9/11/11

Following the events of September 11, 2001, I found myself unable to stop thinking about the destruction of the Towers and the suffering that happened there. The idea of lives extinguished in the most horrifically painful way took over my consciousness. I played my first solo recital as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Richmond on September 23, 2001. At that point, I still couldn't stop thinking of planes striking great structures. Those images changed my way of hearing and interpreting my repertoire on that occasion, and I prefaced the concert by saying so. The program was Bach's E Flat Minor Prelude from the first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier, Debussy's prelude "The Sunken Cathedral", Liszt's Petrarch Sonnet 104, and the F Minor Sonata of Brahms. I added "A Mighty Fortress is Our God" as a closing meditation.

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When I first heard about the second plane, it seemed inevitable to me that we would respond to these events by going to war. As I experienced my shock and grief at what happened on that day, and as I reflected on its impact on my own understanding of my art, I thought that 9/11 would be the defining event for my generation of artists in the United States. Perhaps that has come to pass, but so much has happened since 9/11 that has moved us away from the grief and, in some ways, away from the possibility of healing, that I'm not sure if 9/11 itself has become the theme I expected it to be.

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While watching footage from that day this weekend, my sense of the immense grief of 9/11 was renewed, although I still can't get myself to accept (for more than a few moments at a time) that those events really happened . I accept them as facts of history, but the parts of my mind and heart that could try to feel the maginitude of their human significance seem inaccessible to me. This has generally been my experience of grief: at some point, my system simply stops trying to make sense of what has happened. Maybe that's what is meant by "acceptance." But when I closely observe my inner workings, I haven't accepted anything. I just don't seem to have the capacity to grieve non-stop indefinitely.

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I played Bach's F Minor Prelude from the second book of the Well-Tempered Clavier for offertory at church on this tenth anniversary of 9/11. As I prepared and as I played, I thought a bit about "Why Bach?" and as we drove to church, I noted that I was not the only one who turned to Bach on this day. As names were read at Ground Zero, Bach was played on the flute.

Why Bach? For me, it's not because of his context or some detail of his biography. While those things may affirm my faith and assure me that the human experience and the experience of art transcend any single time and place, what I discovered in the midst of the living and researching of playing the music is that somehow Bach's music is a gift from God. It ministers to us, and we intuitively turn to it at times like this. As such a gift, it seems to be able to convey the pain of the individual as well as the grief of the entire race while also sounding a note of hope.

As I played, I realized that my generation can find an authentic voice in interpreting our work, our music, and the great classics of our civilization in light of 9/11. No other generation can do this and noone can define what it is to do this but us. Perhaps this is a profound truth that each generation learns. As Fleisher puts it, the structure of the musical work is a vessel into which we pour our feeling.

As I grieve and seek to console others at the piano, I learn afresh how to phrase, how to wait, how to aspire, and how to end.

Music!

Reading C.S. Lewis on the problem of animal pain this morning - excellent and serendipitous preparation for teaching a lesson on the very poignant "Little Shepherd" from Debussy's Children's Corner.

Driving to and from school today, listening to the last movement of Beethoven's fifth piano concerto - marvelous imagination and variety expressed with basic scales and triads!

Now I'm watching an episode of The Incredible Hulk. Great soundtrack in this series: sensitive reiteration of a handful of motives in a range of settings, and played beautifully by live musicians. Joe Harnell's "Lonely Man" theme from the closing of the show.

Chowan Pianofest 2009

Chowan Pianofest was this weekend and consisted of three concerts. The first was a lecture-recital about which I have commented at length on the Skinner Anthology Blog.

On Saturday night, we presented our first-ever Pianofest ensemble concert. Chowan piano majors joined our guest pianist, Ariel Dechosa, to perform duets I wrote specifically to show off some of the students' strengths and interests. I joined Ariel for Gottschalk's arrangement of the William Tell Overture, and my colleague Paula Pressnell and I played duets by Beethoven and Dvorak. Mrs. Pressnell also played Haydn's Sonata No. 52 in her characteristically well-planned, remarkably clear, and quick fashion.

Another interesting aspect of the program was the opening sequence of solo works. My student, Terrell Batten, performed the famous Bach Prelude in C Major from the Well-Tempered Clavier Book I, followed by Chopin's Prelude in C Minor. After those two works, another student, Josiah Antill, performed James M. Guthrie's Prelude in C Minor that explores aspects of the Bach and Chopin Preludes simultaneously.

I was very pleased with my students' work on this concert. Each one entered into the project earnestly and seriously. Mark Puckett showed fine technical and musical discipline in Grieg's Ase's Death and Debussy's Dr. Gradus ad Parnassum. Terrell conveyed a moving personal connection with the music he played, and Josiah played the last movement of Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata with good variety of sound while maintaining a steady sense of momentum.

On Sunday afternoon, Ariel Dechosa presented a concert including the third sonata of Brahms and the sixth of Prokofief. Ariel played the Brahms with beautiful focus and made a number of the transitions in the work sound profoundly right. His performance of the Prokofief was also eye-opening in terms of dexterity, energy, strength, and musicianship. I think there are several amazing facts regarding this work: it was concieved in the first place, concieved for piano, concieved for one person at a piano, and there are people who can play it well!

The juxtaposition of these three concerts that surveyed such a wide range of styles led to excellent discussion in Monday morning's theory class in which students had many thoughtful questions about aspects of piano playing from issues regarding memorization and fatigue to considering patterns like Alberti bass and extended techniques like playing the piano with one's fist or forearm.

One of the ongoing issues is the theme of battle in music. On Friday night, I played Kotzwara's once-popular Battle of Prague. While this piece, written in the late 1700s, seems to have very little in common with the musical vocabulary of Prokofief's Sixth, Ariel noticed many similarities in terms of the representative aspects of both works and the ways one has to maneuver about the keyboard. Dr. Guthrie and I have continued to wonder about the battle genre and about its progress since the Civil War. I've started to entertain the idea of writing a battle piece, but would rather not glorify battle in my work. Battle has become so devastating and impersonal that a work like Penderecki's Threnody for the Victims of Hiroshima might better reflect battle in our age than a more traditional battle narrative.

For archival purposes, a number of Chowan students also did a great job with recording this weekend's concerts, under the supervision of Dr. Guthrie. I'm sure all the pianist participants really appreciate that work.

Father

My father would have turned 78 yesterday. That means he passed away a little over eight years ago. It's very hard to believe it's been that long.



Last night at choir practice we were rehearsing the old American tune "Hark! I Hear the Harps Eternal." Kathy said we are to sing it on All Saints Day.

Part of the text of "Hark! I Hear..." is:
"Souls have crossed before me saintly
to the land of perfect rest
and I hear them singing faintly
in the mansions of the blest."

That first line made me think of my father. Over the years, my mother highlighted his integrity in conversations with me by commenting on aspects of his personality:
"He doesn't have an ulterior bone in his body."
"One thing your father can't stand for is people being mistreated."



My father loved music, especially the music of the church. The song "It Is No Secret" by Stuart Hamblin played a crucial role in his call to ministry. One of his favorite hymns was "When Morning Guilds the Skies." He chose that as a congregational hymn for many of the worship services he planned.

He grew up in the heyday of the big bands. He really knew the history and output of Benny Goodman and Harry James. He also loved the crooners like Dick Haymes. He even wrote and recorded a ballad on a couple of occasions. It's called "The Moonlight and You" and it sounds a little Glenn Miller-esque. I have the 45s.



In terms of classical music, certain works that I played really captured his imagination:

Debussy . . .la cathedral engloutie

Paganini-Liszt E Major Etude

Ginastera Sonata, First Movement

Liszt Dante Sonata


He liked the image of me as a happy young musician playing the opening theme of Kabalevsky's Youth Concerto.

Debussy First Arabesque was a bit of theme for us - a little bit nostalgic - as it was theme music for a short segement about astronomy that appeared on Saturday TV. After I went away to college, he would sometimes hear it and think of how he and I had often looked at the stars together when I was still living at home.

He also identified deeply and personally with the beginning of Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto. In those opening bars he heard the struggle of a hero and his family facing the stormy opposition of the world and fate.



The second movement of Beethoven Sonata Op. 111 conjures up in my mind my father on his hospital bed in our living room during his last summer. During his mostly unconscious last days it was as though his soul was lingering in the room - not necessarily in his body - maybe up near the ceiling. It is that sensibilty that I hear in the Beethoven: sad, beautiful, questioning, floating, and all about the essence of human identity and existence.



Dad and I were good friends.
Maybe I'll learn Op. 111 for him one of these years.