. Some Opera is beautiful and lyrically and colorful and catchy and some is ugly and scary and interesting. Don't give up trying to enjoy it, it is worth the work.
3. Beethoven is everywhere. I mean everywhere. Enjoy it, listen to it, but too much Beethoven is too much.
4. Live music is unbelievably different than recorded music. Go see as much live music as you can. I used to see so much music (yes yes, I followed Phish) and it always trumps recorded music.
5. It is good to set goals. I am very happy I am doing this. That said:
6. Variety is the spice of life as they say, so be careful of trying to do too much of the same. I have spent the last few months doing less than my 2 hrs of allotted classical listening (shame on me) and trying to fill in with some InstantEncore, Last.fm and Pandora when I had the time. Still, I have a need for my favorites. Reggae, R&B, and good old Rock & Roll music that I cant live with out. I crave these tunes and these voices...so make sure to branch out but take it slow. Its not like you need to do it all in one year.

Beethoven. Master. Period.

I didn’t want to upstage the New York Times review of Missa Solemnis at the New York Philhamonic, so I left this post until after press time for the Friday paper. I love that rag and wouldn’t want to hurt their sales anymore then I already do with my massive readership.
Last night I saw my first true live classical music performance of this experiment. This seems strange to say as I am nearly 6 month in and that most of my listening experiences have been solitary (if you don’t count my iPhone as a person). Alan Gilbert conducted a new composition, Al Largo, created just for the event by Magnus Lindberg and Beethoven’s devotional Missa Solemnis.
I felt much the way the NY Times reviewer Tommasini did regarding Lindberg’s composition. I felt like I was dropped in the middle of a film score and like the title implies, out at sea without my bearings. It flowed and floated and crashed beautifully, but there was no context for me to connect with. I imagined the oil spill, growing and ascending on beach heads and marshes, coating the sea in its darkness. Ultimately it was an appetizer for the Beethoven.
Missa Solemnis is another story all together. It is a beautiful, rousing piece of music that while religious in subject seemed much more like a meditation. Rather than an awe inspiring Mass, it was a beautiful piece of music with the added richness of voice. This is probably a simplistic way to see it, but I am not a seasoned reviewer. I loved seeing the performance, all the bows stabbing at the air and the subtle wave of horns and woodwinds creeping out from behind them. If I have ever seen such an expression of true composition in person, it has most likely been in some film or epic painting.
For me the part that comes together when you see those maestros and concertmasters and position players all on the stage at once is an overwhelming sense of the composer’s mastery. Beethoven and Lindberg both used every color on the spectrum and every note that could be offered. Beethoven built a cathedral of music, maybe a bit too ornate at times, but requiring all the skill an architect can muster.

Katie Commodore's thoughts on our evening at The Philharmonic can be seen on her blog right here!

(Full Disclosure, tickets provided by the NY Philharmonic)

Dropping some knowledge on Tonight's NY Phil Performance

I listened to an excellent podcast this morning about the 2 pieces of music I will be hearing tonight at the New York Philharmonic. Magnus Lindberg composed A Largo just for the occasion and it refers directly to the Missa Solemnis. Here is a painting of Beethoven that supposedly shows him writing the Missa Solemnis, but I imagine he was probably just thinking about when he could put on his flip flop's and spark up the BBQ. Ok, I'm projecting...

Beethoven/Lindberg at the Phil

The NY Times has a fantastic piece from the "Into the Music" column about Beethoven's Missa Solemnis.

I was very excited to read this as I will be headed to the New York Philharmonic on Thursday for the performance of Magnus Lindberg's Al largo and Missa Solemnis.

FROM THE NY PHILHARMONIC WEBSITE:

“From the heart—may it go to the heart!” Thus did Beethoven inscribe the manuscript of his magnificent Missa solemnis. He was at the height of his creative powers when he wrote his solemn mass—a supreme achievement by any standard—rarely performed because of the superhuman demands it makes on all performers. Originally planned for the March 1820 installation of Archduke Rudolph as Archbishop of Olmütz, his important patron and student, the work was not completed in time. Perhaps it was that the mass had grown in importance from merely a work for a particular special occasion, to a statement of his deepest—if unorthodox—religious beliefs. Beethoven wrote to the Archduke, “My chief aim when I was composing this grand Mass was to awaken and permanently instill religious feelings, not only in the singers, but also in the listeners.” During his work on the mass a change seemed to take place in Beethoven, described by his friend Anton Schindler on a visit to composer’s home. “In the living room, behind a locked door, we heard the master singing parts of the fugue in the Credo—singing, howling, stamping…. the door opened and Beethoven stood before us with distorted features, calculated to excite fear. He looked as if he had been in mortal combat with the whole host of contrapuntists, his everlasting enemies. … ‘Everyone has run off and I have had nothing to eat since yesterday noon.’” Right from the beginning, Beethoven’s music derives its feeling and form from the meaning of the texts…from the pleading of the Kyrie (Lord have mercy) to the jubilant Gloria, with its the concluding shouts of “Gloria.” The dramatic Credo follows, then the Sanctus and a beatific Benedictus. Most mystifying, however, are the final pages, in which pleas for peace are underscored by the sound of martial drumbeats… as though suggesting that war is ever with us.

The Rite of Spring as summer approaches

The Rite of Spring or Consecrated Spring by Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky is not what you would call easy music to listen to. It is a complicated string of movements that blurt out dissonant sound after sweet lilting themes. In the last month I have listened to the whole piece of music 17 times according to my iTunes counter. I have found it maddening and enlightening all at once. I spend my walk on Madison listening to music and here I found a bizarrely personal connection. The Classic 1979 Woody Allen film Manhattan opens to Gershwin playing Rhapsody in Blue over Black and White images of New York. Somewhere in the middle of the 3^rd movement, I hear Gershwin. The thrum of piano keys smashing into broken waves of sound becomes peaceful…and I hear Gershwin? I realize it’s the other way around and that Gershwin’s encyclopedic musical knowledge led to the connection most likely. I am a novice and so I hear what I hear. Mash up: Stravinsky, Woody Allen and Gershwin.

The Wikipedia entry has this fantastic line about the premiere: The premiere involved one of the most famous classical music riots in history. It links to a list of “Classical Music Riots”. Man I love when art gets this rowdy. Nijinsky’s choreographed the piece that was presented that first night in 1913. The pagan rituals that Stravinsky imagined must have been slightly rowdier than the actual riot that took place. Personally, I would have been pleased to see that kind of strong reaction!

The New York Philharmonic has just completed a several weeklong festival devoted to Stravinsky that was capped off with Gergiev conducting The Rite of Spring. The NY Phil has been kind enough to create videos, offer music clips and do a great deal of Stravinsky background for all that are willing to read and listen. NPR has some great programming as well. Read through it, Watch through it, and then spend some time getting to know the music. It is worthwhile journey

A snapshot of classical: lunchtime performance at 590 Madison Avenue

Lunchtime performance at 590 Madison Avenue

Pavarotti and Singer Saints - Download Lists

I have found some interesting music at bargains and I would love to share the info with you all.

This 100 song Pavarotti set is $1.99 on Amazon. I just started listening and the quality is excellent. It is a sampler/ greatest hits, but worth every last penny and many more.

Also, Amazon has a bunch of free samplers that you may want to check out: Early Music , Baroque and Classical Gems.

Singers Saints has a wonderfully eclectic list of modern composers work. Philip Glass, Terry Riley and John Cage are all available in abundance. All of these are available to download for free!


The New York Philharmonic offers podcasts and live performances that you can listen to in several ways. I prefer Instant Encore if I am at my desk.

Please, If you have more streaming or downloading websites to share, send them my way!

Butterfly and Burgers: A night at the NYC Opera

An evening at the opera should probably not start with burgers, but that’s sometimes what you end up having. And there is nothing wrong with that! Right? Anyway, I may not be the classiest guy to walk into the David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center for the New York City Opera.

I was genuinely excited to be at Madama Butterfly. The tickets, which I had won via Facebook, were not available at the box office. The director of PR swooped in (Big thank you to Pascal Nadon) and we were in our 6^th row Orchestra seats in time to watch the dastardly Pinkerton view his new home. I hadn’t seen the opera or the plays or movies based on Butterfly before, so the character of B.F. (Benjamin Franklin) Pinkerton and the anti-colonial message he embodies is an effective blunt instrument. Pinkerton lets us know he believes it is the American right and duty to “pluck a flower from every new shore.”

Unfortunately, it wasn’t until Ms. Butterfly, soon to be Mrs. Pinkerton, came on stage that the show came to life. Her performance was electric. Yunah Lee was fantastic and the role allows her to play larger than life (and death). The music was very good, but it took her involvement for it to all click. The second act is all Butterfly, and it was treat.

The sets and the costumes are fine. It fit, it worked and that was all that was needed. For an opera that is over 100 years old, the topic certainly feels contemporary. It did not need to look contemporary.

The Metropolitan Opera has a wonderful series of education links that I am just starting to explore.

I want to thank the NYC Opera for my fantastic seats and the Metropolitan Opera for their useful educational tools...and most of all my wife, for being my accomplice for the Year of Classical!

Puccini on the Cheap

In a Facebook related turn of events, I won tickets to tomorrow night’s performance of Madama Butterfly at the NYC Opera. Needless to say this offers a fairly broke 30 something a wonderful opportunity to see more Opera live and for that I am grateful. At an Easter dinner, my cousins gushed over the power of the Madame Butterfly. While the NY Times had mixed feelings about the performance in March, I go into the experience with no preconceived notions of the event. I made this year of classical a goal of mine, and well here I am living it!

A few notes, the NY Philharmonic will have Alan Gilbert conducting his new Contact! series Friday and Saturday. (Full disclosure: they asked me to attend) and as seasons come to a close for the summer there will be more outdoors and possibly free events to and to this venture.

Please let me know if you have attended Bargemusic or Philharmonic in the Parks or any other outdoor NYC music performances I should keep an eye out for!

You can always email me at yearofclassical (@) gmail.com

Springtime for Minimalism

After The Nose, I decided to follow the modern music trail all the way to present day. Back in college I took a class that led me to the music of Glass, Riley, Reich and Feldman. I listened occasionally, faithfully checking in with Morton Feldman's Durations on long train rides and walks.

For some reason, Glass and Feldman usually settle me or set me in a mood to chill out.

Recently I have been listening to a fantastic EMI Classics release from 2008 called Minimalism. Reich and Glass. As a primer for these artists, this album has been invaluable.

Please send me more recommendations before I dive back into Opera. I am going to make May and June my Opera months, so I will need help with that as well.

Thank you all for being engaged and helping me along with this process.

The Nose at the Metropolitan Opera

For my first Opera experience, The Nose was an odd choice. It was a no brainer for me because of the involvement of William Kentridge. His direction and set design created a visual experience that would have been incredible without the Opera itself. I say this knowing full well how sacrilegious that sounds, but the artist has been known for his solo performances and animations for many years.

I spent 3 weeks prior to the Nose listening to the music and to some other Opera. I quickly understood how this modern Russian Opera taken from Gogol’s short story of the same name was different from “traditional” Opera. I do enjoy the music but mostly one Act at a time. Two hours of the Nose was a lot for me and my friends, all Opera virgins. Shostakovitch shows off, but really doesn't leave much room for joy for the listener. The story is not really enough to fill out an entire Opera. We loved the sets, the projections and the overall design. There was so much to see it almost didn’t matter that our seats were basically at Yankee Stadium.

The music is just tough. It comes in fits and spurts and rushes to uproarious moments of climax that are somewhat painful. There are laughs, there are small moments of sadness, and there are big moments that fall flat.

I know it sounds like I didn’t enjoy myself but I did! The Nose will be my first Opera, not my last!

Glenn Gould & The Goldberg Variations Video

As long as I can remember I have loved Glenn Gould. Gould, née Gold (his family changed the spelling of their surname due to rampant Antisemitism in Canada- they were not Jewish) was an example of a certain macho artistic sentiment in North America in the 50's, not unlike Jackson Pollack's Action Paintings, Jack Kerouac's typewritten stream of consciousness voice, John Coltrane's Sheets of Sound, and James Dean's Method Acting.

Gould's eccentricities are famous- the singing while playing, the chair, the gloves, the refusal to touch or be touched by other people.

But it is the interpretations of Bach, and specifically the Goldberg Variations that are his legacy. The 1955 recording is like Jimi Hendrix playing Machine Gun at the Fillmore East, with unparalleled technical mastery and speed, achieved in no small part from Gould's obsessive tinkering with the mechanics of his piano, and his refusal to use the pedals.  I think I prefer the 1981 recording for it's more mature and introspective interpretation of the work.

UPDATED: Thanks to FOAJ Matt for sending me this link about the Goldberg's from Jeremy Denk's blog.

Cross-posted to A Jeremiad

Wanda Landowska Plays Bach

As a follow up to Jeremy's post, I wanted to let you that Wanda Landowska Plays Bach is available on Singers-Saints.

T-Minus 2 days until The Nose at the Met.

The New York Times has done no fewer than 10 articles related to "The Nose" and William Kentridge.

Feel free to follow along HERE for a review

and here for vaious blog posts on ArtsBeat

Wanda Landowska

Wanda Landowska, the visionary Polish harpsichordist, was a mind-blowing musician and musical interpreter. She single-handedly revived the harpsichord as a modern instrument in the early 20th Century, and toured extensively throughout Europe. Living in France in the 1930's, she was forced to flee to The United States following the German occupation (Landowska was Jewish). She emigrated to  New York City, then moved to Connecticut, where she continued touring and teaching until her death in 1959. Quite a few really great recordings exist going back to the 30's. Her playing can sound almost like Flamenco guitar, or synthesizer music. I have been listening to her versions of Bach's Italian Concertos, and they are stunning.

Cross-posted to A Jeremiad

Opera : All I ever knew was Elmer Fudd

In preparation to see Shostakovich’s The Nose at the Metroplitan Opera with set designs by William Kentridge (There are some good links on the met site relating to Kentridge), I have been listening to the music as conducted by Valery Gergiev. I have enjoyed it, but I know that this is not “traditional” opera so to speak.

The Merola Opera Program was kind enough to send me their Merola 50th Anniversary CD. I want to thank them for this kind contribution to the yearofclassical project. It has given me a nice primer for a variety of operas and styles, but man will I need more help. I will listen to any and all suggestions from the peanut gallery. Please educate me.

I am finding myself enjoying the music far more than I thought I would. Yogi Berra references aside, I am looking forward to hearing the fat lady (or man) sing.

Who wears that Tuxedo better? Vladimir Horowitz or Leonard Bernstein

On my road trip I listened to Vladimir Horowitz plays Chopin and Vladimir Horowitz at Carnegie Hall - Haydn & Beethoven.

The Horowitz "style" is what I think of in terms of a piano virtuoso. The urgency of Chopin came through when I gave it close attention. It gave me pause to hear the applause of a live audience. The studio recording is what I have become accustomed to and it caught me off guard.

I think I will look for more live performance recordings with some historical significance. Any suggestions are most welcome.

Also, I loved this New York Times article about the Omnibus TV performances of Leonard Bernstein. Anyone have a copy for me? Are these available to view online anywhere?

Roadtrip - Playlist and invitation for suggestions?

I have an 8 hour road trip today to go meet my nephew! I think we will start with:

Vladimir Horowitz Plays Chopin

Emerson String Quartet - Brahms Complete String Quartets

Then I am thinking Beethoven Piano Concertos and Sonatas

I also have Vladimir Horowitz at Carnegie Hall - Haydn & Beethoven

Any other suggestions from the peanut gallery of classical music to drive to?

I Only Have Eyes For You

We were driving home on Saturday night from Montclair, NJ, from a show that our friend Danny had curated, and turned on the radio. WNYC's New Sounds with John Schaefer was on, and the theme was The Flamingo's 1959 hit I Only Have Eyes For You, actually written in 1934 by Al Dublin and Harry Warren for the Busby Berkeley movie Dames. I have always loved the Flamingo's dissonant, narcotic version, so it was a pleasure to hear alternate takes of this creepy song by Phil Kline, Lester Bowie and Coleman Hawkins among others. I recommend the podcast.

Cross-posted to A Jeremiad.

Fred Hersch

 This article in the NY Times Sunday Magazine about Fred Hersch was phenomenal. I highly recommend the article and the music.

Chopin and Monk

I heard a great report by Sara Fishko on WNYC yesterday about the great Polish composer Frederic Chopin. The pianist Garrick Ohlsson describes how Chopin was an inveterate improviser, who spent weeks working on how to make his pieces sound as though they were made up on the spot. Ohlsson "opens the hood" of the pieces in the interview, which is really fascinating. Coming at this from my comparitively poor classical background, the spontaneity and openness of Chopin reminds me of Thelonious Monk's compositions and playing, in an odd way.

Cross-posted to A Jeremiad.

Brahms for sale and The Nose

This week I received two great leads:

1) William Kentridge’s set design for the Shostakovich Opera “The Nose” will be at The Metropolitan Opera in February
2) Amazon.com was having a sale on a collection called “The 99 Most Essential Brahms Masterpieces” for 1.99 (Now that it is OFF sale it is a bank-breaking $5.99)

I have already lined up nearly the worst seats in the house for a performance of The Nose. I know that the $20 dollar tickets aren’t ideal, but this is my first Opera experience and I am excited for it!

The Brahms collection is actually excellent. At 6 dollars I think it is still a very smart buy! The more I listen the more I find themes that I have heard throughout my life. After Beethoven, it is a welcome change to have the broad sweeping romantic tones of Brahms.

Having started with Bach, then to Beethoven now Brahms, I now feel like I am getting at least a broad sense of the lineage of these towering figures.

Bloginess: Placido Domingo/Mozart/Kimchi

My friend Katie talks Opera(a little) and lecherous old men, which I just always assumed went together!

Kimchi Making from Jeremy, Parts 1 and 2

A few notes on Mozart from Ain't Baroque

Classical Listening Resources

If you are following this blog, I thought you might like to use a few of the same resources I am, and hopefully suggest a few I don’t know about.

Pandora
User-friendly free (40hrs or less per month) online music service. Select a piece of music for more accurate suggestions and you can thumbs up or down something. It also gives you the opportunity to add other songs or artists for variety. The classical selection is not as strong as last.fm

Last.fm
A free radio service that plays music based on your interest in artists or songs similar to Pandora. It has significantly better research on the artists and music. Its Clkassical selection is good.

Instant Encore
A recently developed website to build an audience for classical music. They have a wonderful variety of live performances from all over the world. You can search for music, conductors or performers and make your own queue of music to listen to for free.

Live streaming NPR Stations

NPR Classical 50
“Critic Ted Libbey and host Fred Child recommend 50 essential recordings for everyone from first-timers to fanatics.“

If you have other ideas for me, please let me know!

Revelation in 9 discs: Wilhelm Kempff Beethoven Piano Sonatas

Up until this point I haven’t felt deeply connected with much of the music I have been listening to as part of Year of Classical. I enjoy it, I embrace it, but I am still at a distance from its power. That is until I got my hands on the 9 Disc set of Wilhelm Kempff’s performance of Beethoven’s Piano Sonatas. They truly are a revelation. In each I find more texture and personality. Still, as a newbie to all this and someone with no music training, it is difficult for me to hear the composers voice and the pianists choices.
I have only had the opportunity to pay close attention to the first 12, which are from his early period. In each piece, I can find things to get excited about. Some are fanciful and some are sad and all seem to be written for a master.
As my Beethoven Introduction/Indoctrination continues, I will say that I longed for some soul music while watching the PBS documentary Sam Cooke: Crossing Over this past weekend. Luckily the hour show gave me enough Sam Cooke for a bit, but I am certain I will need to listen to some more soon. I would absolutely recommend the documentary and the whole Sam Cooke catalog. No song has ever affected me as much as A Change is Gonna Come.

Beethoven and breaking rules

All Beethoven is maybe too much.

It seems I have found that my commute could benefit from all Beethoven on the way in and no Beethoven out. In the evenings, instead of Beethoven I have been listening to something starkly different. Satie, Glass and Feldman have been the modern composers that my overworked brain retreats to in the evening.

For my Beethoven focus I have started with the 4^th, 5^th, 7^th and 9^th Symphonies and a variety of other pieces, most engaging of which was the 5^th Piano Concerto, the so-called The Emperor Concerto. It’s a vibrant piece of music and I hear something new each time. I have been listening to a recording with Seiji Ozawa of the BSO and Rudolf Serkin on Concord/TELARC. Unfortunately, Ozawa has been ill and I wish him a speedy recovery.

The fact is that my exposure to classical music has been so haphazard in the past that all this music is essentially new to me. With each listening session, I gain something new. I hear another instrument, or the conductors influence.

Also, I am dying to listen to a few new pop records. Spoon has a new one that should be great. What are everyone’s thoughts on this? If I maintain my 2 hours a day of classical can I listen to a new record?

Beethoven: Deep end of the pool

By diving into the Olympic-sized swimming pool of Beethoven, I think I am trying to begin to demystify one of the Biggies. I am devoting all this week to various recordings of Beethoven. I have many good Deutsche Grammophon recordings on deck and would be happy to take suggestions. This is in no way to say that I think a week will be sufficient, but I think listening to only Beethoven for some period of time, a week or longer, will have its own rewards.

It was odd for me to listen to the 5^th Symphony today. Since it is such a loaded and often referenced piece of music, I just tried to listen and give it the same attention as everything else. As a Visual Arts person, I think of Van Gogh’s Starry Night. I see the image often at MOMA, and even more often its reproduction. Without getting into an entire Walter Benjamin conversation, the more often we see and in this case hear something, its meaning can change. Whether this extra exposure enhances or detracts, well that’s for you to decide. But hearing the first booming notes of the 5^th Symphony shakes my mental Etch-A-Sketch and sets me back to a blank canvas. It is still a wakeup call, and a command to attention no matter how many times I have heard it.

As I wade a bit deeper into the pool, we will see what else Beethoven has up his sleeves.

Paganini: Down to the Crossroads

I am realizing that I am immediately drawn to solo pieces whether they are contemporary or 100’s of years old. Somehow much of what I have started off listening to has been solo music. Yo-Yo Ma, Glenn Gould and some Erik Satie. My father recommended Niccolò Paganini’s 24 Caprices performed by Itzhak Perlman.

Reading up on Paganini I learned that he was a native of Genoa and that Mandolin was his first instrument. More interestingly, he had refused the Last Rites and as Wikipedia puts it: It was on these grounds, and his widely rumored association with the devil, that his body was denied a Catholic burial in Genoa. It took four years, and an appeal to the Pope, before the body was allowed to be transported to Genoa, but was still not buried. His remains were finally put to rest in 1876 in a cemetery in Parma. I like to think of this like as a Faustian tale, where Paganini’s virtuoso skills were acquired just like Robert Johnson down at the crossroads. The Devil went down to Georgia 200 years after he did some business in Genoa.

As with Yo-Yo Ma, I can hear the intense execution of each note. This sometimes sounds like gun-to-the-temple stopwatch execution. If you could film it and play back in slow motion, we would be dazzled and amazed at the lightening fast reflexes of Itzhak Perlman. Still, I find it all a bit exhausting. Maybe it’s too much to try and listen to or take in all at once. I feel I can draw a direct comparison to a jazz improvisation like a Max Roach solo, where the musical mind drives the machine. Point and counterpoint are hammered home, and each note clear whether it has a full second or 1/1,000^th to make itself heard. I imagine Paganini with his fathers mandolin, plucking the tunes his father taught him fits at 1 and ½ speed, then two and three times faster, then backwards, or moving all the notes several octaves lower. A virtuoso, bored with convention and preparing for his deal with the devil.

Week 1: Boosters, Playlist and Goldberg Variations

The experiment has been well received in its early days and I believe there will be more and more guest posts as the year goes on.

The Hampshire College Alum office was nice enough to throw me a Facebook post and tweeting has been useful as well.

While I am thinking of it a list of composers and pieces I focused on in the first week

Glenn Gould and Simone Dinnerstein (Thanks Jer) performing Bach: Goldberg Variations

Now, hearing the name Goldberg Variations on Bach I never would have thought that this could refer to a performer from the late 1700's. When I hear Goldberg Variation (I am Jewish and much of my humor is as well, please follow this link if you are interested in where I am coming from) I think of my Fathers jokes or some sort of modern accounting terminology, not 18th Century pianists.

It was important for me to hear Gould's 1955 recording versus Dinnerstein's 2007 recording. Both are beautiful but the subtle differences are just as interesting as the less subtle ones. I truly enjoyed the music and am enjoying compositions for solo piano.

Martín Codax Cantiga de Amigo (Performances available via last.fm)

Yo-Yo Ma performing Bach's Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello

Perlman performing Paganini 24 Caprices

Various pieces by Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy, Dvorák, Mahler, Prokofiev, Ravel, Satie and Shostakovitch

Pandora and Last.FM have been really useful. I recommend both services for exploring Classical music!

Thanks for all the support - Jeff