Musical memories

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

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

  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

  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

  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

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

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

When I joined the Untertürkheimer Kantorei choir two years ago, I didn't know that we would have professional singers performing the solo parts and a wonderful orchestra accompanying us. I told the choir director that it was my dream to sing "Großer Herr, o starker König!" Having had the pleasure (?) of hearing me sing the past few weeks, she smiled at me gently and said that she had already booked a very good bass to sing it.  God, what an aria this is! My first introduction to it was a recording of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau singing it and I still love his rendition. But when you have the chance to hear it live by a first-class singer such as Thomas Scharr , then you are in for some fun. The piece bounces and blasts the listeners with the greatest assortment of brass arrangements and melodic lines! I always sing along with it when I play it on CD. I had to keep control of myself during our live performances, though I was mouthing the words and all my emotions were at 110

There is music, and then there is MUSIC. When I was interviewing William & Mary's legendary choir director, Frank Lendrim, for my "Classical Hour" show for the college's radio station WCWM in 1984, I asked him what music he would recommend to the listeners for some "simply beautiful music". He hardly hesitated before saying that Beethoven's slow movements are where it's at. MUSIC.  Listen to the second movement of his Violin Concerto and I think you'll agree with Dr. Lendrim. I'll send you to a recording by David Oistrach , because he seems to be most violinists' favorite. On the other hand, you can never go wrong with either  Jascha Heifetz or Itzhak Perlman . This entire piece is a joy from beginning to end, showing off the beauty of the instrument as it scales the heights and depths of the instrument. The orchestra supports the soloist and adds other colors with the woodwinds, brass and timpani.  My newest discovery among the plet

The first pieces of classical music that I heard as a college freshman have really stuck with me. Be it Beethoven, Chopin, Debussy or, in this case, Brahms, I must have been super receptive to the music that was offered at the recitals at William & Mary.  In this case it was, again, Kathy Geralds playing a late Brahms Intermezzo. Recently I read an essay about Brahms that suggested he wrote best for short formats such as the piano pieces from Op. 10 as a young man through Op. 119, which he composed in 1893, just a few years before his death. I am the last one to say anything derogatory about his longer works , some of which are on my all-time-favorite list. However, the short pieces have a certain poetic intensity to them - each in its own way - that draw you in and have you singing or moving with them after a minute. And yet they are not simple. I've performed a few of them and heard most of the others played live.  The Op. 117, No. 2, is one which is particularly tricky, bot

  Martha Argerich plays the Schumann Piano Concerto in Amsterdam Most of Robert Schumann's music puzzles me. Perhaps because he was insane; or maybe I'm crazy. Or perhaps it is because he composed his music to go straight to the heart and my head often gets in the way of this kind of listening. Whatever it is, I am often at a loss as to what the music is trying to say. His Kinderszenen are easy enough to appreciate, but I've read few critics who have praised either his concerto for violin or the cello concerto. The Piano Concerto in a-minor , on the other hand, is one of the most frequently played and most lovely piano concerti in the concert repertoire. It is often called a woman's concerto, perhaps because the half-hour long work is not as strenuous to play as some of the other piano concerti in the repertoire.  My first introduction to the piece came at William & Mary when the first movement was to be played by a student pianist, Steven Budd, who had won that yea

I'll admit that in 1985 I didn't know whothe New Zealand singer  Kiri Te Kanawa was, but that summer I was in Richmond's classical music record store on Three Chopt Road and her recording entitled Come to the Fair: Folk Songs and Ballads was playing. The energy of the songs struck me as being so fresh and beautifully sung that I knew I had to buy it. I probably also liked the "wet look" and red sweater she was wearing, so the $9.00 seemed well spent. I replaced the LP with a CD a decade later and it is still one of my favorite collections of songs. As I found out more about her and listened to more of her recordings, one kept popping up on the radio and I know why that is: It is simply gorgeous. " Bailèro " is a song sung between a shepherd and a shepherdess, who sing to one another across the mountain pastures. It is the most famous of the roughly 30 French folk songs arranged by Marie-Joseph Canteloube de Malaret in the 1920s.  Whether it be Véronique

  Debussy wrote his two books of Images between 1904 and 1907. Both books consists of three pieces each. Book I 1. Reflets dans l'eau 2.  Hommage à Rameau 3. Mouvement Book II 1.  Cloches à travers les feuilles 2.  Et la lune descend sur le temple qui fut 3. Poissons d'or There is actually one recording of this piece that most critics and music lovers consider the best ever. That one is Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli's recording in Turin in 1962. His recording for DG a decade later is also masterful. This piece is recorded and played live often in concert, so there is a good chance you will be able to hear it in a concert hall near you. But the first time I heard this was at college in the early 1980s. Mary Przypyszny played it not only in her senior recital and several times in the small recital hall but also from the orchestra pit during a student dance performance. I was a "techie" for the performance, changing the gels on the side-lights between the dances, so

  As we all know, Beethoven wrote 9 symphonies. Those of you who read my post about his Sonata No. 30 know that he wrote 32 of them. How many of you are familiar with his 16 string quartets? I have only recently become a string player myself, but I'll bet all of you who already play a string instrument know them.  They are often played in chamber music concert settings. But chances are that you don't go to such concerts if you don't play an instrument that is often played in such settings. I don't want you to miss out on a beautiful piece of music, though, so I'm going to present to you the third movement of the Quartet in a-minor. I love slow movements - especially Beethoven's - and this one is no exception. This Molto Adagio movement is titled "Heiliger Dankgesang eines Genesenen an die Gottheit; in der lydischen Tonart". That's a "Song of thanks to the Deity from a convalescent in the lydian mode". It sounds better in German.  He wrote

The autograph of the first page of Op. 109 I'll never forget hearing Kathy Geralds, then a senior at William & Mary, play the first movement of this sonata at a noon recital at the beginning of my freshman year. Immediately afterwards, I was telling an upperclassman about how thrilling I found the sonata and when he asked which one she had played, I said, "Beethoven's 109th Sonata." He quickly clarified the difference for me between opus number and sonata number. It's a shame, though, that Ludwig didn't write 109 of them - this 250th jubilee year would have to last two years to fit them all in, but I think we've already had enough of 2020.  There's the playful first movement that refuses to allow the casual listener to comprehend it, contrasted by the short in-your-face second movement that only the greatest masters can perform transparently, and the ethereal, heavenly last movement of variations - something for everyone! Luckily, this piece is per

The music of Rachmaninoff is usually associated with his virtuoso writing for the piano, the composer's instrument of choice and for which he wrote most of his music. You may have seen in the Hollywood movie Shine how David Helfgott went crazy trying to learn "Rock 3" (his father's ambitious nature didn't help), but the concerto that used to bring concert pianists of the 20th century to their knees is now considered standard repertoire for conservatory students.  The gentle giant among the composers wrote other music, too. Among my very favorite of all works for orchestra is his Second Symphony, and the piece I'd like to present today is neither for the piano nor for the orchestra: his Op. 37, the All-Night Vigil or Vespers.  I discovered this piece when the CD recording with Mstislav Rostropovitch and Maureen Forrester was released in 1987. I had the opportunity to ask the Canadian contralto soloist how it was to work with the Russian master musician on this

Glenn Gould was famous for his Bach, but some people remember him best for trash-talking Mozart. Even though he recorded most of Mozart's Piano Sonatas, and really  loved a few of them, he also went on record as saying he thought many were fairly inane.  What? Yep . He was too predictable as a composer, especially in his late works. He stayed in one key too long and had the performers just play scales up and down their instruments. Although he was by all reports a great musician and improviser, his compositions often ended up being nothing but "cute". Yes and no. I'd like to present you one of the pieces that isn't only cute; it's also brilliant! Mozart wrote this Serenade both in Munich and Vienna. And if you know those two cities, how could you expect anything less than a masterpiece to have been born there? He was in his prime at 26 and this piece hour-long piece really gives the listeners - and the lucky performers - their due.  I first became aware of thi

 As was certainly the case with many other people, my first exposure to Bach's "Goldberg" Variations came via a recording of Glenn Gould's iconic 1955 CBS recording. Gould's interpretation featured beautiful polyphonic playing with quick tempi and no repeats. The Aria and 32 variations fit easily on an LP and sold like hotcakes, making him an international star, whereas he had previously been more of an insider tip.  My first copy of the LP was purchased at the record store where I was working in 1985. If I had heard (of) the music before then, I can't recall. I thought Gould's playing was exciting and some of the variations pretty. Gould re-recorded the variations for CBS in 1981, shortly before his death at the age of 50. This recording stands out from most others on the market for being among the slowest. He had long retired from giving live performances, opting for the recording studio to preserve his status as a major figure in the world of music. He

  It all started with her. Mary Przypyszny was a fabulous pianist and also happened to be a member of Gamma Phi Beta sorority, of which I was a big brother. Anyway, Mary played not only Chopin's Nocturne on several occasions my sophomore year of college but also Debussy's first book of  Images,  including what would become one of my favorite pieces, "Reflets dans l'eau."  I do have a way of jumping from one topic to the next, but that just shows how so many of my musical experiences arise from one source and are often interconnected. Enough about me - now Chopin!  At our college the music department scheduled a student recital nearly every Friday noon in Ewell Hall. This forum provided the mature players an opportunity to play in front of audiences and to get feedback or simply to gain experience on stage. Mary played this Nocturne at one of these recitals and I swore I'd never heard anything so beautiful before. A month later she played it in a master class g

What's a musician to do in times such as these? We aren't allowed to meet as a choir and sing. Even if we could, half the elderly choir members would not attend the rehearsals because they are at-risk. To be honest, nor do I relish the idea of sitting in a room with 60 others for two hours. And yet the cinemas are back in operation in Germany. Concert halls are opening their doors again, spacing out the listeners, rationing the tickets and making the live concert sensation no longer quite as sensational. You can no longer sense the excitement from those around you. You might as well sit at home and listen to a CD. But I have been getting together with small groups of musicians, playing the violin and singing. And I've been practicing, of course, and making occasional videos of my progress over the past six months. However, the highlight for me was playing the violin in Mahler's woods near his composing hut in Maiernegg, Austria, on the Wörthersee. During my two weeks th

That certainly didn't take as long as I thought it might. My original goal was to play in the classical Untertürkheimer Kantorei orchestra in December 2020. However, thanks in part to the lock-down but much more to my enthusiasm for the new instrument, I've made quite some progress with the violin. The Virtuoso Violinist posts very helpful tips on  Instagram  about implementing the Dounis Method when playing strings. I try to internalize - or at least try out - the ideas and get an idea for what challenges face me in the coming months and years. I was also lucky enough to run across a live living-room concert given by the incredible violinist Augustin Hadelich during the restrictive lock-down. When I watch such concerts online, I rarely stay with the canned performance more than two minutes but this time I was spell-bound. Never having heard of him or this concerti series before (mea culpa!), I began by trying to judge the performance from a critic's point of view. He