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Allegri's Miserere

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Even before I learned to enjoy singing in a choir, I had sung in choirs. From the time I was 10 I had tried to make my voice blend into several choirs - Presbyterian, Episcopalian, ecumenical, academic. However, due to a lack of vocal training, no ability at sight-singing and too little experience with creating harmonies with other voices, I usually stuck out as the fifth harmonic (?) voice.  I finally realized it was probably because as a child I had heard my father singing the bass harmonies in church. And later when my own voice had changed to a baritone, I could no longer comfortably sing the melody, which was the only part I knew. It wasn't until I started singing with the Stuttgarter Liederkranz when I was 40something and was surrounded by 30 other basses that singing became fun - and easy! For the past two years I've been singing with great joy and pleasure in the Untertürkheimer Kantorei. At present, however, due to the lock-down we are not allowed to rehearse and no
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Ich bin der Welt abhanden gekommen

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Recently a friend asked me which music piece IS ME. This is it. This song by Gustav Mahler is one I've long felt an affinity for. If I said I loved it, that would smack of self-love, wouldn't it? It has been close to me since I first heard it, probably around 1983. That is also when I discovered the incredible voice and personality of Maureen Forrester , who gave a song recital at our college in October 1983.  Maureen and I hit it off after her recital in 1983 After that fateful and wonderful meeting, I listened to all the recordings she had made which were readily available (and even ordered rare import copies of Canadian pressings). As so often happened with me, a person helped me discover a certain area of music. Having worked with Bruno Walter as a young woman, she became a renowned expert in the music of Gustav Mahler. But her repertoire spanned four centuries of music and dozens of languages. The afternoon before her recital, I had hosted the "Classical Hour" on
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Liszt's b-minor Piano Sonata

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  Few people will argue with me if I claim that Liszt's Sonata is one of the greatest pieces of piano music ever composed. Yes, I'd also put in a vote for Scriabin's Fifth Sonata and some of the other works I've written about on this blog, but this piece seems to have it all - beauty, excitement, temper, fantasy, power, mystery, enlightenment. How can that be? By most accounts, Liszt was the greatest pianist ever. He was also quite a composer and champion of other composers' works - from Beethoven (whom he met as a child) to Wagner (his son-in-law). In his longest work for the piano he let out all the stops, and if you are going to perform it, you have to do the same.  I've heard the Sonata many times in concert, each time it was memorable. For example, I'll never forget hearing the wonderful Elisabeth Leonskaja start it in Freiburg with those first mysterious notes and then, when she got to the octave jumps, she missed the mark. I was sitting close enough
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Aaron Copland's Appalachian Spring

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  This recommendation - as well as my admiration for this piece - comes mostly from one sentence that my father said to me about it. "You can listen to Appalachian Spring 100 times," he said, "and it'll still surprise you at every turn." I haven't been able to disagree with his judgement of Copland's masterpiece, even after listening to it hundreds of times.  For me the central theme was always the Shaker melody "Simple Gifts", which is featured in only two of the eight parts. But since it was recognizable, I always waited for it and reveled in its beauty. Having never studied the score, which was originally ballet music written in 1944 for Martha Graham, I let it entertain and surprise me, as my father's notion had taught me.  Enter Scribd , an online database full of books, articles, magazines and sheet music. No longer did I have to go to the library to check out sheet music, it was suddenly downloadable onto my tablet. I found a score
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Alberto Ginastera's Variaciones Concertantes

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  If you look closely at the CD cover above, you'll see Ginastera down at the bottom in third place. Although the other two pieces are lovely and world premiere recordings to boot, my love goes out to the concert variations this time. I was thrilled when my mother sent me this recording right after I moved to Germany in 1990. George Manahan and I had a friendly relationship while I lived in Richmond. We had dinner together and I went to very many of his orchestra rehearsals. We often talked about music together and I would lend him books about Mahler that he hadn't read yet. In one case, while he was rehearsing Mahler 5, he stopped during the Adagietto, turned around and asked ME what I thought about the balance between the harps and the orchestra, even though his assistant conductor was sitting up in the balcony. I was sitting down below with two of my best friends, my girlfriend and her parents. I felt like a king.  I never got to hear him conduct Ginastera, though. I believ
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Schubert's Last Piano Sonata

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There are late sonatas (Mozart's, Haydn's, Beethoven's) and then there is Schubert's very last sonata. Much has been written about the phenomenon of late works - that they are the artists' message to us from "the beyond". But at the age of 35 (Mozart) or 31 (Schubert) or even 56 (Ludwig van), how can you be anywhere but with your feet firmly planted on the planet - or on the pedals?  One thing is for sure, though: After you've written 17 (Mozart) or 61 (Haydn) or 31 (Beethoven) or 20 (Schubert), the next one is bound to profit from all that practice in writing, not only for that genre but for all the others, too.  Schubert's Sonata #21 in B-flat is so full of colors, textures and timbres that I feel he must have been inspired by the expressive power of other instruments as well. Of course, he was the best song writer of all time, so his gift for melody is apparent in this four-movement piano sonata.  I first became aware of it when I was given the
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BRUCKNER 9

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I remember very clearly the first time(s) I heard Anton Bruckner's 9th Symphony. Over a weekend in 1983 I was previewing music to play on my radio show at WCWM, so I'd taken a few records (LPs!) back to the dorm room for a listen. When my roommate was gone, I played Bruno Walter's 1959 recording of the symphony. Since LPs only allowed 22 minutes per side (and poor Anton wasn't aware of - or didn't care about! - this fact when he composed it in the late 19th century), the second movement (Scherzo) faded out in the middle at the end of Side 1 and faded back in on Side 2. But what a fade-in ! The following day I had my P.E. class (folk dancing) in the college gym with  a couple of other guys and 40 co-eds. I set up the portable record player and speakers before the class and, before others arrived, I put on the Bruckner to see what it would sound like with the resounding acoustics of the big gym. Well, when the brass kicked in, the place rocked! It was truly thrilling
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