Music is Life, Estas Tonne, Paganini bails out Berlioz and The Getaway

I am starting out of order. The above video from YouTube is from a guitarist named Estas Tonne. I discovered his music in 2016, by chance...it popped up on my suggestion list on YouTube. It has a transcendental quality to it. At the time, I was going through some physical challenges with my back that made my other passion, running, very difficult. This music became part of my therapy...everyday I would listen to it while I did my physical therapy. It was holistic.
I don't know where I would be...what I would do...who I would be...if I didn't have music in my life. I feel it, use it, breathe it. There is music for every occasion. It comes from everywhere.
I may take it to extremes. But one person who knows how I feel is the great Yo-Yo Ma. My friend Webb Chiles, the greatest sailor on the planet, shared this article with me...I thank him. Webb knows what I mean about music...it means as much to him too. For Ma, when asked "What is music for" he has the perfect answer; "It is to help me through life." Ditto.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/12/17/yo-yo-mas-days-of-action


I was reading some letters by Hector Berlioz. He was good friends with the great violinist-guitarist Nicolo Paganini. Turns out that Paganini loaned Berlioz a lot of money in 1838.

December 18, 1838

"My dear friend, Beethoven dead, none but Berlioz could restore him to life; and I, who have tasted your divine compositions, worthy of a genius such as yours, consider it my duty to beg you to accept, in token of my homage, 20,000 francs which will be paid to you by Baron de Rothschild on presentation of the enclosed. Believe me always, your affectionate Nicolo Paganini."

Berlioz wrote back: "Noble and great artist. How can I express my gratitude to you? I am not rich, but, believe me, the good opinion of a man of genius, such as you are, touches me a thousand times more nearly than the regal generosity of your gift. Words fail me, but I shall hasten to embrace you as soon as I can leave my bed, to which I am still confined." -H. Berlioz.

I will share another piece of music that is deeply ingrained in me....this is from the 1972 film The Getaway with Steve McQueen and Ali MacGraw. Quincy Jones wrote the score for the film. This tune is called Free. The great Toots Thielemans plays the harmonica. I lived in Austin, TX when this film was released. This scene was filmed on the San Marcos river not far from Austin, and I spent some fun times there floating on tubes in the hot Texas sun. This music, for reasons I can't explain, means a lot to me. I come back to it often.

Queen-Bohemian Rhapsody

Cheryl and I went to see Bohemian Rhapsody last night. It's the story of Freddie Mercury and the band Queen. Overall, I thought it was a great movie. Rami Malek gives an wonderful performance as Freddie Mercury. So what's the point? Several.
I was alive and well aware of Queen at their peak in the late 1970's and early 1980's. I watched their performance at Live Aid on TV in 1985 as it happened. This Live Aid performance is the peak moment of the movie....the band giving a performance for the ages. And as presented in the movie, it is breathtaking. But in 1985....meh......
I was not a fan. I was like the critics who excoriated Queen albums for being pompous...overbearing...pretentious. To me, Freddie Mercury seemed more like a Liberace-type front man than other great front men like Robert Plant or Mick Jagger. I just didn't get it.
Man, was I wrong..
Freddie Mercury was a truly awesome performer. And so were the rest of the musicians in the band (Roger Taylor, John Deacon and Brian May). This movie touched me a great deal. My relationship to the music and story of Freddie Mercury and Queen is not unlike so many other stories of creative people whose work is not appreciated when it is first presented, at least critically. But after the passage of time, the true genius emerges.
More than any other aspect of their career and this movie, I was touched most by Freddie Mercury's ability to connect with a stadium of 100,000 people. He had a gift for making every individual feel like they were important...part of the show. That is a very special gift. You can see it here in the Live Aid performance from 1985:

There are a number of creative liberties the filmmakers took with the true history of the band. One big one for me was the idea that Queen had been idle for several years prior to Live Aid, and they were terrified of facing such a huge audience not having played together for years. This was not actually the case. Queen released an album in 1984 called The Works, which features the songs Radio Ga Ga and Hammer to Fall, both of which they performed at Live Aid. The band had been on tour throughout 1984 and 1985 in support of this album. They were not rusty, and their laser-like performance shows just how locked in they were.
The other topic that the movie addressed in a tasteful way was Freddie Mercury's reckless lifestyle. He dove headfirst into a hedonistic pursuit of sex-drugs-rock n roll that ultimately led to his contraction of AIDS. I read a pretty graphic tell-all a few years ago about his lifestyle in the early 1980's. It left me feeling very cold and empty. The people he surrounded himself with were not concerned about his best interests. It is sad to see someone with so much talent and amazing gifts fall into the abyss.
Another thing the movie changed from real life was the timing of his sickness. In the movie, he tells the band he has AIDS shortly before they perform at Live Aid in 1985. In reality, he was not diagnosed with AIDS until late 1987. He passed away in 1991.
Brian May is a terrific guitarist. What I admire most about his playing is his sound and his control of it. Sure, he is a great player technically speaking, but his use of high octave chords with max distortion created a sound unlike any other guitarist. He also switches between lead playing and chord playing effortlessly...seamlessly. And, Brian May also loves classical music! Here is a segment from an interview he gave on June 3, 2017 with Charlotte Green from ClassicFM:

BRIAN:  Ah, I love Holst, “Planets”. I think he was divinely inspired. He was a schoolteacher.  How amazing, you know, and suddenly he’s written this incredible cosmic music.  I’ve always loved it from when I was a kid and I was only about 10 years old I think when I wrote a little soliloquy, which I read into a microphone with the accompaniment of ‘Saturn’, and nobody’s ever heard that.  Maybe they will one day.  But it was designed to be a soundtrack for a Planetarium show – that was the idea – so maybe one day I’ll do that but I’ve always loved it.  To me it’s absolutely evocative and as I say it is something completely out of this world.  I can’t imagine how, I can’t imagine how it was imagined to be honest.  You know it’s, it’s not constructed intellectually as far as I can see.  It’s one of these things which some somehow he instinctively plucked out of the air.  There’s so much unusual stuff in Holst’s pieces, you know.  There’s a lot of dissonance, which wasn’t very prevalent at that time but it wasn’t dissonance for its own sake as it perhaps became later- well this is my theory anyway.  Everything that’s in there seems to kind of jolt you into, into being out there in the cosmos.  I can’t say enough about it really.  It’s the most wonderful piece of music all of it you know the whole suite is brilliant.  Interesting that he didn’t do Pluto and, of course, Pluto is now not regarded as a planet anyway so there’s no need to put Pluto in there.  I got bit upset when somebody did that.  I went to the Albert Hall and saw it all and at the end of it they played this Pluto piece, which I thought was completely inappropriate.  Sorry guys, but I just thought it doesn’t work. Get it out of here.  So I don’t think anyone’s going to do that anymore,.

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Saying Good-bye to Shadow, Classics in Commercials, and Erard survives the Terror.

It's the day before Thanksgiving as I write this. We just said good-bye to our dog Shadow. She was just a puppy when we got her twelve-plus years ago. It went too fast. She was a faithful, loving creature....always following me around...or laying at my feet. You may be aware that I listen to a lot of music...most of it classical. She heard quite a bit of it over the years. She seemed to like it too... at least she never complained about it.

Her kidneys were failing. She stopped eating and walking. She waited until Jack and Ethan came home from school this week. She hung on as long as she could and gave us a chance to face this as a family....to say good-bye to her. We all went to the clinic with her this morning. They ushered us into a room right away and had a soft blanket on the floor for her. It was very hard, but it was the right thing. She is in heaven now.

Afterward, the four of us had a family hug outside of the clinic. A long hug. 

When we got home, Cheryl and I took a walk. Shadow loved her daily walks, and since she was a puppy, she carried her leash in her mouth. When we actually had her on the leash, she would constantly turn around and try to take it out of our hands and carry it herself. I finally bundled the leash up so it was manageable and that's how its been ever since. She never wanted to run away or stray from the path (I always had another leash in my pocket just in case though...but I never needed it.) So this morning, we carried her yellow leash with us on a walk in her honor.

She brought us so much joy and gave us so much love. She will be missed.

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Christmas commercials are running non-stop now....here's one that uses the music of Beethoven to great effect. This is from his Symphony no. 6 (1808).

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Three things came together for me the other day, just by chance I'm sure. I have been reading A Tale of Two Cities for quite awhile now. I'm almost done with it, and once the French Revolution really got going, I found that the reading got easier too. After storming the Bastille and unleashing the revolution, the movement itself became known as The Terror. I read a few pages one morning before work and then went about my day. After work, my wife and I met with her financial advisor as part of her annual review of her retirement fund. This nice young man works for a local investment firm that is a subsidiary of a much larger company called AXA. I had not heard of AXA before. So later that evening, I was doing some reading and research. I stumbled on a detailed history of the Erard piano company. Sebastian Erard started making pianos in 1777 and then harps as well shortly after that. His pianos were played by the likes of Beethoven, Chopin, Liszt, Wagner and Mendelssohn. But all of this almost didn't happen; The Terror came calling:

"September 9, 1793. 

To the Citizen Minister of Justice.

Citizen Laurent has the honour of denouncing to you an emigrant who left fifteen months ago to go and find the other emigrants in London. Had he not taken his paintings with him you would find in his home at least three hundred thousand livres worth of paintings. He has two houses, one where he lives and another one. In the one where he lives, he has had at least two hundred thousand Francs of repairs done in the past two years. This individual lives on the rue de Mail, he is a native of Germany, his name is on the sign Herard [sic] musical maker.(Herard means Erard of course)"

Erard was able to prove that he was not an enemy of the State but he was very fortunate that the search of his office happened when it did. Nine days later, on September 17, 1793, the Law of Suspects was passed. This law unleashed the full Terror on the nation and Erard may not have been spared. As it was, Erard and his company were spared. But the company was not spared of economic demise. By the mid 1900's the company folded. 

"But after the company closed its doors in the middle of the twentieth century, they were all but forgotten...a heap of old archives and objects in a storeroom in the basement Salle Gaveau in Paris. After the sales of the brand names of Gavaeu, Erard , and Pleyel, as well as the Salle Gaveau itself, these archives became property of the AXA insurance. Thanks to the perseverance of a handful of Erard devotees-both musicologists and AXA managers, the archives were finally saved from destruction."

AXA, Erard and A Tale of Two Cities all came together for me in one interesting day. Life can be amazing like that.

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I don't listen to music when I run anymore. I used to. But the hassle of earphones, my declining eyesight, and maintaining playlists etc made it a chore. So I just stopped. I much prefer the quiet of the moment...the sound of my breathing...the sound of my shoes hitting the road. AND, the music that seems to play in my head. It can be anything, and yes, most of the time it's a classical piece that I seem to having playing in my brain, and sometimes I end up humming or singing along with it. So in this respect, I do still run with music.

My playlist is pretty wide and varied, but yesterday, the music that I ended up hearing for my run was a very odd selection....it was the Unanswered Question by Charles Ives. It is a great piece, but not one that I would probably put on a running playlist! But it was there...in my head...and it felt good.

I have not been sleeping much the past couple of days. Shadow was not able to get up in time to go to the bathroom, and she had given up trying. So we had her resting on her doggie-bed in the living room by the fireplace. We were spending a lot of time trying to keep her clean and comfortable, and of course we knew what was coming....and it was very hard emotionally. Maybe this experience brought the Unanswered Question into my mind? I don't know....but it may express the conflicting feelings I had while sorting through questions about life and death...and coming to grips with having to good-bye to her. 

Classics in Commercials and A Coat Story

I saw a very funny Doritos commercial this week. It also used classical music!

The music is the Flower Duet by French composer Leo Delibes (1883). 

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The Coat Story

True story. A couple of years ago now, my son Ethan needed a new outfit to wear to prom...he didn't have any nice dress clothes. This was in March. Ethan hates shopping, especially for clothes! So Cheryl and I knew this was not going to be a fun outing. And sure enough, it was not. After trying several stores, we ended up at J C Penny. Ethan is very frustrating to shop for. "Ethan, do you like this shirt?..."I don't care." "Ethan, what color pants do you want?....I don't care." That is the pattern. So after a couple of frustrating hours, facing his indifference and the noise and crowds, we were all at the ends of our rope. I noticed a rack of winter coats in the Men's section, so I took a break from Ethan and went to look at it. I found a coat that I really liked and I tried it on. It fit great, but it was too expensive. Plus it was already warm by now...Spring was in bloom. So I hung the coat up and went back to Ethan. We did battle awhile longer until we finally found what he needed. By now, we were all exhausted and mad at each other and the world in general. As we were paying for his clothes, I was ready to get the hell out of there and go home. But at least Ethan was going to look good for prom! When we got home, we all relaxed and peace was restored. And we did get a great deal on the clothes. The only negatives were our heightened tempers and the loss of a pair of glasses that I had somehow misplaced in one of the stores we visited. 

Fast forward about five months. It was now the end of August. I went back to J C Penny to look for some dress shirts. While I was there, I noticed in the back of the Men's section there was a small rack of winter coats...the same coats I had tried on in March. And this time, they were marked down to $50...they had been close to $300 when I had tried them on in the Spring. But there were only a few coats left on the rack. I looked through them and there was only one coat that was my size. I tried it on and it fit great. This coat was going to be mine. Before I took it off, I put my hands in the pocket and felt something...hmmm....what is this? It was my glasses...the pair I had lost in March. The one and only coat that remained in my size was the same coat I had tried on while we were shopping for Ethan in March. Small world.

Pablo Casals and Robert Johnson make history...on the same day.

I had the Bach Cello Suites on my "must listen" list this week. I got around to it this past weekend, and the cellist I listened to was Pablo Casals (1876-1973). Casals is regarded as the first true pioneer of this beautiful instrument. He had a long and distinguished career...he even played at the White House for JFK. And he was the first cellist to record the Bach Cello Suites.
And this is where the story gets truly fascinating. On November 1, 2018, I was listening to Pablo Casals' recording of the Bach Cello Suites. The sound is surprisingly good for such an old recording. As I read the liner notes, I learned that he recorded two of these at Abbey Road Studios, where the Beatles recorded most of their music in the 1960's. (I walked across this same crosswalk when I was in London in 1987).

Anyway, as I am listening to Casals' recording and reading about him, (and loving the music) I discovered that he played a concert in my hometown of Kansas City, MO in 1916. I also learned that on November 23, 1936, the same day he recorded two of the Cello Suites, another legendary musician was also making a recording that would change the world...the SAME day. On that day, Robert Johnson was in a small hotel room in San Antonio recording songs that would later inspire just about everyone...the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, etc etc....
Here is a great article I found that tells the story about two very different men and music who none-the-less changed history.

https://www.npr.org/2011/11/23/142700464/robert-johnson-and-pablo-casals-game-changers-turn-75

Pablo Casala played a recital in Kansas City on February 8, 1916. He shared the program with a famous tenor named Paul Reimers. Here is the review I found in the Kansas City Times from the next day. Seems like Mr. Reimers stole the show!

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THE CASALS-REIMERS RECITAL

A Great Cellist and a Charming Tenor for the Fifth Fritschy Event

     It was not the expected beauty of Pablo Casals' playing yesterday afternoon at the Schubert Theater that gave the audience its most obvious pleasure, but the unexpected qualities in the singing of Paul Reimers, the German Tenor, who was associated with the famed cellist in joint recital. Reimers is that rare type of artist-a singer who places interpretation first.

     The concert, fifth in the Fritschy series, offered a succession of surprises. First was the attractive stage setting for which the packed stage of Mme. Homer's concert and the bleak and battered drop that Paderewski made his audience forget, failed to prepare those present. A gasp of surprise and pleasure greeted the pretty scene with its cleverly arranged lights and then the audience settled back to luxuriate in the Casals tone.

     With that excellent artist, Maurice Eisner, at the piano, the Handel sonata was profoundly beautiful. The clear song of the slow movement disclosed limpid depth of tone, resonance, warmth, and carrying power. Mr. Casals enjoys the reputation of being the greatest cellist of his day, and his work throughout the program bore out this rating.

     But the apt and elegant Saint-Saens does not compare with the fine, high beauty of Handel. The concerto seemed superficial, full of bright passage work for the violincello, but lacking in character. If it proved anything yesterday, it was that the old music is Handel is still more vital than the new music of Frenchmen, whose artifice and dexterity cannot compete with inspiration. Still, the skill demanded was something to excite admiration. At times, the voice of the cello, warm and human, matching its timbre with that of the piano, drew fanciful figures against a rich tonal background. Again, the voices mingled in bewildering fantasy.But in nothing was there the transparency of tone disclosed by the Handel music until the last group of numbers, introduced by an aria of Bach and including three lighter pieces. These awakened almost as much applause as that accorded the tenor, and the cellist had to return many times to bow his thanks. But he gave only one encore.

     Mr. Reimers is the sort of lieder singer who, in times of peace, remain in Germany. It is understood they find a full and complete appreciation only in their own land. But Americans are learning appreciation, too-as witness the success of Wuellner a few years ago, and of Julia Culp and others. Reimers is not like any other. He has a good tenor voice, which he can make, upon occasion, sounds just about as he pleases, express much or little, humor or sadness. He commands tones sweet as honey, but never sweet except for purposes of musical wooing or hoodwinking, or some other chicanery in which he takes delight.

     It was most thoughtful of him to recognize the audience's non-German limitations, and tell in his captivating English the little stories in the songs. Some of these were French, some American and one was a fine old Russian hymn. There were many encores-four or five and even then the audience was not satisfied perhaps because Mr. Reimers had been rather a surprise and his singing has a piquancy and flavor rarely encountered.

     Every seat was filled and there were a few standees.

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A Great Chord from Heitor Villa-Lobos

My newest listening challenge: to listen to the 17 string quartets by one of my favorite composers, Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887-1959). VL wrote his first string quartet in 1915, his last in 1957. The general consensus amongst music scholars appears to be they are groundbreaking works, though at times inconsistent or wandering. (I got this from Lionel Salter of Gramophone Magazine)  But they are always original and demonstrate a wide range of tones, melodies, textures and  musical ideas.
Here is a great chord that appears very early in his String Quartet no. 1.

The second measure is the chord. My friend and music theory expert, Dr. Reynold Simpson, Associate Professor of Music at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, says this of the chord:
"That's simply a G9 chord (the A in the second violin is a major 9th above the root in the cello.) The 9 is simply an extension of the stack of thirds that creates a 7 chord (1-3-5-7-9).
It may be simple, but it packs an emotional punch.

Take a listen The chord appears at the 1:07 mark.

 I will report back when I have made it though all 17 string quartets. 

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What do we want??? More Guitar Music-Segovia plays Kansas City in 1959. Alfredo Casella, and some Mahler trivia.

I'll start with my obsession for classical guitar music. OK...there you have it... I am obsessed. Not quite to the level of piano my enthusiasm, but oh so very close. I love the sound of classical guitars, and no one means more to this form of music than Andres Segovia. He almost single-handedly developed and championed music for this instrument in the twentieth century. An instrument that just about every composer had ignored or forsaken for much of history, Segovia mounted a campaign to prove that there was a market for this sound. He convinced composers to write new pieces that he toured the world performing. He legitimized the guitar as a solo instrument.

Andres Segovia performed in Kansas City, my birthplace, on February 10, 1959. I want to share the review of that performance from the Kansas City Times with you:

EXPLORE NEW PATHS IN FIELD OF MUSIC

Segovia plays his guitar to resounding Applause with the Philharmonic

THE ORCHESTRA SINGS OUT

Schubert and Tchaikovsky Pieces Are Enjoyed by Sellout Audience

By Clyde Neibarger

(The Star's Music Editor)

     Some effective crusading for musical causes was accomplished at the Philharmonic subscription concert at the Music Hall last night. Andres Segovia, master guitarist, gave a convincing demonstration of the guitar as a legitimate concert instrument. The sellout audience approved heartily.

     The orchestra, likewise in the role of demonstrator, helped Hans Schwieger, conductor, explore neglected paths in the literature, with a clean-cut performance of the little-heard Tchaikovsky Thrd Symphony, a worthy predecessor of the Russian composer's later and better known Fourth and Fifth and Sixth.

Soloist Steals Show

     Tossed in for good measure was a Franz Schubert gem, the convivial, song-like "Rosamunde" overture, which gave the orchestra opportunity to engross the listeners, from the very beginning of this eighth program in the subscription series. It was well paced, crisply articulated by the orchestra.

     The tall, courtly, balding, and gray Segovia definitely was a show stealer. A low bench, a chair, a footrest, and his prized Spanish guitar were his equipment.

     With a small orchestra of 34 as his capable collaborator, Segovia charmed and completely captivated his rapt listeners with his playing of the Guitar Concerto in D Major composed especially for him by the Italian, Mario Castelnuevo-Tedesco.

Orchestra Matches Mood

     For most in the audience, this was a unique experience. The concerto itself is a rather fragile, dainty work of art. Segovia played it that way. His interpretation was aristocratic. The tones were not big but they were beautiful, resonant, and carried far. Schwieger and the orchestra matched his moods marvelously

     The cadenza passages, all too brief, exploited the guitar's plaintive charm and the artist's magic in plucking six strings. 

     Big applause brought Segovia back for several acknowledgements before he graciously assented to what the audience wanted-more guitar music. So there were three encores for unaccompanied guitar. They were the familiar Gavotte by Bach, the Villa-Lobos "Study," and a Spanish folk song.

Opportunity for Strings

     There was a near ovation too, for Schwieger and the orchestra as a well-earned reward for for their performance of the 45 minute Symphony No. 3, the "Polish," by Tchaikovsky. It built up from an unassuming beginning to emotion packed episodes, in which the woodwinds shone and the strings finally had their chance to sing out. The music reflected a younger Tchaikovsky, though we has 35 when he wrote it, in 1875. True, his later symphonies overshadow it. Granted that, it is over-longish and occasionally tedious, it is a refreshing slant on the famed composer.

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Talk about a long concert.....when Mahler's Symphony No. 4 was given it's first performance in Amsterdam on October 23, 1904, it was played twice. Here is the explanation given by Alma Mahler;

"Mahler wrote me a detailed account. He had to go on to Amsterdam where he stayed with Mengelberg, and felt increasingly at home. He conducted the Second and the Fourth. It was the first performance of the fourth in Amsterdam and Mengelberg put it twice in the same program: Fourth Symphony. Intermission. Fourth Symphony. Mahler conducted for the first time, Mengelberg the second, with Mahler sitting comfortably in the stalls to hear his own work played to him. Mengelberg, he said when he came home, had grasped his meaning so perfectly that it was just as if he had been conducting himself."

 

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My friend Byl Strother suggested a new composer for me to explore...Alfredo Casella. First off...I have never actually met Byl. We are friends on Facebook through another cool dude named Patrick Neas, whom I have had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing for this online journal. Both men are classical music Ninjas. But I feel like I know Byl, and I welcome his thoughts about all kforms of music. Anyway, Byl shared recently that he likes the music of Alfredo Casella, an Italian composer with whom I was not familiar. So I instantly jumped into action and explored Casella's music. Wow. Amazing music. <y first dive was his Symphony No. 1. I heard Mahler, Strauss and Brahms...and maybe some Holst. Turns out that Casella was a contemporary of Mahler, and he championed Mahler's work in France where he lived and had studied with the likes of Maurice Ravel. He was also acquainted with Debussy and Stravinsky. I found a great article by David Gallagher that includes this great passage about Casella's connection to Gustav Mahler:

"The expense of performing Mahler’s huge work could only be covered by financial backing from two different musical societies; but they hated each other. It took Casella over a year to charm them into collaborating—and afterwards it was brickbats as usual: the concert’s main underwriter, the immensely rich president of the Société des Grandes Auditions Musicales, Countess Elisabeth Greffulhe (Marcel Proust’s model for his Duchesse de Guermantes), complained that the rival Société des Amis de la Musique had ‘behaved like crooks’. At the end of the symphony the Paris public cheered Mahler to the rafters; Debussy walked out halfway through. Mahler’s heart-on-sleeve musical aesthetic was anathema to many in the early twentieth-century Parisian musical establishment, who amused themselves by punning on the similarity of his surname to the French word for ‘misfortune’. As leader of the small group of diehards who championed Mahler’s music, Casella—tall, thin, long-nosed—was dubbed ‘l’oiseau de Malhe[u]r’, ‘the bird of ill-omen’.

Probably no composer ever affected Casella so profoundly as Mahler did for almost a decade at this time. ‘Discovering Mahler’s symphonies (‘the greatest work of musical genius since Wagner’s Parsifal’) was the crucial event of my artistic education,’ he said, recalling that ‘Mahler was sincerely moved when he discovered I knew them practically by heart’. Casella wrote a stream of enthusiastic articles, not least as the only French or Italian critic who travelled to Munich for the première, later in 1910, of Mahler’s Eighth (the ‘Symphony of a Thousand’)—the supreme triumph of Mahler’s life. His sudden death the following year was a professional as well as personal shock for Casella: Mahler was planning not only to conduct Casella’s rhapsody Italia, Op. 11, and Suite in C major, Op. 13, but to engage the Italian as his assistant when he returned to the Vienna Opera. ‘I have a great liking for the young man,’ Mahler told another of his supporters in France, William Ritter, ‘and I have high hopes of him’. When French publishers rejected Italia and the Suite, Mahler convinced his own publisher Universal Edition to issue them, negotiating, Casella recalled, ‘a deal I could never have dreamed of’; he commissioned Casella to arrange his Seventh Symphony for piano duet; he presented ‘my great friend’, ‘pioneer’ Casella with signed scores and photographs. A giant photo of Mahler, ‘this man of extraordinary goodness, warmth and generosity, sincerity and altruism’, took pride of place on Casella’s wall for the rest of his life.

Casella’s own Symphony No. 2 in C minor is his most enduring—and deeply indebted—homage to Mahler. Though the Italian scholar Quirino Principe perhaps exaggerates in calling Casella’s first movement ‘almost pure Mahler’, its sources are palpable, above all a startlingly prominent direct quotation of a march theme from the finale of Mahler’s Second—here transposed and transformed into a lyrical melody. Casella revised this movement after the symphony’s première in 1910, but the manuscript of the first version is lost: was he making it more like Mahler or less? From the very opening notes, with their tolling bells, Casella’s symphony also saturates itself in the Mahlerian soundworld, its tensions between major and minor and its very timbres: Casella eulogised Mahler’s ‘miraculous ear, his incomparable gift for incessantly inventing new sonorities’, pinpointing instruments’ individual, contrasted qualities rather than blending them homogeneously. The slow third movement of Casella’s Second Symphony—the first part he completed (early in 1908)—is simply the central movement of his First Symphony, with a single bar added at its midpoint, and reorchestrated in a far more Mahler-like manner; it even keeps the original key of F sharp minor, a tritone away from the Second Symphony’s C. Curiously, the musical material sometimes seems ill at ease in its new clothes, the first version feeling a better fit—with the exception of the theme that Casella adopts to germinate the Second Symphony’s ‘Epilogue’. Casella’s finale, albeit less monumental than the epic apotheosis of Mahler’s Second, traces a similar trajectory from darkness to triumphant C major light, marching through frequent reminiscences of Mahler’s later symphonies, the Third, Sixth and Seventh.

Only in the second movement does Casella step out of Mahler’s ‘imperious shadow’—as he admitted—into those of Rimsky-Korsakov and Balakirev. Casella had met both composers on his first visit to Russia in 1907: Rimsky gave him valuable advice in orchestration, while Casella’s orchestral version of Balakirev’s virtuoso piano piece Islamey attracted the admiration of its composer—among others: ‘a blond young man wearing enormous glasses approached me,’ Casella recollected, ‘saying timidly that he would love to study the score’. It was Igor Stravinsky: a year older than Casella, but then still unknown. The second movement of Casella’s Second is prophetic too, its driving percussive rhythms sometimes pre-echoing later Russian composers like Mossolov (Iron Foundry), Prokofiev or Shostakovich (another composer who learnt much from Mahler, and who is often brought to mind by Casella’s penchant for the xylophone); or indeed later Casella, of the 1920s and 1930s.

Another Mahlerian concordance is that Casella apparently conceived his Second in dramatic terms, but was ambivalent about publicising the fact. Casella wrote at the top of his first movement manuscript ‘Prologue to a tragedy’, and later released the piece alone under that title, mirroring Mahler’s reworking of his tone poem Todtenfeier (‘Funeral Ceremony’) as the first movement of his own Second Symphony; at the end of the ‘Epilogue’ Casella scribbled ‘Finis Comoedia’. If this world is a comedy to those that think and a tragedy to those that feel, Casella and Mahler are poles apart: Casella’s music conveys an objective quality, as if observing the drama dispassionately from outside; Mahler’s is quintessentially self-confessional, a living experience of emotional extremes—like two other darkness-to-light symphonies with (in their case quiet) C major endings: Asrael, another C minor Second, in which Josef Suk (Bohemian-born, as was Mahler) confronts the devastating deaths of first his teacher Dvořák and then his wife, Dvořák’s daughter Otilie; and the Third Symphony of Arnold Bax (a British composer also greatly influenced by the Russians), a final laying-to-rest of his personal inner demons." 

It really is a small world. But we need to open our brains and hearts to explore it. So I've listened to all three of Casella's symphnies, some of his piano music and this...my favorite work so far...his Harp Sonata (1943). 

Philadelphia Memories

The Philadelphia Orchestra came to Kansas City this week. The concert was Wednesday night at Helzberg Hall and they were here as part of the Harriman Jewell Series. The Philadelphia Orchestra has been around a long time....since 1900 in fact...and has long been one of the "Big 5" (Chicago, Cleveland, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia) American Orchestras. They are known for their lush strings...a trademark defined by the likes of Leopold Stokowski and Eugene Ormandy, two of the most iconic conductors of all time.
Yannick Nezet-Seguin is their current conductor, a position he has held since 2012. He is signed through the 2025-26 season. I will come back to him in a moment.But first, I want to go back to May 19, 1981. That's when I saw the Philadelphia Orchestra the first time. Eugene Ormandy was still the conductor then, and he brought the Philadelphia Orchestra to Omaha, Nebraska for a performance at the Orpheum Theater. My Dad made sure we had tickets for this concert...I went with him and my mom. I wish I could find the program. I know it's in a box somewhere, but I do remember that they played Prokofiev's Symphony no. 1, the "Classical Symphony." To this day, it remains one of my most special concert memories. The "sound" was unbelievable...lush, rich...decadent. Every attack was precise. Every phrase was developed with care and intent. The dynamic range was almost limitless. We floated out of the Orpheum when it was over. My dad, who had already seen all of the Big 5, said it was one of the greatest concerts he had seen, and that says a lot.
Little did I know that just over a year later...June 17, 1982, I would see Maestro Ormandy conduct the Philadelphia Orchestra again, this time at the Mann Music Center in Philadelphia. The program for that performance was:
Prelude to Die Meistersinger - Wagner
Romeo and Juliet Overture - Tchaikovsky
Hungarian Fantasia for Piano and Orchestra - Liszt
Concerto in the Hungarian Style - Liszt/Tchaikovsky
Polonaise from Eugene Onegin - Tchaikovsky
Les Preludes - Liszt
Even outdoors, the sound was exceptional and the performance was once again stellar.
So yes, I have great memories and high expectations for this fine orchestra and I was curious how it would sound 36 years later.
A lot has changed of course since then. I don't know if any of the musicians in the orchestra today were part of the ensemble back when Ormandy conducted. From the look of it, very few if any were. The current ensemble appears very youthful, and much more diverse. Back in the day, it was almost all men. And I don't recall seeing any people of color then either. That's just the way it was. But not anymore. The youth and diversity of the musicians in the orchestra today is very inspiring. The technical prowess of the musicians today is also top notch. It was certainly evident Wednesday night. Every attack, every phrase, every entrance and all of the notes were rock solid.
The sound? Was it still the famous "Philadelphia" sound? I'd say so. Playing in our Helzberg Hall didn't hurt either! The strings were lush..sure...but I was equally impressed with the other sections too, and I thought it was a very well balanced sound. The strings did not steal the show, which, even as a violinist, I'd have to say is a good thing. Maestro Yannick has figured out that to win in the big leagues, one needs a good balance of offense and defense.
My friend Patrick Neas, whom I consider a music expert, is also a great writer for KC Arts Beat. Patrick wrote a great review of the performance, as well as a great article leading up to the concert for the Kansas City Star, and he interviewed David Kim, the orchestra's concertmaster. Kim told a story about asking Yo-Yo Ma if he believes the Philadelphia Orchestra still has that trademark sound. If anyone is qualified to answer that question, it would certainly be Mr. Ma. And he did confirm it is true...the famous sound is still alive and well.
As I have stated, I don't consider myself a critic and I that's not a role I want play. I do enjoy sharing my thoughts and reflections of a performance, but please take them as such...just thoughts and perceptions. I am not a music scholar. I just love music.
Nezet-Seguin has a ton of energy! He does not use a baton...just his hands, which he uses to great effect shaping, molding, pulling, squeezing, chopping and caressing every note, phrase, and sound from his musicians. On the podium, Nezet-Seguin MOVES...up down, around...he bends, dances, struts and pretty much any other adverb you can think of. He is clearly IN the music and it flows through him. The musicians watched him like a hawk. I could not always see his beat...but they never missed or dropped it. Especially in the Tchaikovsky...he and Ms.Batiashvili seemed to have some sort of mind-meld that kept them in sync..which he was able to relay to the orchestra at the speed of light.
Liar, Suite from Marnie by Muhly kicked things off. I had not heard this piece before and I enjoyed it very much. Some of the words/comments I wrote to express how I felt about it were: brooding, syncopated, rhythmic, pedal-tone oriented, somewhat beautiful but not sweet, angular, phrases are not aligned and very long musical lines. It felt like there were two pieces being played at the same time that were not necessarily lined up together...and that is why it worked so well. The oboe and trombone solos stood out, as did the gong, which was used in a sort of pedal fashion a couple of times, washing under the entire thing.
Lisa Batiashvili played the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto. Played might not ever be the right word for this concerto. We now recognize this as one of the truly great violin concertos, but it did not start out that way. When it premiered in December 1881, as the program noted, the critic Eduard Hanslick wrote the famous review saying  "Tchaikovsky's Violin Concerto gives us for the first time the hideous notion that there can be music that stinks to the ear." Ouch. Tchaikovsky's brother Modest wrote that "Hanslick's criticism hurt Tchaikovsky's feelings very deeply. To his life's end, he never forgot it, and knew it by heart..." It is a very physical concerto and demands great stamina, huge chops, and courage I might say too. It demands everything a violinist has to pull it off well. The delicate harmonic passages immediately following a four-octave, lightning-fast arpeggio run illustrates the span of control necessary to play this "beast". I say beast affectionately...what was once vulgar and obscene in Tchaikovsky's day is now regarded as beautiful and inspiring. Depending on my mood, I might say this is my favorite violin concerto of all, even over Beethoven's or Mendelssohn's or Brahms'..
D major is great for the violin. It offers the most amazing double-stops for the biggest and brightest sound possible. (Beethoven and Brahms also used D major for their violin concertos.) I thought Batiashvili crushed it...just nailed it. Her technique seemed flawless to me. Her violin came to life and her tone was rich and warm. Nezet-Seguin and the orchestra did the most important thing well....they stayed out of her way. They played SOFTLY when she was playing. They did not overpower her nor get in her way. But when the melody or phrase was handed from the violin to the orchestra, they POUNCED! Pianissimo to Fortissimo instantly. And then back down to Pianissimo for the violin's next entrance.
The clarinet shined. The pizzicato of the strings was a highlight for me. How many times can you say that?!? I loved the doubled flutes in the Finale. It was pretty amazing that after the first movement and cadenza, her violin was still in tune! It is such a "shred" piece...I would expect the strings to surrender at some point. And so the violin and orchestra worked very well together...tempos, entrances, balances....all were excellent. Nezet-Seguin and Batiashvili were in constant communication, literally a foot or two from each other, making eye contact, facial expressions, smiling, and challenging each other to give it all they had.
And then there was a standing ovation when it was over. We were also treated to an encore. Accompanied by Nezet-Seguin on piano, Ms. Batiashvili played "None But the Lonely Heart," also by Tchaikovsky.
Then it was time for wine! Yep, there are several bars in the Hall that serve beer/wine/cocktails. So my mom and I had pre-ordered our wine for the intermission. We enjoyed this and took our traditional "cheers" selfie to share on social media.

After intermission, we were treated to Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances, Op. 45. The KC Symphony played this last weekend, so it was still fresh in my head. How cool to learn that Rachmaninoff composed this piece for Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra and had its premiere in Philadelphia in 1941. This work really allowed Nezet-Seguin and the musicians to shine. Every section has substantial material to dig into.
The best line of the evening came after the Rachmaninoff. After much applause and bowing, Nezet-Seguin came out with a microphone and addressed the audience. I am paraphrasing here but he said something like "I feel like we've given you a pretty substantial meal. But you are used to BBQ...you have a little room left." With this, they treated us to a gorgeous version of Rachmaninoff's Vocalise. Rich? Yep. Lush? Yep. Decadent? Absolutely. I was totally full now...this was a very filling desert.
The Philadelphia Orchestra has not been immune in recent years to labor strife and fiscal uncertainty. It appears to be on solid ground now, and just like the KC Chiefs, the Philadelphia Orchestra has the right quarterback at the helm and will be in good hands for many years to come. Thank you for coming to our city and treating us to such a great performance.

The best season of all...Kansas City Symphony Season!

"There's nothing quite like the happy expectation and excitement of a new season!" - Michael Stern

Saturday night (last night as I write this) was the first concert of the new season of the Kansas City Symphony. Once again, my mom (Judi) and I are season ticket subscribers and we have the same seats at Helzberg Hall (Lower Grand Tier Left Row AAA Seats 515 and 516). I love the side view from these seats. The sound is still excellent, but we get to see the expressions of the conductor more than if we were in the center of the Hall.
Fall is here. My kids have both returned to college....the house is very quiet again. My wife is back to work (she's a 5th grade teacher). Kids everywhere are back to school. Football season is here, and baseball is getting close to postseason play. The weather is still warm, but the days are shorter and the light from the sun is beginning to move farther away from us."But the days grow short when you reach September." - September Song
I was really looking forward to the start of the new symphony season. With all of the changes happening around me, I have been feeling a bit blue lately. These regular doses of live music mean so much to me. The chance to spend time with my family on these occasions is equally special. I usually go with my mom to 3-4 of the concerts, she takes her sister to one, and I take Cheryl to the others. In addition, there are usually 3-4 concerts that are not in our series that I want to see every season, so we pick up tickets at the box office for these additional performances. These outings bring us together and surround us with the great music and people all year long.
Frank Byrne, the Executive Director of the KC Symphony, started things off by welcoming us all back for the new season. This is Mr. Byrne's last season as Executive Director, a position he has held since 2002. He announced his retirement in May and he will be truly missed. Under his leadership, the Kansas City Symphony has established itself as one of the most financially sound and artistically gifted orchestras in the nation. I have always appreciated the sincerity and warmth he brings to his pre-concert announcements, as well as his infectious passion and enthusiasm for the music and the musicians of this orchestra. I think I can speak for everyone in the audience when I say, he makes us feel at home in Helzberg Hall.
Saturday's performance began with a rousing rendition of the Star Spangled Banner. (Neither my mom nor I took a knee...nor did any of the musicians or audience members in case you were wondering.) We all stood proudly.
Maestro Stern then made his entrance and he too took a moment to welcome us back for the new season. He has such a great rapport with the audience and he makes it feel like he truly cares about each one of us. He also has a wonderful sense of humor.
Maestro Stern explained the thoughts behind the programming of this concert. Dancing is the central theme...Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances, Aaron Jay Kernis' New Era Dance, and Beethoven's Triple Concerto in C major (the final movement is a polonaise based on a Polish dance.)
I had never heard the New Era Dance, so I was looking forward to it. At only six minute long, it is a furiously paced, almost helter skelter rhythmic extravaganza. Tons of percussion, sirens, whistles and musicians chanting are just a few of the many elements in this piece. This got the concert off to a very fun start.
Next on the program was the Beethoven Triple Concerto. I must confess that I had not heard this piece until the day before when I listened to it for the first time at home. Former concertmaster of the KC Symphony, Noah Geller, was joined by our current Principal cellist, Mark Gibbs, and pianist Sean Chen, as the soloists. As soon as the downbeat was given, they were off and running with unbridled enthusiasm. Geller was dancing as he played, Gibbs, though seated, was swinging and swaying, and Chen was also bopping about on his piano bench. Logistically speaking, this seems like a difficult piece to pull off. When there is only one soloist, balance and coordination between the orchestra and soloist can be very challenging. But with three soloists, it must be three times as hard. Stern had his work cut out for him, especially with his back to the three soloists. Chen also had his back to Gibbs and Geller, and he was frequently stealing glances behind him to make sure they were still there...which they were. Each soloist displayed technical mastery of their respective instrument. Geller and Chen also had outstanding intonation and tone. There is a "pocket" that musicians have to find with respect to tempo when they play together. It is not a rigid metronomic absolute...there is a bit of wiggle room that allows the musicians to gel..they can push the temp together or they can pull it back if they want. So long as they stay together, the music will work. These three guys found the pocket and the orchestra did not get in their way, which is their job.I felt like the tempi in the Beethoven were really a lot of fun.
The orchestra played with light touches...it was not too heavy nor ponderous. And the overall balance was just right.
Following the Beethoven, the three soloists played a very jazzy piece as an encore. I could not hear Sean Chen's announcement of the piece they were playing...so I don't know what it is, but it had a jazzy-ragtime feel to it. Very fun. Very danceable.
Intermission at Helzberg Hall is also a special part of the evening. There are bars all throughout the place stocked with beer, wine, cocktails as well as coffee and cookies. Our usual treat is a cold glass of wine. Cheers.

We talked about the first half of the program and enjoyed people watching while we sipped our wine. The audience at these concerts is very eclectic. One sees people of all ages, styles and backgrounds. I am especially happy to see so many young people coming to these concerts. They are critical for the future support of the performing arts in this, and all communities.
Before the second half started, Maestro Stern once again took the microphone and spent a few moments welcoming the newest members of the orchestra. He made a funny comment about how Noah Geller "used" to be his friend...alluding to Geller's departure to the Seattle Symphony after a long run as our concertmaster. I'm sure it is bittersweet to say good-bye to such a good friend and colleague...and after delivering this funny zinger, he made the comment that once you are in the family, you will always be in the family. This really stuck with me. Over the years, Stern has often referred to the musicians of the KCS in terms of family. It comes across in a very genuine way...and even those of us in the audience have this feeling. Week after week, year after year, we attend these concerts and become familiar with the musicians. We feel like we know them to some degree, and develop a real sense of appreciation and admiration for their art.
Another question I did have...my mom and I both noticed this....Maestro Stern made a funny point of needing his glasses to read the list of new musicians this year. But he does not use glasses to see the tiny print of the score while he conducts. What's up with that?
Rachmaninoff would have been pleased by this performance of his Symphonic Dances. First off, he was a genius to include a saxophone in the orchestration. The smooth, velvety tone of the sax in the opening movement is irresistible. I only wish it was used in more than the first movement!
Each section played great in my opinion. Our trumpet section has a very polished, bright tone. They look so calm back there but when they play, the sound shoots out from the stage like a tonal-laser. The horns are so solid. They are the backbone of any orchestra. Our horn section can do the heavy lifting needed, but they are also capable of great touch and tone. The rest of the brass section and our new tuba player are rock-freaking solid.
Woodwinds? Check. Go down the list and you won't find any weakness. Strings? Lush. They would make Nelson Riddle and Gustav Mahler proud. Percussion? We have that too...covered like a blanket.
I am not an expert, and perhaps there were kinks in this opening performance. Just watching the opening week of college and NFL football, you can see it takes time for teams to get into a rhythm. But I did not detect that in the KCS performance this weekend. Entrances and attacks were sharp. Intonation and tone were excellent. Tempi were solid. It seemed to me like they are already in mid-season form. I can't wait for the next concert.

Rachmaninoff made six concert appearances in Kansas City between 1920 and 1938. I wrote about this a few years ago. In case you have not seen it, here is the link.

http://timhazlett.blogspot.com/2014/11/sergei-rachmaninoff-in-kansas-city-and.html

Haydn completed, Coca-Cola a la Grieg, and a profound Mahler 6 for 9/11.

I finished the Haydn listening challenge this past week...I listened to all 104 of his symphonies in consecutive order. What a journey it was. I liked and respected Haydn to start with, but I came away with a much deeper appreciation for his music and the depth of his creativity. I can see why his later works are played most often...they are his deepest and most mature works, in my opinion. But all throughout his career, there are many great melodies and expressive ideas. I had to put much of my other musical interests on hold to get though this process, so I was a bit relieved that it was over....but not really.

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Once again, the music of Edvard Grieg is being featured in a national advertising campaign. And no surprise, it is "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from his Peer Gynt Suite (1867). Here is the television ad;

And the irony here is that it is possible, however remotely, that Edvard Grieg actually drank a Coke. Coca-Cola was first sold in 1886 in Atlanta. It was first brought to England on August 31, 1900, albeit a very small quantity was available. Grieg made many trips to England between 1862 and 1906. Who's to say that he didn't have a Coke while he was there in 1906?!?

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As we reflect today on 9/11, I am listening to a CD that is quite extraordinary. 

This stunning performance of Gustav Mahler's Sixth Symphony was first recorded on September 12, 2001. I heard this CD for the first time a couple of years ago, and not in September. I have many Mahler 6 recordings, but this is one is special. Not only because of the performance, but also the circumstances surrounding it. As I read the liner notes and I saw the dates it was recorded, I was floored.... How could the musicians and the audience deal with such an emotional piece of music the day after the 9/11 attacks? The Mahler Sixth is known as the "Tragic" Symphony. It was scheduled to be performed and recorded live in Davies Hall in San Francisco from Sept 12-15, 2001. But then the world changed....There were discussions about canceling these performances in light of the tragedy, but it was decided to go forward. When I listened to this recording a second time, knowing these circumstances, it took on an even more emotional dimension. Here is what Michael Tilson Thomas wrote about the Mahler 6:

Mahler Symphony No. 6 in A Minor

"Composers before Mahler had been great and expressive communicators, but no one is less guarded than he in his emotions and in the intensity of what he asks us to experience with him. His Sixth Symphony is a work of enormous exploration, of testing musical limits. Here Mahler has pushed his technical abilities as a composer and his perceptual boundaries as a human being. His first audiences were shocked and frightened by this new kind of soul-baring music. He himself was so unnerved by what he had done in his Sixth that he was in tears at the first rehearsals. The Sixth looks unflinchingly at the obsessive, destructive nature of man, the unremitting capacity of humankind to hurt itself. In its final pages, it regards destiny and realizes there will be no mercy. But there is more than despair in these pages. There is utter honesty, humor, tenderness, and, in the third movement, homage to the power of love. Mahler said that a symphony should mirror life. His entire symphonic output is a testament to that belief, and nowhere did he realize this credo so powerfully as in his Sixth Symphony. In listening to the frenzy and sorrow of this music, it is difficult to grasp how someone experiencing these feelings could write them down. Mahler himself doubted that he could compose this and maintain his sanity. But the Sixth is an extraordinary example of his desire to communicate, his need to tell others that they were not alone in experiencing the existential terror that has so sadly become a part of modern life. The need to communicate was, ultimately, what brought him through the process of composition, and what enabled him to write this Herculean piece. It is his faith and commitment to the comforting and transforming power of music that has inspired us in giving this performance and that we hope will be felt by our listeners."

—Michael Tilson Thomas, from liner notes

A review in Gramophone Magazine said this as well:

"In the shock and confusion on the day after 9/11, once the sound of Mahler's anguish reached out from the stage, there was no one among the musicians or the audience staying outside, looking in. An instant community was born, it coalesced in experiencing the pain and beauty of the Sixth. There were tears, but also a temporary closure, a tentative catharsis."

The power of music to heal, to unite, and to inspire is undeniable. This is a supreme example of that. 

Synthesizers, Childhood Memories, Carlos, Vangelis, Bernstein, and Haydn

First a Haydn update as I listen to his symphonies in order from 1-104.I am currently on no. 91. Since my last update, the symphony that has stood out has been no. 83 "The Hen." The fourth movement (Finale. Vivace.) has a wonderful passage of power chords that starts here at the 2:00 mark. Exhilarating.

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I had one of those rare, powerful musical moments this week...hearing music that goes deep inside of you, that recalls another time of your life perhaps...distant memories...love. Powerful stuff.
I was in a bar with colleagues after a long day of work. It was an '80's themed place. Video games lined the walls, games like PAC-MAN, Super Mario Bros. and Atari. Movies from the '80's were projected on a big screen (no sound) and music from the '80's was played over the sound system. So there we were, having a drink and enjoying the vibe of this cool bar. It was pretty crowded, and the talking made it hard to hear the music clearly, but all of a sudden, rising above the din of the people, I heard music that instantly got my attention. I felt like I knew what it was...I had heard it before...but I couldn't recall the artist nor the title. I pulled my phone out of my pocket and went to SoundHound, an App that identifies music...all you do is hold it near the speaker and let it listen and it will tell you what you are hearing. I walked around the place trying to help it hear the music, but there was too much noise in the bar for it to hear what was playing. I stood there listening, trying to recall what it was...I was sure I knew it. It was from my youth. But I could not remember it. And then it was gone.
And so began the quest to find out what it was. I went to the bar and asked the bartender where they got their music. She said it was Pandora...they had a business license. She may have thought I was on patrol for ASCAP. I explained to her that I wanted to know what song had just played. And to my surprise, behind a crowded bar, she pulled a tablet from below and logged into Pandora. I had a hard time hearing her, but she said something about Timecop1983 and Miami Nights. I made a note of this in my phone and thanked her. When I got back to my hotel room, I started searching. I had not heard of either one of these...I assumed they were artists, not songs. Timecop1983 is in fact a current artist who makes '80's inspired music. I found a lot of it on YouTube, Pandora and Spotify...but I still did not have the song I had heard in the bar. So over the next few days, I streamed and searched...and searched and streamed...until finally, three nights later while I was in bed reading A Tale of Two Cities and listening to Pandora, I finally heard it again. Mystery Solved! It was a song called Childhood Memories by Timecop1983.

It is not a song from my youth. It was released in 2014 when I was 49. I was so sure it had come from that period in my life called the early '80's when I was an adolescent. I was sure it was from 1983, the year I started college...the year I met my wife and fell in love. The year so many new things happened.

Synth-music, or Synth-pop is the genre of Childhood Memories. And Synth is short for Synthesizer. The synthesizer has been around a long time now and is very well established in many different forms and genres. I won't go into the history of it's development too much, but Robert Moog is generally regarded as the pioneer of the synthesizer as a musical instrument. By the mid-1960's, composers and musicians were experimenting and recording with his creation. One particularly notable composer who collaborated with Moog was Walter Carlos who had been a student at Columbia University in New York. He and Moog worked together to develop and refine Moog's synthesizer. In 1968, Carlos recorded the album Switched on Bach, a groundbreaking effort of Bach's music played on the Moog Synthesizer. It won the Grammy Award in three categories, including Classical Music Album of the Year. Here is a video clip of Leonard Bernstein in 1969 introducing the Moog Synthesizer playing the music of Walter Carlos.

This week we celebrated the 100th anniversary of Leonard Bernstein's birth. In my opinion, no American has had a greater impact on music in our culture than he did. He was truly an American treasure.

And now an important follow-up. Walter Carlos does not exist anymore. Walter is, and has been, Wendy Carols for almost as long as the synthesizer has been in existence. In 1968, Walter began her gender transition from a man to a woman. Her story is a fascinating one.

http://www.wendycarlos.com/

In 1971, Wendy Carlos collaborated with Stanley Kubrick for the film A Clockwork Orange. Here is the opening scene of that film that features the music of Handel adapted for and played on the synthesizer by Wendy Carlos.

By the late 1970's, synthesizer technology had advanced and it was fully established as a "musical instrument." In 1981, the composer Vangelis composed music for a great film called Chariots of Fire which won the Academy Award for Best Picture and Best Original Score. I think we all know this piece:

A year later (1982) Vangelis wrote the music for another great film...a favorite of mine, The Year of Living Dangerously. I like this even better than Chariots of Fire.

Brian Eno recorded an album in 1975 called Another Green World, which features synthesizers and is one of my favorite records of all time. Here is a track called The Big Ship.

A good friend of mine from high school, Jerry Smith, turned me on to Another Green World in 1983. In 2018, just this week, he introduced me to the music of Karen Dalton, a folk-blues singer who began her career in the 1960's. This is a fabulous song that was released in 1971. Her voice is one-of-a-kind. And there is a great violin on this cut which is called Something On Your Mind...but no synthesizers.

I expect that by the time I post again, I will have completed listening to all of Haydn's Symphonies in order. I have enjoyed this exercise immensely. I knew Haydn was a great composer before I started this. I have played several of his symphonies and his Violin Concerto no.1 in C major. But this experience has led me to appreciate his genius and creative output even more.

Back to synthesizers for a moment. I am first and foremost a fan of acoustic instruments. But when used by creative people, I do love what electronic instruments can offer as well.

Isaac Stern in Kansas City

Any list of the greatest violinists of all time would surely have Isaac Stern on it...perhaps number one. As a child, I remember hearing a recording of his Beethoven Violin Concerto. It was a pivotal moment for me at an early age. This was music that spoke to me. Certainly the composer....but the artist as well. Such sound. I was smitten.
I never got to see Isaac Stern play live. He passed away in 2001 and left an incredible legacy as an artist and a human being. In his book My First 79 Years, he shared a list of cities where he played recitals shortly after his debut at Carnegie Hall in 1943. Kansas City was one of the cities he played, along with pianist Alexander Zakin. I have not been able to pinpoint the date of his first appearance here in my hometown, but I did find a review of his appearance in KC from October 11, 1950. Here is the review from the Kansas City Times:

VIOLINIST TO NEW HIGH

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FRITSCHY AUDIENCE IS ENTHRALLED BY ISAAC STERN

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An Infinite Variety of Styles Is Displayed on Program Which Shows True Musicianship.

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     Isaac Stern, violinist, elevated himself another big notch in the esteem of Kansas Cityians, in a brilliant concert last night at the Music Hall that opened the Walter Fritschy series.

     The violinist proved again that he has no peer in the blend of sensitive musicianship and artistic abandon that are his trademarks. his program, a mixture of the untrite and familiar, enthralled an audience of 2450 persons.

Bach Selection is First

     The infinite variety of styles that are part of his artistry was exploited. The program began with the Bach Partita in E Minor, performed with poise and expressiveness that mesmerized the students of Bach in attendance, even if the general reaction of the audience lacked fervor. This restraint lessened as Mr. Stern went on to play the Brahms Sonata No. 1 in G Major, which ingratiated with the lyric appeal of its adagio movement and the extra dimension of depth.

     Sharing with Mr. Stern in superb readings of these opening works, and the Vieuxtemps Concerto No. 5 on A Minor, that excitingly completed the first half of the program, was Alexander Zakin, whose expressive interpretations matched those of his violinist colleague.

     Mr. Stern's almost limitless reserves of technical facility were brought into play in the concerto. Its complexities place it in the category of violinistic war horses, but Mr. Stern, even as he shredded some of the hairs of his fast-flying bow in the magnificent cadenza, made no concessions to its difficulties.
     Turning to the modern idiom in the second half, the 30-year old violinist, who stands now as one of the finest of our day, introduced a little-known contemporary work of Franz Reizenstein, the Prologue and Danse Fantasque. It was a work of some inventive skill, semi-dissonant color and little melodic allure.
     The violinist's final group was a succession of beautiful and breath-taking episodes, first of which was the Ernst Bloch "Nigun," which was invested with ethereal splendor and deeply moving cadences. Then came a swift-paced "Perpetual Motion" of Novacek, with a sparkling violin rhythmic figure of three against one. The Szymanowski "La Fontaine" a "Arethuse" was introspective and hauntingly lovely. The final "Caprice Basque" or Sarasote, with plucked string accompaniment to the leading melody, was delivered with muted harmonic effect.

An Encore from Ballet

     Persistent applause brought the violinist and pianist back fro two extra numbers, a transcription of the Two Dances from Prokofieff's ballet music to "Romeo and Juliet," and the popular "Hora Staccato."

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Here is a recording of the Szymanowski piece that Isaac stern played on October 11, 1950 in KC. I think its great.

Haydn still happening, Pyramids of Pop, Time of Change, and a Saxophone with the Royal Hawaiian Band.

First, a brief Haydn update. As I make my way through all of his Symphonies, from 1 to 104, I just passed 78. The opening movement of no. 64 stood out as uniquely gorgeous. They are all great in their own way.

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I recently attended a Leadership Conference for work...an annual event for training and professional development. We met in Florida at a beautiful resort, and we were well fed...it seems there is always food around. And refreshing beverages too. Mountains of pop, soda, soft drinks, Coke....whatever you call it.

Everywhere you looked there were drink stations stocked with these cans. Everywhere. They were part of the meeting. "Hello Coke. Nice to see you Sprite. How's it going Diet Coke?" All day long...every meal. I'm surprised I didn't crawl in bed at night and roll over next to a red can.

I used to love soft drinks. As a child, they were a treat. They were not with us at the dinner table...nor any other table for that matter There was not a vending machine on every floor of every building. They were not in my school. I badgered my mom to buy soda pop, but she seldom did. Funny story..or memory...As a child, we lived in Paris during the Summer of 1972. My dad had a Research grant at the Paris-Sorbonne University. He took us to Paris with him, and every morning when he went to work, my mom dragged me and my sister to the Louvre...or so it seemed. She also took us to many of the other incredible museums...but I seem to remember going to the Louvre the most. We took the Metro and usually packed a lunch. One morning, she had packed a lunch, and with it was a one of those 32 oz bottles of Coke with a screw top. A real treat.

As we rode the train on the way to the Louvre, we heard a loud bang. We thought someone had been shot. Then we saw Coke squirting everywhere. Somehow, the top of our Coke bottle had popped off. Everyone on the train looked at us with both relief and consternation. I was bummed that our Coke was escaping its bottle and squirting everywhere.

When we got back to the US, there was a commercial running that I'm sure most of you remember...the groundbreaking Coke ad featuring  the "I'd like to teach the world to sing" song. A brilliant ad campaign. And a Trojan horse. This song of inclusion that celebrated our diversity was in fact a calculated and brilliantly successful way for Coke to become a part of our households in a way we could never have predicted. And now its everywhere we turn. Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Diet Coke, Dr. Pepper....all of it....By the 1980's all of these drinks were a part of our families. And with it came the obesity epidemic...the diabetes epidemic...And I was right there drinking it left and right. I had no idea as a young person what it was doing to my body. I stopped drinking it, except for special occasions, about 20 years ago. Root Beer is still a favorite of mine, but I only have 1-2 per year.

Last month, my wife told me she had watched a movie called What the Health. It's make a very convincing argument that a plant based diet is far better for our health than a diet that includes meat and dairy. I stopped eating meat 10 years ago, so I had that part down, Why? Everyone in my family has either had or died of cancer. My mom is five years past surviving a breast cancer battle. My dad died of leukemia. Three out of my four grandparents died of cancer. Two of my great grandparents died of cancer.  My grandmother's sister had cancer. My mom's brother died of cancer. My mom's sister just fought a cancer battle. 

My friend Pat was already a vegan when I met him ten years ago. He turned me on to The China Study. I read it and decided I needed to do something to try and avoid what seemed inevitable. I was in my early '40's at that time. Giving up meat is a decision I have not regretted. I lost 10 pounds, had more energy than ever and started running 4-5 marathons a year. But I still ate seafood, butter, and cheese. Giving those loves up seemed crazy. Well, now I am a month in to the crazy. So far I really don't miss eggs, which used to be part of my breakfast every day. I do miss cheese more often. But when I did relax last week and have a couple of slices of cheese pizza...within a couple of hours I felt foggy, sluggish and listless. It is not easy. I am the freak amongst most of my friends and family. "He doesn't eat meat. He's a VEGAN now." Crazy. We'll see.

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Speaking of freaks...let's talk about saxophones. Adolphe Sax developed this wonderful instrument in the 1840's. It is a standard instrument in the jazz, blues, and popular-music world. But it has a complicated history in the classical music world. Even though Berlioz, Bizet, Mussorgsky, Gershwin, Villa-Lobos, Rachmaninoff and Glazunov, to mention a few, wrote for the sax, it was slow to become accepted. As a lover of jazz, especially John Coltrane, I am baffled by this, but it is what it is. None of them could see far enough into the future to see what an entire section of saxes could achieve...thank you Duke Ellington, Paul Whiteman, and others. But of course, John Coltrane....yes him....

Everyday, I read the Kansas City Daily Journal from 1896 for the same day of this year. In August of that year, the Royal Hawaiian Band and Glee Club were touring the United States and spent two weeks playing here in Kansas City. The leader of the band was named J.S. Libornio, who was also a saxophone player. This brief article from August 13, 1896 tells us just how well he played this "new" instrument. Well before Coltrane or Rollins.. the Miller or Ellington or Kenton Bands....the Royal Hawaiian Band brought the saxophone into the spotlight. He was the "Hawaiian Sousa."