Festival Reflections 2009

Lasker Summer Music Festival 2009 came to a fine conclusion last night.

Every year, participating in the Festival gives me new direction and perspective for the year ahead. Meeting with encouraging and challenging musicians for these few days, performing and discussing how our faith and art relate, and gathering with the intention of sharing and discovering - these things always refresh and redirect me.

This year, I leave the Festival knowing I did some good and elegant playing, and also being reminded that one needs to think seriously about the results one wants in performance and structure practice according to that goal. One ought to ask "What is a reasonable amount of practice given my goal?" For musicians to mature, we need to know how much time needs to be put in to get the desired results.

Dr. Falby presented a probing talk on the experience and meaning of the goosebumps often brought about by listening to music. This refreshed our sense of purpose as deliverers of goosebumps since the musical moment connects the listener with some sense of the transcendent. This talk also provided a framework for the Festival audience members to process and discuss their experiences of the performances.

There were many musical highlights. In fact, the performers provided such a variety of interesting works that items which would have normally stood out as unique became part of the extraordinary fabric.

The work/performance that seemed to create the greatest impression was Paula Pressnell and Ariel Dechosa's performance of Beethoven's Choral Fantasy on two pianos. Before the performance, we may have had questions about the effectiveness of the piece without orchestra or chorus. But the immediate strong response of the audience, as well as their continued discussion of the performance show that:

1. the work can work as a two-piano piece - it becomes a different type of piece, but very effective

2. the work has some innate goodness that is not dependent upon the timbre or size of the performance forces, and

3. of course, the performance was brilliant!

Other personal highlights include Ariel's masterful handling of Prokofief 6th Sonata,
the fun of playing Erik Satie's Sports et Divertissements with Ken Wolfskill's witty narration,
also having fun playing my own Maritime Suite with Kathy,
Josiah Antill presenting and playing his own music so well,
Jim Guthrie's fiddle playing,
Jeremy McEntire's supreme musicianship playing Gluck and Guthrie,
Kathy and Ariel's exquisite performance of Strauss's Allerseelen,
improvisatory work with Tracee, Jeff, Kathy, and Jeremy (Come Ye Sinners Poor and Needy" was a major goosebump experience for me),
our own little revival of Billings's Chester with offstage horn,
Jeff's very refined version of the second of the Liszt Petrarch Sonnets and of course, the superb quality of the high D flat he sang in it . . .
so I liked everything!

It was also a very eventful few days in Lasker beyond these musical
experiences. The air conditioner stopped working in the fellowship hall, so we migrated to Agnes's house for one evening. Beautiful new landscaping was dedicated at the church, and the Methodist church on the outskirts of town had its closing services and ceremony on Sunday.

Piano at Chowan

Classes ended yesterday and piano juries will be held today, so it's time for me to take a look back at the 08/09 year in piano at Chowan.

The main point I have reflected on throughout the year is that it has been a particularly rich year for pianists at Chowan. We have had lots of opportunities to play and hear a huge variety of music and to see many different approaches to playing a piano.

The very first concert at the school this year was a performance of works of Elliott Carter and Olivier Messiean to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the births of those geniuses. This was brought to us by Paul Hanson and Joanne Kong, colleagues of mine from the University of Richnond. What an eye-opening event for one's first concert as a freshman music major! The musical complexity and expression, as well as the technical difficulty of the works they performed, opened a whole new world of music to us. They also provided an excellent powerpoint presentation that made these incredible works more accessible to us.

Joanne Kong played, as always, with an earnestness that drew us close to the composers' hearts and the essence of the music. Her anguished way of inflecting the movement of Messiaen's Vision de l'Amen devoted to the agony of Christ is still etched in my mind seven months later.

Paul Hanson has unlimited technical resources which he deploys with the maximum amount of cool. He's a great model for all of us who sabotage ourselves by overdoing even simple things. He's a fine artist and craftsman who presides over a marvelous unfolding of pianisitic feats, as in Carter's Night Fantasies, without showing the slightest bit of strain or anxiety.

What's more, both were exceptionally professional, cooperative, kind, and flexible throughout their whole visit, which makes them role models well beyond their superb piano playing.

Another big piano event first semester (and one that provided a major stylistic contrast with the Carter/Messiaen event) was the concert of Christian singer/songwriter/pianist Kyle Matthews. Kyle was with us for a couple of days and was very encouraging regarding the value of the work we're trying to do here, as well as sharing with students what his experience has been in the music business. In addition to being warm and open with us, his concert was a tour de force as he accompanied himself for an entire evening of his own moving and spiritually challenging songs.

Our Pianofest guest was Ariel Dechosa who played two massive masterworks on his recital including Prokofief's Sixth Sonata, which is a miracle both by virtue of the fact that a human being concieved it and also because there are people like Ariel who can play it brilliantly.

This year's Pianofest also focused on ensemble playing and featured our students in duets written especially for them and Mr. Dechosa to perform together. Mr. Dechosa and I played a flamboyant William Tell Overture and Mrs. Pressnell and I played a set of more modest Beethoven variations with which I was rather pleased.

And that brings us to the year's faculty performances that included Mrs. Pressnell's continued exploration of the Viennese classical repertoire with a Haydn sonata and Beethoven's Choral Fantasy and my lecture recitals on 19th cetury parlor music in North Carolina and Erik Satie's Sports et Divertissements.

Mrs. Pressnell and I also provided lots of exposure to ways in which pianists make music with other musicians. In the fall, she played an excellent art song recital with our chairperson, Greg Parker. She also plays for most of our students' performances which happen most weeks on our departmental recital as well as at juries, senior recitals, and choral performances.

I played for clarinetist David Niethamer in a concert of Brahms E flat Sonata and the premiere of a big sonata by my colleague, James M. Guthrie. In the spring, soprano Julia Rolwing exposed us to the music of Wagner, and we also did our first performance anywhere of Strauss's Four Last Songs right here at Chowan.

The studio has taken on lots of projects and provided music outside the school on several occasions. In studio class, we surveyed the works of Beethoven first semester and Russian piano music second semester. We also went out for pizza and got acquainted with the pipe organ at First Baptist Ahoskie. Mark, Josiah, and Terrell played for church worship services, revival services, gospel choir, Christmas concerts, Chowan New Music days, performances of their own music, the Undergraduated Research Conference, jazz ensembles, and the first-ever Chowan University Relay for Life Pianothon.

In addition to all these piano activities, Dr. Guthrie made it possible for us to hear Bach and Telemann on harpsichord and an array of music on the virginal. Dr. Guthrie also played a colorful and powerful organ recital at Murfreesboro Methodist, and organist and alumna Fay Monroe shared a worshipful afternoon with us at Murfreesboro Baptist.

Dr. Guthrie also arranged for the NACUSA national conference to take place here at Chowan this year. That was a day full of concerts of new music that included chamber and solo works for pianists as well.

Yet another pianist who spent time with us this year was composer/activist Stefan Waligur who presented his Celtic Mass at FBC Ahoskie around Christmas time. He visited our first-year theory class and asked us a probing question that we should continue asking ourselves:
"What are you doing with your music?"

Beethoven's Choral Fantasy

I have recently joined an exclusive club. In fact, I'm not sure I know any other members. I am pianist who has played the Choral Fantasy as a pianist and as a violist. I know Beethoven also played viola, but I doubt he ever played it in a performance of the Choral Fanatasy.

On Monday night, our Chowan performance season had its great conclusion with the majority of our music students and faculty, as well as a number of members of the Virginia Symphony, performing Schubert's Mass in G Major and Beethoven's Choral Fantasy. These "Masterworks Concerts" are terrific projects that bring the year to a rousing close and expose students and community to grand musical experiences that they can't find anywhere else in our region.

My friend, Jeff Prillaman, sang in the performance and suggested that I write a paper on playing the Fantasy as a pianist on the viola. I might make a more formal presentation of this at some point, but for now, I want to share my experiences here.

I was seated directly behind the piano (on the bass side) and the lid of the piano was off. This was a more more powerful and compelling sonic experiecne than sitting at the keyboard with a board (the music rack) between me and the strings.

Adding to the effect of power was the fact that I was surrounded by sound and the viola vibrated sympathetically in my hands.

From my violistic vantage point, the structure of the opening of the piece became much clearer to me. The opening measure, which I understand as a Beethoven in his monumental defiant mood (but am usually tempted to dismiss as simply a tonic chord) really came to life as Beethoven setting into motion three registers of the piano. The low, middle, and high sounds are clearly experienced as different locations, different choirs, from behind the piano with the lid off.

My use of the term "choirs" just now makes me start to wonder if that is the real meaning of this being a "choral fantasy," not just the fact that it has an actual vocal choir at the end. After all, once Beethoven starts repeating his "Ode to Joy" tune, he organizes the orchestra into choirs of double winds, clarinets, horns, etc. all accompanied by piano, and then there is a choir of vocal solosists, then the full choir.

A couple of details related to the viola part were important to my experience. At one point, Beethoven gives the violists a single note on beat four of a measure that feels early and funny. We violists laughed at the way it felt every time we played it. I doubt that one note is even heard in the context of the whole orchestra, but it's something cute and special Betehoven put there just for the violists.

At another point, there is a very rapid transition from pizzicato to arco. If we are to take this literally as a change that all the violists should make at the same time while playing both the last plucked note and the first bowed note, it has implications for tempo. And it happens at a point at which the piece might really take off. I wonder if this is a spot at which one should take a cue for the tempo from a seemingly obscure detail in the viola part.

There are several tricky transitions I referenced in my last post. In performance, there is a sense of synergy that pulls the group through those transitions even if some of the players are uncertain. Perhaps the piece is enough in our collective consciousness so that as a group we know how it goes, or maybe Beethoven has written in such a way that the tenuousness of some lines dovetails with more certain material in other instruments (but I don't think that's what happens.)

There are many passages that feel and sound very different, and the particular differences leave me thinking that this piece is more for the listeners than for the performers. Some portions feel jumpy and uncertain but sound sublime and like paradise. But a lot of the performers do get to sit around and listen during the piece, so Beethoven includes us as listeners as much as he can.

Finally, the great triplet ascending octave-ish passages in the piano in the presto finale sound very brilliant as if a rocket has been fired up out of the orchestra, but they do not feel brilliant as you play them.

That Tricky Beethoven

Tomorrow night we are performing Schubert G Major Mass and Beethoven Choral Fantasy - two beloved works - on the season-closing Masterworks Concert at Chowan.

The Fantasy has a couple of transitions at which the tempo, and sometimes meter, change very abruptly. One of the transitions is designed to confuse the ear of the listener - which means it can confuse the people playing it as well!

The following quotation from Ignaz von Seyfried, a friend of Beethoven, applies.

But when, especially in the Scherzos of his symphonies, sudden, unexpected changes of tempo threw all into confusion, he would laugh tremendously, assure the men he had looked for nothing else, that he had been waiting for it to happen, and would take almost childish pleasure in the thought that he had been successful in unhorsing such routined orchestral knights.

Research Reflection

It seems to me that a lot of good music research needs to be interdisciplinary. After all, music connects with a wide range of disciplines in a variety of ways. In fact, although we often picture research as being the work of specialists, trying to get a fuller picture of whatever one is researching frequently leads the researcher to acquiring knowledge beyond his or her own field.

Here are the two recent examples that got me thinking about this:

A student is working on a term paper about Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. The text in the symphony is by Schiller. For this student to do a good job with his research, he needs to go beyond what the books about Beethoven 9 say about Schiller to get an idea of the place of this text in his overall output, etc.

I am researching Erik Satie's Sports et Divertissements. I need to give a short presentation for Chowan's Symposium on Monday. My plan was to give a little general background and play a few of the pieces while pointing out what I have noticed about them, mostly from a theory and performance angle. Most of the reading I did was supporting that approach until I discovered an excellent book by Mary E. Brown that points out the fact that the person most responsible for the publication of the piano pieces and the drawings that went along with them had a background in women's fashion magazines, and the whole layout of Sports et Divertissements comes from that realm.

March 6 - 12

A complex, rich, intense week -

Friday: NACUSA national conference at Chowan

This involved many fascinating works and performances including

an airy trio by Harvey Stokes full of scales for all the instruments

my own "Chowan Etudes" played in one of the buildings they are about

Scott Brickman's "Sketches of Maine" which is a musical landscape that grows on me more and more

Andrew Cole's computer music piece "Staring at the Sun" that is a concerto for ping pong ball and also "Sound, Timbre, and Density III" in which the flute (played exquisitely by my friend Jeremy McEntire) wanders through a garden of textures and takes on new hues and moods in each new setting

Jim Guthrie's "Electro-Sonata No. 3" with a speech-derived first movement, bubbly second movement, and an uplifting finale

Joe Alexander's piece for tape and tuba "Infamy" that develops from Roosevlt's famous statement

A fascinating slur technique etude for guitar composed and played by my colleague, Christian Loebs

John Allemeier's "Quiet Music" in which Dillon Savage tamed a cantankerous instrument with the grace and dignity of a real musical gentleman

Jeff Prillaman bringing my new songs to life and making them really work

performing some songs with haunting motives - "A Child's Garden" by Benjamin Williams - with Jeff

and much more

Saturday:

department of music strategic planning retreat

followed by birthday party with non-music colleagues

Kathy fixed chilli and lime tarts for this.

Sunday:

a new sense of vocation as a church musician

and an organ recital by Chowan alumna, Faye Monroe. This was a great reminder of how good some tunes are like Bach's "Be Thou But Near" and "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring."

Then, revival services at Lasker on Sun, Mon, and Tues nights with Chowan students playing special music for the services.

During those days there were edifying and interesting theological views shared:

Lloyd Lee Wilson, a Quaker and our registrar, discussed a technique for learning to listen for God's voice - identify a voice that is not God and tune it out. Then, your life is quieter, and it's easier to discern the next voice that is not God, etc.

Another theologian I know also shared his view of Jesus and the disciples. For various reasons involving the historic and cultural context, he thinks the disciples may have been younger than we tend to picture them - as young as 8 to 10 years old even. These would have been considered young men apprenticing in their fathers' businesses and studying with the rabbi for their bar mitzvahs. It may be a hard idea to accept, but it could explain various misunderstandings and behaviors in the gospels.

Also thinking about practicing these days-

I once heard a mockingbird practicing, I think. Late at night, the bird was rehearsing its repertoire of songs. On each of several repetitions, each song sounded better inflected and more authentic to me. Maybe that's how we people should practice.

A lesson today on Bach E minor Toccata - Classical music is different from most of the music we hear in that it is long term music. It unfolds its ideas over a large span of time. Thus, to play it well, we need to follow the musical argument as it develops. The introduction to the toccata presents an idea which is lifted up and viewed from various angles, and then developed until it culminates in a new idea - the crux of the passage.

All this amidst students and friends struggling, and layoffs all around. It's a good time to pray for everybody.

NCMTA Regional

Today it's cold and rainy - a perfect day to stay in the house with the dog and the cat, eat almonds, and drink spiced tea, which is what I have been doing!

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of adjudicating a division of the Raleigh regional North Carolina Music Teachers Association. I was delighted to hear so many young students who had their music solidly memorized, performed with excellent attention to the various markings on the score from articulations to dynamics, and who did so with distinct personality!

I tried to follow the criteria given on the evaluation form very precisely. The difference between "Superior" and "Excellent" was essentially that the superiors did what the excellents did, only with imagination. That extra spark of imagination, of personal connection with the music, makes you want to listen and causes you to find the playing satisfying and sometimes even surprising.

This was a good refresher course for me in what musical talent really is - physical, mental, and personal.

Specific repertoire notes:

I heard numerous young people play "Jimbo's Lullaby" by Debussy. I was moved by the luminous and tender sonority of the first appearance of the theme every time.

Another piece on the official list was a short Ligeti work which features several sudden changes of musical direction and dynamics. The young people did a great job with it.

I was also struck by how well many of the youngsters played their Baroque selections very well. I usually think of Baroque music as being a big challenege for students because of the counterpoint and the requirement of meticulous attention to fingering. But many of these budding pianists mastered these challenges.

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.

Unexpected Discovery

Tonight, I was exploring recordings of "The Maiden and the Nightingale" by Granados. I'm studying the piece now, which is saturated with performance directions regarding fluctuations of rhythm. I wanted to hear how other pianists have interpreted these and other markings.

There are a lot of good recordings of the piece on-line, but the exciting surprise for me was the discovery of an exceptional pianist I had never come across before. His name was Harry Vooren and was a student of de Larrocha, according to the note on YouTube.

His recording demonstrates playing that is full of details without losing sweep, elegant without losing emotion.

The second post I wrote on this blog back in 2005 just happened to be about the piece "The Maiden and the Nightingale."

Playing/Living Joyfully

Yesterday while practicing, I started wondering about what makes for joyful playing.

Here are some factors that seem to be part of it at times:

a sense of leaping in many phrases

lively articulation

having a sense of moving forward across the barline

and particularly applying that sense of forward momentum through the more thorny sections of a work


This morning, it occured to me that joyful living might share those aspects:

leaping into whatever day or activity is ahead with energy

clearly articulating what it is you are trying to do

staying in motion and moving ahead, especially in rough times


This is another nice example of what Dr. Falby says - everything I know, I know from music.

Seaworld Christmas

My in-laws sent us to Seaworld for Christmas. I enjoyed the day and found it to be a surprisingly musical experience.

Not far into the park, I heard a recording of an all male chorus singing chant. Naturally, that intrigued me. When the third phrase arrived, I started hearing the instrumental accompaniment and recognized this "chant." It was "Winter Wonderland!" Those first two lines really do sound like chant when heard in this way.

Then we took a bridge, not to nowhere, but to Shamu Stadium. This long bridge was lots of fun. There was music playing and several choirs of fountains in the lake responded to some of the music. It was a lovely and energetic water ballet. I also heard a bit of Mannheim Steamroller's version of "Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming" on that trip across the bridge. I've been playing the arrangement myself, and faster than the recorded performance (which I hadn't heard until yesterday). But my tempo was based on the metronome marking in the piano score.

Seeing the really big and smart animals in the Shamu show was very moving. This was more ballet, only with whales.

Shamu was presented as a member of the same family as all of us humans who share the planet, and this made some sense to me because Shamu seems a bit like some giant great-grandmother that many of us visit from time to time. And she lives in Florida.

Crossing the bridge again, we saw a skywriter writing "Jesus loves you" up above.

Later, we heard a good brass quintet called "The Penguins" play various Christmas carols. We enjoyed their playing, their rapport, and their festive costumes. The tubist also did an excellent and heart-wrenching imitation of a melting Frosty the Snowman.

In the evening, we saw Shamu's Christmas celebration. This was kind of the strangest worship service I've attended. I liked the inter-species aspect of this worship. But it was also really designed as a show.

One thing I found truly worshipful was singing Christmas songs along with the five thousand people who were watching the words on giant screens before the show. The calmness and innocence of song hovering over such a group was special. It did make me feel a bit like we were one big family.

Also worshipful was witnessing the cooperation and communication between people and these beautiful animals. That was poignant, too, because I bet there is much more we could say to each other, if only we knew how - more important things than "spin around," etc. But we saw some of the deeper things being said through the loving attitudes of the trainers with the animals.

The end of the show really was over the top: a very loud gospel choir, leaping flames, and jumping whales.

I had different feelings about the jumping of the whales depending on what music I was hearing when the jumping was going on. The upbeat gospel version was the most invigorating whale jumping.

On the way back across the bridge the last time we heard the end of "Sleigh Ride" as well as the Orlando Symphony playing some the sound track for Arctic Express from a distance.

Lowliness

The main thought I have this Christmas is that the Incarnation was the lowliest thing imaginable, and the most beautiful thing.

Merry Christmas to all.

Nutcracker

Yesterday we went to the Richmond Ballet Nutcracker performance, which is always great and great fun. The dancing, costumes, and sets are all beautiful, and there are dancers of all ages and all species (giant rats and a bear).

The Nutcracker provides a fine yearly reminder of the high quality of composer that Tchaikowsky was. Upon hearing his score this time, I was struck by the following.

Tchaikowsky seems like a much better-mannered composer than Wagner or Mahler (whose music I love). Tchaikowsky's music seems cooperative and cultured. Its themes never overstay their welcome, and it can charm us with its Mozartean balance. It's hard to beat that sort if charm. What's more, it is deeply moving without ever blurting out something inappropriate.

While Tchaikowsky's music is sometimes thought of as very emotional, I found it moving more often in a structural way. Its long lines move me like the elegantly engineered expanse of a great bridge.

The orchestra slipped up on me at one moment while I was focused on the dancing. The musical climax at that point, driven by the trombones, gave me the same sort of thrill that orchestral music gave me most of the time when I first started going to lots of live performances. It may be that so much thinking about music, particularly as I listen to it, keeps me from having those experiences as often now. But watching a staged production like a ballet or an opera can get my mind on something else, and the music can bypass my thinking. I recommend the experience for those musicians reading who find themselves in a similar place.

Perhaps the climax of the entire score is the tune that amounts to a descending scale during the grand pas de deux. A descending scale is essentially an ending, and constructing a piece out of endings is one of Rachmaninoff's strategies as in the famous C Sharp Minor Prelude. Maybe he got it from Tchaikowsy. Also, I heard little bits of orchestration throughout the ballet that reminded me a bit of Wagner. I've never looked into any Wagner/Tchaikowsky link. And of course, the descending scale pattern is a prominent leitmotiv in the Ring, representing Wotan's staff and treaties.

Humility and Revelation

This week we saw performances of both the National Players and the North Carolina Symphony here at Chowan.

The Players presented Shakespeare's As You Like It, and as always, I left that performance with refreshed admiration for Shakespeare.

I was also really impressed by the way the actors seemingly selflessly pour themselves into their roles. For the most part, each one seems to seek just the right angle and right amount of energy for their characters. They don't seek to show off talent without regard to the demands of the character and drama at hand. This is really admirable as well, and could prove very instructive for musicians. We are often tempted to over-perform, to put too much or the wrong thing altogether into the musical vessel at hand.

Fleisher speaks of pouring one's musicality and so forth into the musical vessel. His playing also tastefully and compellingly snuggly fits the works he plays. Click here to see Fleisher playing Chopin Nocturne No. 8 on Youtube.

The NC Symphony played many Christmas carol arrangements on their concert. The real revelation was a work by Malcolm Arnold from the film The Holly and the Ivy. Arnold's imagination for orchestration was the star of the evening for me. One passage of particular beauty used oboe solo accompanied by the horns. Another novel passage was "Away in a Manger" played on xylophone accompanied by timpani and other percussion.

The NC Symphony has a great mission of being the symphony for all North Carolinians. They also have a roster of very engaging solosists who appear with them at various locations around the state. Two examples this season are Robert Levin and Marc-Andre Hamelin.

The Truth about Sonata Form

I was on-line this afternoon preparing for my Form and Analysis course. This definition of sonata was the first item that came up in a Google search for sonata and it includes some very important information for practitioners and consumers of classical music to know.

Sonata

What is Sonata?

Sonata is a sedative, also called a hypnotic. It affects chemicals in your brain that may become unbalanced and cause sleep problems (insomnia).

Sonata is used to treat insomnia . . . causes relaxation to help you fall asleep and stay asleep.

Important information about Sonata

Sonata may cause a severe allergic reaction. Stop taking Sonata and get emergency medical help if you have any of these signs of an allergic reaction: hives; difficulty breathing; swelling of your face, lips, tongue, or throat.

Sonata will make you fall asleep. Never take Sonata during your normal waking hours, unless you have at least 4 hours to dedicate to sleeping.

Some people using Sonata have engaged in activity such as driving, eating, or making phone calls and later having no memory of the activity. If this happens to you, stop taking Sonata and talk with your doctor about another treatment for your sleep disorder.

Sonata can cause side effects that may impair your thinking or reactions. You may still feel sleepy the morning after taking Sonata. Until you know how Sonata will affect you during waking hours, be careful if you drive, operate machinery, pilot an airplane, or do anything that requires you to be awake and alert. Do not drink alcohol while you are taking Sonata. It can increase some of the side effects of Sonata, including drowsiness. Sonata may be habit-forming . . . Sonata should never be shared with another person, especially someone who has a history of drug abuse or addiction.


Before taking Sonata, notify your doctor if you have:

liver disease;
sleep apnea
lung disease
a history of depression, mental illness, or suicidal thoughts; or
a history of drug or alcohol addiction.

If you have any of these conditions, you may need a dose adjustment or special tests to safely take Sonata.


The sedative effects of Sonata may be stronger in older adults. Accidental falls are common in elderly patients who take sedatives. Use caution to avoid falling or accidental injury while you are taking Sonata.

Overdose symptoms may include sleepiness, confusion, shallow breathing, feeling light-headed, fainting, or coma.

Sonata side effects

Stop Sonata and call your doctor at once if you have any of these serious side effects:
aggression, agitation, changes in behavior;

thoughts of hurting yourself; or

hallucinations (hearing or seeing things).

Less serious side effects may include:

day-time drowsiness, dizziness, "hangover" feeling;

problems with memory or concentration;

numbness or tingling;

anxiety, depression, nervous feeling;

problems with vision;

headache;

nausea, stomach pain, loss of appetite;

dry mouth;

back pain, joint or muscle pain; or

mild skin rash.

This is not a complete list of side effects and others may occur. Tell your doctor about any unusual or bothersome side effect.

For the original article, click here.

Great Beethoven

I've had two great Beethoven experiences in the last few weeks. I think the case for Beethoven's greatness is no enormous and rich that we sometimes don't even attempt to articulate it for ourselves. We just assume it. But it might be a very good thing to try be able to explain to people who are on the outside of the classical music world who might wonder what makes Beethoven so great.

In our form and analysis class, we've been considering how the whole is greater than the sum of the parts when it comes to multi-movement works. Over the course of the semeser, we've been building the skills to be able to really appreciate that truth. We listened to the first movement of the "Moonlight" Sonata and noted all the ways Beethoven gives us hope and then takes it away throughout the movement. The first phrase modulates from minor to relative major, only to slip right back into minor. We achieve relative major again, only to see it flattened into its parallel minor. The bass line reaches to its lowest point with a tritone - our most unstable interval. Then, the right hand spirals up and down in diminished chords that cause us to loose track of the meter and of where the descent will stop - ungrounded drifting. Finally, most of that happens again!

After that first movement, the second movement can sound surreal with its perky syncopations and carefree mood. Alone, it would be charming. After hearing the first movement, it can be incongruous, unsettling, or inappropriate. It leaves us with more questions than answers, and so we need the boiling and turbulent final movememnt. (I wonder if second movements following slow first movements tend to create more tension or inconguity as a rule.)

Most aspects of what I've described are so effective because Betehoven is playing with our expectations and our human nature. Thus, the music jumps into us, and we can't think of it as something outside and separate from ourselves.

Yesterday we spent some time with the Fifth Symphony. This work involves two of the big ideas of the Romantics: cyclic organization (the four-note motive comes back throughout the symphony) and evolution. This aspect of evolution, which permeates Mahler's works, is most obvious in Beethoven's orchestration. When transitioning between the two main themes in the exposition, Beethoven reiterates his motive in the horns. In the recap, it's a bassoon. He also adds an oboe cadenza in the middle of his first theme in the recap, and gives the second theme new color with woodwinds instead of strings.

Several weeks ago, we heard Awadagin Pratt perform Beethoven Fourth Concerto with the Virginia Symphony. I'm proud to have gone to school with Awadagin. His playing always strikes me as the playing of someone with real perspective. As he plays, you feel like he grasps whatever the music is about and has grasped it through living himself. The way he plays also causes the listener (at least this listener) to more thoroughly hear and register the work he's playing. I find myself still thinking of the way he played certain phrases weeks after the performance. And the way he played those phrases ultimately drove the nature of those phrases deeper into my mind. The rhythmically driven passages were compellingly played and the wandering passages were, once again, played with real knowing. The rubato he applied to the arching, yearning phrases of the second movement was also unforgettably meaningful and moving.

On the same concert, we heard the Eroica. On this hearing, I mostly found myself admiring the scope of Beethoven's vision - another part of his greatness.

Fall and Mannerism

It's a lovely fall day in Murfreesboro - muted but colorful foliage, a little drizzle, and cool. I think living in M'boro is about as close to living in a charming New England town as one can get in North Carolina. We have lovely nature as I just described, history, old homes, and lots of individualists.

Now about mannerism:

I had a funny thought teaching yesterday. I was explaining some basic aspects of Mannerist art such as in works of El Greco in painting or Gesualdo in music. These include distortion, exageration, and jarring juxtapositions, all for dramatic effect. It struck me as I said those things that I had pretty much just described a political ad!

Sad News

I was just sent this link regarding the death of Moshe Cotel.

Moshe Cotel was our orchestration teacher at Peabody. A fascinating pianist and a composer, Mr. Cotel made an important journey from the religion of classical musician to being a rabbi.

I didn't know him well, but I did admire him, and in the last year I have been intrigued by a series of concerts he has been presenting regarding "a Jewish life in classical piano." I had been thinking about inviting him to play for us here at Chowan some time in the next few years.

My one personal story related to Cotel is as follows and it is a poignant memory of the last time I saw him.

When I lived in New York, I took a lot of afternoon walks in Riverside Park. Most of those walks consisted of me wandering, contemplating, imagining, musing, praying, seeking to understand my life. On one of these walks, I saw a man in a blue pea coat that reminded me of Cotel, and as we got closer, it turned out to be him. He asked about my life since Peabody and was calm-spirited and kind. As we parted ways, I felt that his Riverside walk may have been the same sort of walk I was having.

Knowing he's no longer in it makes the world seem a little less complete.

Moments and Sound

Walking to school this morning I noticed the frost on the roof of the Columns for the first time. The sight took me back to the early days of the school when students and faculty lived and studied there. For a moment it was a picturesque bit of imagining.

Then I reminded myself of the hardships and uncertainties of 19th century life. I pictured faculty breaking some bad news to a student in a cold, candlelit room. I pictured the outburst that would have occurred in that horrible moment.

Our experience of life and the meaning of events often sink in or are expressed during specific moments. The expanse of day after day might leave little of note in our memories, but a single moment packed with significance can vibrate and consume us for years.

Sometimes music is designed that way. Composers like Schumann or Chopin or Prokofiev specialize in moments. Sometimes the structure or the integrated quality of their works might not seem to hold up under close scrutiny, but their very profound goal might very well be to convey moments that are full of character.

Another musical thought -

Some passages seem to be designed to focus us on sound - not its organization or where the music is going - only the beauty of the sounds we are hearing. And I'm not referring to passages in the music of Impressionists and more recent composers. A bit of Beethoven's Third Concerto started me thinking abot this. Today I noticed that the "Amen" of the Credo in Palestrina's Missa Pape Marcelli is also a moment of glorying in sound.

Greg Parker - voice recital

Last night, Dr. Parker (our departmental chairperson) gave a fine recital.

The thing I like most about Dr. Parker's singing is his musicality. He takes care with many musical details that quite a few other singers would simply ignore. In this way, his way of singing reminds me of Murray Perahia's piano playing. Perahia always expresses the music thoroughly, and to do so, he does a lot of things that are hard to do and that other pianists don't bother with. This extra care makes all the difference. We might say it really makes the performance into art.

The most memorable moments of the night for me were songs of Faure and Finzi that are such deep contemplations of love and loss. Those deep moments refreshed my sense of the value of classical music for humanity.

Finzi's set Let Us Garland's Bring continues to impress me in that the music works so well with the texts. I think it must be very hard to write music for Shakespeare's texts that doesn't sound superfluous.

I'm grateful for arriving at fall break with a greater sense of purpose and an understanding of what it means to teach here and how to go about it. I am really pleased with the quality of my colleagues in the music department. Each one offers very high quality work, and I believe that our students have a great opportunity to learn because of the team that has been assembled here.

Sad

I'm feeling a little sad today.

Last night was my performance with clarinetist David Niethamer here at Chowan. David is a great clarinetist and a friend for several years. This performance was the last of two. I should have planned more! We've been aiming to do some concerts together for a couple of years now, and these two concerts were the culmination of that. I'm sad in part because that collaboration is over for now. We hope to work together again in the future.

I'm also sad that I didn't do the best I could in this final performance. Whether it sounded good or not is one issue, but I'm not thinking of that right now. What I'm unhappy about is that I could have done better, and I know how I could have done better.

Many times when I perform I am reminded of basic lessons that I never seem to learn and apply!

Here are some of them:

Have a clearly articulated plan for yourself and your performance.
This plan should include specific directions that you need to hear everytime you play a given work as these diections are precautionary measures that can head off big problems. For example, it is much better to start the third movement of Jim Guthrie's Clarinet Sonata too slow than too fast!

Don't allow yourself to be distracted by anything short of a medical emergency or a hazardous happening. While you want to relate to the audience, their presence and behavior should not distract you from the task at hand. And what is going on inside of the performer should also not be a distraction to the performer. Thoughts of who is listening, desires to impress, emotions or attempts to display emotion, etc. can all short circuit achievement in performance.

More and more I find that my goal ought to be to think and behave professionally, and to sound professional. That is the best I can do. If I do that well, I think music and the audience will be served. I also think that is how I can do my work "as unto the Lord." Offering my very best effort seems to be what that biblical injuction is all about for me.

As I walked Sophie (our dog) this morning, I thought about how beautiful the campus and the surrounding woods are. It was a foggy morning, and that drew me into being more sensitive than usual to the effects of color and light. That experience was rich in beauty. It made me emotional. But there was no emotion in the fog, in the trees, in the light.

As those of you who read this blog regularly know, I struggle with the place and meaning of emotion in the performance. Today it seems clear to me that me exhibiting emotion in performance is not necessarily the same thing as listeners having an emotional experience through my performance. They might experience my emotions, but I want them to experience their emotions.

Sometimes we approach performance is if it's a competition to see who can demonstrate the strongest emotions. Put that way, it seems very odd.

It may even be appropriate to keep some sort of objectivity in performance. Visibly empathizing with whatever emotion we think is in a work might compromise our independence and send that same compromised vibe into the audience. The musical object is beautiful and I ought handle it and present it with care.

I'm not advocating for emotionless or energyless performance. I'm noting that a performer's emotion may or may not be really well-suited to the work at hand. As Richard Becker put it so elequently when he spoke at Chowan last year, it is the music that we are expressing. Self-expression is a different activity.

I've been watching Sviatoslav Richter on Youtube lately. In the films I've seen, he almost always seems to be expressing the music, not himself. His motions, expressions, attitude, etc. seem to fit the form of the music and never fall short or push beyond what the music is saying.

I think I've often missed the charm, elegance, and beauty of the works I play by injecting too much of myself - particularly aspects of myself that are not really in sync with the work at hand. We want to be immediate, visceral, and stirring in our day and age, but that might not be the way every work works or is designed to work.

Stay within Yourself

Over the last few weeks, I've been thinking a bit about advice my pre-college teacher, Dr. Gene Barban, often gave me when I was studying with him.

As a developing pianist (I'm still developing, or disintegrating!) I often let my emotions about the music, about playing, about being in front of people, etc., take over. That often underminded or even sabataged my efforts at performing. The good work I had put into preparing would get mangled by my attitude when it came time to perform. To keep me focused on the essentials of the task at hand, Dr. Barban would tell me to stay within myself.

The advice is still very good for me today. My desire to express, to impress, and so forth, can still rob my playing of security, clarity, and even it's fullest meaning.

I'm starting to see that this lesson from music can and should be applied to life more much broadly. At work, I should stay within myself. Bad emotions - anger, resentment . . . should not color my work or my relationships. Also, complaining rarely helps. Instead, I should choose to be capable and fulfill my various responsibilities and be grateful for work!

If I deal with many of these sorts of problems internally and keep them from spilling over into the rest of my life, I find I am freed, challenged, and blessed to find a new way to think and a better way to care. There is space to pursue and share interests on my own and in my relationships. I become more grounded and open to joy.

In addition to giving more personal fulfillment, staying within oneself can also save coworkers and family members from spending their time on my problems and allows them to focus on their calling and responsibilities instead. The whole world can run more smoothly when we stay within ourselves in this way.

Kyle Matthews Concert

Kyle Matthews performed at Chowan on Sunday night. I appreciated the theme of service that he emphasized in a more and more focused way as the concert went on. A song from his newest CD, "The Main Event," discusses the way that the most important happenings in the realm of God's Kingdom often seem unimportant and eclipsed by the passing acts of human pride, yet those quiet occurrences on the sidelines are often the real main events.

Kyle also mentioned that he had noticed that in the Gospels Jesus seems to have treated every person he met as an individual and never "processed people." Jesus met each one at their point of need. The point of need, both ours and others, is where we meet God.

This point about the way Jesus related to the people has important application for the way I do my job here at Chowan. As I see it, my basic job here is to educate pianists, and to do so, it makes sense to me to study works of Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and 20th/21st Century masters with my students. In addition to this core piano study, it is very good for students to be exposed to many different ways of making music. But our university's mission also suggests that students are getting some vocational training, so education and exposure are not enough. We need to think of the students' futures in music. This seems to call for a more personalized approach. Not every student is aspiring to be a classical pianist. Most have other goals, and those goals might be better suited to those students as well. Thus, I need to be open to the stylistic interests and experiments of my students and find ways to work with them on a case-by-case basis in those areas. For that matter, each student's psychological state, background, attitude towards education, etc., might call for very individualized approaches. Ultimately - and most exciting - we are making something new together as we create our own musical culture here at Chowan, in Murfreeboro, and in the surrounding area.

Back to Kyle, it was really fun having him in town. He was professional and flexible and was enthused to visit with children and students. His music admirably expresses his spiritual journey, and it invites those who hear to join in following the way of Jesus. In addition, he's a deep thinker about the relationship of music and faith.

Gala Recital

Chowan turned 160 years old yesterday. MacDowell Columns looked beautiful decked with yellow mums in the fall light.

Our faculty gala concert was part of the celebration. Playing in that concert provided many good reminders for me:

1. One needs to practice regularly to feel technically stable in performance.

2. One needs to keep performing on one's mind and must be very intentional to make sure the performing reflects one's beliefs about performing and one's best thinking.

3. Certain spaces and occasions call for specific repertoire. For instance, Turner Auditorium doesn't need very quiet music. Instead, a full-sonoritied romantic-styled work such as a Bach-Busoni transcription or a Brahms sonata would work very well there.


So far this semester it seems that I am blessed with some hard-working and very promising piano students. They've encouraged me and made me proud at every lesson. As I teach them, and as I think of my choir director friends, and I also reflect on my classroom teaching, I am struck by some contrasts. Choir directing and piano teaching are in large part about getting musicians to sound better - always moving them to a next level. Classroom teaching is not focused on music performance, so in this way, it's really a very different activity.

I find myself at a really different place personally teaching piano now than a few years ago at William and Mary. At that time I was looking to explore ideas with my students and to present some profound underpinning or proof for my interpretive suggestions. Today I'm mostly listening and responding. At the end of one line I think it needs a little more of the top voice, or I'd like a greater sense of resistance moving into a particular climax, and more often these days I simply say so. We'll see where this leads. It may be a passng thing. And I still do lots of exploring and explaining - I can't stop myself!

I also find myself wanting to tell students how to do certain things that I do, but I don't know how to verbalize those things. I'm working on it.

I've been thinking back to the early years of the Lasker Summer Music Festival and the types of exploration I was undertaking then in terms of seeking modes of performance that express Christian faith. In those early days when I was just starting to imagine and discover some things for myself, the thinking wasn't particularly limiting or dogmatic in any way, and maybe I should refresh my work by revisiting some of the approaches I considered at that time.

However, as my music and faith have become better integrated, maybe I am detecting concepts for myself that aren't so flexible or can't/shouldn't be ignored.

It may be that I need to set forth my basic ideas in writing so I can remind myself of them more systematically. I'd better leave that task for another day.

Spontaneity and a Task Completed

First, task completed:

Some of you know I've been writing a little cantata based on Chowan's quality enhancement plan. The plan was devised to address findings of SACS, which is the accrediting organization for our school. The cantata (or jingleata, as I'm calling it) is to be performed as part of a presentation explaining our plan. A jingleata, by the way, is a cantata made of jingles or a jingle-qualitied cantata. I made up the term, and perhaps the genre.

The scores are now in the hands of the performers and out mine! It was a fun project. It's always nice to have a composition assignment. But it's also really nice to be able to move on to something else.


Now about spontaneity:

On Sunday, after the sermon, Kathy pointed at her watch and gave me the signal to stretch the offertory meditation. It was only 11:45, and our service is scheduled to go to noon - and we're also on the radio until then. So I stretched.

I started by filling up at least a minute, maybe two, with introduction. Then I played a version of "There's a Sweet, Sweet Spirit in this Place" with lots of hesitations between phrases. I embellished that a bit, got a little blusey or soulful, then added a coda using a favorite effect of mine - sort of a random ring imitation on the piano.

Because of the extra time, I explored improvisational aspects that I wouldn't often use in church. I basically explored a variety of things I could do with the tune until it seemed like it gone on for long enough (musically speaking).

The surprising thing about all this is that I belive I had more positive comments about this offertory than any other thing I've played at the church in Ahoskie. I'm not sure if that's because of the different energy of more extended improvisation, because of what I improvised, or maybe it's because people really like the tune.

My friend, Charles Winstead, commented about the accumulation of layers as I improvised. I usually think of layers happening simultaneously, but in this case, they were happening one after the other, as in a theme and variations. I like that thought, because it explains something of the process of the cumulative impact of a theme and variations, and gives me food for thought as someone who makes up music sometimes!

Jacob and Rachmaninoff

Today's Old Testament reading dealt with Jacob's wrestling match with the angel. As a meditation on this passage, I played some of Rachmaninoff's B minor Prelude. After hearing the context of the scripture and the passage itself I could easily hear aspects of the story in the music:

at the beginning, Jacob already struggling in the womb,

at the end of the climactic section - the wounding of Jacob,

and on the final page, Jacob limping,


While this music and the story are full of struggle, I am also reminded of a theme that has surfaced several times during the commentary on the Olympics. I keep hearing that the best athletes actually relax as they get further into their tasks. Perhaps that is a good thing to bear in mind as performing musicians. While the music may picture a struggle, we need to be relaxed so as to be at our best to physically perform the music well. The desire to embody the emotions of the music sometimes leads to a very unrelaxed place.

HWGP

For prelude yesterday I played an arrangement of "Be Still and Know." It's a hard tune to know how to phrase. It keeps coming back to scale degree 5 and then it orbits around scale degrees 3 and 1, too. To add to the confusion about how best to inflect it, and with what mood to do so, is the fact that the text consists of words of spoken by God.

The solution, at least for yesterday, revealed itself in the course of the worship service. Right before the prelude was the chiming of the hour with a handbell playing G, which was scale degree 5. I started in the tempo of the bell and organized my phrasing around the repeated Gs in the tune.

The fact that the words of the song are the words of God made me wonder something I don't remember ever thinking about before:

How Would God Phrase?

To sum up my mulling over this probably odd-sounding question, people phrases are usually arches. That's about the best sort of basic shape we can manage. I think God's phrases would be more complete - circles or spheres.

An arch that returns to the same starting point might be as circular as we can get in a time-bound medium. Maybe the composer of this tune really struck on something profound.

Musician Pitfalls

For many years, I've subscribed to the idea that each calling and profession has its own particular ethical and spiritual pitfalls. On my recent trip, I visited good friends and returned to locations where I spent a lot of time years ago. In addition to reviewing the course of my life, I also had a quick survey of the lives of a lot of other musicians in a bunch of locations. Through these experiences, I was reminded of three pitfalls we musicians face.

1. sarcasm

Sarcasm seems an unhealthy but sort of natural bi-product of having a vision and being taught to be critical about one's own work. If it gets out of hand, it can rob you of a lot of joy.

2. not really engaging with one's church job as ministry or worship

Sometimes we take jobs because we need money, and that's probably okay. But I think we don't live up to our potential as believers if we don't go beyond that. We might also lose some joy that way.

3. worshiping people, experiences, and institutions

Respecting these should be alright, but worshiping them robs us of our freedom and I think it eventually leads to some imbalance and loss of energy.

Running

I had a nice run yesterday morning, and that reminded me that to be disciplined is to do just the right amount everyday.

Sometimes I over-practice or under-practice, and other times I miss the daily part.

Seeking and maintaining just the right balance involves one's sense of proportion, and that's part of beauty. In this way, one's living and way of working can be a work of art.

Peace

We visited St. Paul's Church which is across the street from where the World Trade Center stood. 14,000 volunteers traveled to St. Paul's to support the rescue workers in the months following 9/11. There were also 500 musicians who played in the church to minister to rescue workers as they tried to rest between shifts.

It seems that being the focal point for so much ministry following 9/11 revitalized the church's sense of mission.

Today the church is also a shrine for many who come to reflect on 9/11 and to remember lost loved ones.

In the church, one hears the inspiring story of volunteers from around the U.S. who reached across all sorts of boundaries in acts of love because of their common cause and their shared humanity. I think that outpouring was a beautiful beginning of healing.

I wonder if that healing movement could have grown into a spiritual revival that would have swept around the world.

But my intuition tells me that the healing and the revival were cut short as war ensued.

The phrase "cycle of violence" and humanity's need to break the cycle of violence really sunk in with me as I thought of that lost opportunity.

As I write that, I must also confess that it must be incredibly hard for politicians to seek peace in the wake of such an event.

And that brings me to another often-heard phrase - "give peace a chance." Frequently, what we learn about and call "peace" is a less-than-ideal agreement dictated by the victors after war has been given a chance.

While war is often presented as the only possible choice, I have heard very little about the times when peace has really been tested as an option.

It seems to me that the anger and indignance that are stirred up by even the most basic talk about peace indicate how unwilling our society might be to really considering peace as a way forward.

Just the Facts

We've just returned from a two-week trip up the east coast to Hawley, MA. On the way we visited friends in Richmond, New York, and Boston. I'll be blogging about some details of the journey over the next few days.

In New York we visited the Met Museum. I was interested in returning to see the great masterpieces there after many years. I wondered what the impact of being in the presence of great works by Rodin, Rothko, Seurat, and others would be on me today. I didn't find myself as personally overwhelmed as I was when I was younger, but I am still moved by the works and respect the genius that created them. In a way, these works have become solid great facts for me, but no longer the vital and immediate challenges and experiences they once were. That isn't necessarily a bad thing. Maybe it means I am free to be moved and to respect the works without worshiping them now.

We also visited Ground Zero. I had intentionally not visited once before when I could have. At that time I didn't feel ready. But this time I felt ready and I like I wanted to and should.

Ground Zero is a construction site now. From street level, no structures can be seen rising. There was little personal impact for me. Maybe I'm numb. But really I think it is that 9/11 has passed from the realm of felt reality to mere fact for me and for many of us who don't live with the personal memory of lost loved ones.

I thought the events of 9/11 would become the principal theme of artists of my generation. But all that has come to pass since that time has changed that.

Lasker and Independence Day

The first session of the Lasker Summer Music Festival was a fine time of deep fellowship and record crowds. Our composer-in-residence challenged us regarding many issues from our attitudes towards people whose beliefs are different from our own, our use of music, and who is included in our communities (musical and otherwise.)

Yesterday I attended several Fourth of July Events. At one we were provided flags made in China and a recording of the national anthem stopped a third of the way through. We went to Edenton to see the fireworks. I was struck by the many ages and visions of the world that were co-existing there: young love, middle-aged workers, elderly observers, etc.

Beethoven Fifth Symphony

Friday afternoon, I played the first movement of Beethoven Fifth Symphony in a two-piano transcription with my colleague Paula Pressnell. This was the final performance of Chowan's piano ensemble camp.

I was surprised by the emotion that performing this work stirred up in me. I hadn't played it before, and I was focused and involved with the energy of the piece and playing it. It's a powerful work and I suppose we all know it very well. Maybe those are the reasons I found it so moving.

It's nice to have mysterious, powerful, and unexpected experiences with music like this to remind us that it is bigger than we are and that great music has power.

Websites

Here are a few good websites on musical topics that I've used with classes at Chowan.

Chant

Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier

Beethoven and Napoleon

Wagner's Ring Cycle

Schoenberg's Paintings

Contrasts

Beauty in the garden inspite of the weather.























There's a big forest fire in three counties to our south. It was smokey most of yesterday morning here in Murfreesboro.

Apart form the fire - which changes the air quality significantly at times - it has become very hot here. Summer weather arrived three days ago in full force.

Our place is air conditioned, but I know at least one person whose isn't and have thought seriously about his situation the last couple of days.

I took a walk with Sophie (our dog) and we sat calmly in Squirrel Park on-campus. Us both being calm is a rarity. By that time of the day, although it was hot, a steady breeze was coming from the east, tempering the mood on the shaded swings hanging from our ancient trees. I realized I should be open to, and take advantage of, such moments of peace that spontaneously occur from time to time.

On Wednesday, the Mercer University Children's Choir performed in First Baptist Ahoskie. It was a lovely service of worship that was admirably presented after a ten hour bus ride. The children had great focus. They impressed us with their rhythmic abilities as well.

As I studied the program, I noted that the majority of the composers were women. Such a program is also a rarity. Maybe more children's choir music is by women since women might find themselves working children's choirs more often than men?

I also thought a bit about the purity for which children's voices are often praised. While the sound of children's voices might be considered pure, I think the way children phrase also contributes a lot to this impression of purity. There is a naive quality about the phrasing of children. And by that, I mean something very good. Their musical expression may be as deeply thought and felt as ours and executed with just as much concentration and intensity. But their type of intensity doesn't bring the same adult type of drive to each note passing to the next and ultimately to a climax and a conclusion. Their feelings about this progress are different and maybe more innocent. I still wonder if some of what we adults think of as passion or intensity might really be anger or fear - and that might be okay. Or maybe we should learn how to make music like children - with peace and joy.

American Liszt Society

I'm starting today feeling a little directionless, maybe because it was such a full weekend.

On Friday and Saturday I attended the national festival of the American Liszt Society in Washington, DC. I heard seventeen pianists perform at least five hours of Liszt's music, and there were more events that didn't attend. (It just struck me that 17 is also the number of dollars I paid to park!)

Some of the highlights for me were:

visiting the Library of Congress where the first day's concerts took place

making new musical friends

and hearing superb performances -

Gila Goldstein playing "Wohin?" was magical. The variety and type of tone, the pacing, and her technique that creates the illusion that she isn't playing made this a performance I'll remember for a long time.

Sean Duggan, Benedictine monk and master of the music of Bach, played several works from Harmonies Poetiques et Religieuses. Unfortunately, I only saw and partly heard the last bit of "Benediction . . ." through the window. Even through the window, he conveyed a spirit of seriousness and sincerity that I found very moving.

Justin Kolb, who is very warm and outgoing in welcoming newcomers to the Liszt Society, played the "Apparitions" and gave a spellbinding rendering of the unsettling and occult mood of these seldom-heard pieces.

Elizabeth and Eugene Pridinoff gave one the best two-piano performances I'v heard. They played Les Preludes and Concerto Pathetique. I believe this second piece is essentially the same work as the Grosseskonzertsolo.

Louis Nagel payed the Don Giovanni paraphrase in a way that drew us all into what he was doing with great concentration, and the audience response - which was almost always enthusiastic - really indicated depth of appreciation for the musical quality of his performance.

In addition to those performance highlights, I also heard some of Liszt's violin pieces, one of which is the piano piece "Il Penseroso" twice with some contrasting material in-between.

A number of performers put collections of pieces together and asked the audience not to applaud until the end as they believed there were connections between the works. This happened with both halves of Michele Campanella's recital - first half, sacred works and the second half, Hungarian Rhapsodies, and also with the violin pieces.

A final reflection on hearing so much Liszt in a few hours - while I believe a great deal of Liszt's music is very strong, I don't think he expected anyone to ever hear so much of it at once. Any good composer would organize things in a very specific way if they knew that the works they were composing would be played back-to-back for hours on end.

Jefcoat and Galilee

We attended a fun Murfreesboro event - Porkfest:

20+ Eastern NC Barbecue caterers preparing their food in "Pork Alley"

A classic car show on our street

and admission to the Jefcoat Museum.

The Jefcoat is a treasure almost in our backyard!
From a musical standpoint, it houses a whole floor of square grands (including a Broadwood which was one of Beethoven's preferred brands,) pump organs, player pianos, music boxes, a cimbalom, a very ornate Erard harp, various bells, early phonographs and radios - many of which are still in working order. I anticipate a field trip for my Music History class.

In addition to the musical collection, there is a wealth of Americana - a kind of miniature Smithsonian (17,000 objects all on display at the Jefcoat vs. 136 million owned by the Smithsonian's museums - I looked this up because I was curious and because the numbers are amazing at both places.) At the Jefcoat there are all sorts of washing mashines, butter churns, ice cream mixers, a hunting room full of mounted animals, guns, and traps, etc. etc. etc.

After seeing all of this, I drove to Pasadena, MD to play a concert at Galilee Lutheran Church. The people there are always warm and Joel Borelli does a great job of enthusiastically promoting whatever he's presenting. It's a gift he has, and I appreciate it.

One thing I learned from the recital relates to Ravel Sonatine. I wasn't feeling that my performance had the type of clarity I like, but Joel commented positively on the clarity afterwards. While I didn't feel like my playing was as clear as I wanted, I was keeping most of the piece pretty quiet - which is how Ravel marked a lot of it anyway! It seems that keeping most of the dynamics pretty low helps with the clarity. (Note to self: Read and follow the score!)

Another thing that sunk in with me about the program I've been playing is that the works by Schumann and Prokofief (Papillons and movements from Romeo and Juliet) go together nicely and that seems to be the case because both works demonstrate their composer's mastery of musical characterization. To play them realy well, it might be a good idea to think more like an actor than a musician and seek to become each of the characters depicted.

Trinity Sunday

It's another beautiful morning here in Murfreesboro. The quiet, cool, early summer mormings have begun.

I note that this is my 100th blog post since starting this blog in March 2005. I've enjoyed doing this as a hobby and as a way of connecting with people. Thanks to Martin Tiller, my friend who started blogging and got me interested. Also, thanks to Jeff Prillaman who took up blogging around the same time.

While I'm thanking folks -
This summer I hope to get a lot of composing done. As I find myself getting more comfortable in my composer skin, I have been reflecting about the people who have helped with that transformation.

Stefan Waligur, a composer Kathy and I met a few years ago in D.C., shared a CD of his work with us. The work is clear, worshipful, and can incoroprate musicians of all levels. I found the style very moving and liberating to me as a composer. The first thing I wrote that I felt really good about was my Christmas cantata which was influenced by Stefan's work.

James M. Guthrie, my colleague here at Chowan, is the other influence I am deeply appreciating. Dr. Guthrie is a superb composer - gifted and highly skilled. His great gift to me has been simply recognizing me as a composer, which frees me to produce without becoming entangled in judging my own output.

Tomorrow night I have a concert. Yesterday I found myself not knowing quite where I was technically or musically with the music I'm playing. On the eve of Trinity Sunday, I am reminded that symbolic practice is very helpful in such a situation. By "symbolic practice" I mean structuring one's practice time using meaningful numbers (such as thre)e from the Christian tradition.

I've known the works I'm playing for some time, but some sections don't feel totally secure at the moment. Trusting that three (or seven or twelve {rarely twelve!}) focused repetitions of these passages will reconnect me with my history of work with this music is very useful in keeping my practice realistic and keeping me on a good plane emotionally!

This morning I also returned to another practice I gravitate to from time to time: praying through my repertoire. Here I ask what I want the audience to get from each portion of each work, and pray for that to come to pass. This approach teaches me a lot about the music, and it helps me to make music with a consciousness of God.

Music for Pentecost

Today I played a short organ prelude I composed based on the chant "Veni Creator Spiritus." It was organized into several layers moving at different rates. Between the pentatonic qualities of the chant and a few dotted notes I added, the overall feeling was vaguely early American!

For postlude I played the last movement of Ravel's Sonatine on piano. This piece sounds like a rushing wind, and the harmonies seem to suggest the supernatural in a traditional church context. After the service, it dawned on me that it's also a good piece to play when Pentecost and Mother's Day coincide as it has been suggested that falling fourths, such as those that permeate the melody of this work, symbolize Ravel's relationship with his mother.

Nice Weekend

Saturday was a very nice unplanned day here in Murfreesboro. I went to the Farmers Market for the first time, and we bought some very good tomatoes and strawberries and looked at some art by local artists. We took Sophie for a long walk, and in the evening, we went to the grand opening of our new Mexican restaurant, Los Amigos, where we ate outside under an umbrella in the cool evening weather.

That day we also learned the story of one of the handsome homes in town that was built by a family that owned a basket factory and helped their employees make it through the Great Depression.

It was also a very musical weekend. Saturday night we heard an excellent Viginia Symphony concert in Newport News that included a work by Schreker. Sunday we had brass and children's choir with Orff instruments at church, and in the afternoon, I attended Paula Pressnell's studio recital. It's always inspiring to hear the results of all the piano practice that young people are doing. In the evening, we celebrated Ascension Sunday with an Italian buffet accompanied by James M. Guthrie's work, Ascension, at our house.

Juxtaposition

Now that the school year has come to a close, there is a little time for blogging again.

Chowan ends the academic year with an interdisciplinary symposium that involves faculty from all disciplines in exploring a single topic. This year, that topic was the environment. In addition to this forum, there is also a symposium of student research and other special events. This gives the end of the year an exciting flavor and energy that are decidedly scholarly and informative.

The culminating event of this year's symposium (as well as the music department's year) was a performance of parts I and II of Haydn's Creation. This involved the student choir and neighborhood chorus, members of the Meherrin Chamber Orchestra and Virginia Symphony, and soloists Lori Parker (an excellent soprano who happens to be married to our conductor,) Walter Swan (a vibrant singer who taught here in past years,) and my good friend, tenor Jeff Prillaman. Kathy, my wife, was in the horn section. I played viola, and another good friend from Richmond, Jeremy McEntire, played flute.

I list all that information about these personal connections because the personal connectedness of this performance is part of what made it very special. Many people who have known each other, worked together, or taught and studied with each other, worked independently for awhile, then came together to create a rich tapestry of musical and spiritual energy.

Now for the juxtaposition part. During the intermission of this sublime work about the creation of the world, more details started to arrive about the tornadoes in nearby Suffolk, VA. One person onstage received a phone call with the number 200 in it, and it wasn't totally clear if that 200 referred to deaths or injuries. Fortunately, it only referred to injuries.



Here's a bit of musical trivia from my experience. Haydn sets words about the creation of insects with a little text painting from the violas. I almost didn't play the section as I thought the professionals next to me would do it very well and that I might mar their efforts. But I decided that it was such a quintessential viola moment that I should play it for experience's sake. I did, and I think it was okay. In fact, Jeff was impressed by this "swarm" for the first time in our performance.

CMS, CBF, AGO

It has been a busy few weeks.

Jeff Prillaman and I presented a lecture-performance on Liszt's Petrarch Sonnets at the College Music Society meeting in Gettysburg. Here are some of the ideas we shared:

Liszt resonated personally with Petrarch's struggle between the spirit and the flesh.

Liszt puts the performers in the appropriate dramatic moods through the technical demands of the music.

The sonnets are constructed of a series of styles ranging from art song to Bel Canto to Verismo. Such a demanding progression of vocal requirements is similar to the sequences of technical demands he puts on pianists in works like the Dante Sonata or Mephisto Waltz.


We heard many excellent presentations at the conference including presentations on piano music from China, Haiti, and works by the Russian jazz-influenced composer, Kapustin. A personal favorite of mine was on the strategic use of bands on the battlefields of the American Civil War.

On the way home, I played at Woodland Heights Baptist Church where Kathy and I worked in Richmond, and in the aternoon I played on a concert with friends from the Talent Developing Studio at Slash Christian Church. Slash is the oldest wooden church in Virginia.

Last night, Kathy and I drove to Raleigh for part of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship of North Carolina meeting. There I learned about the Winston Salem-based Institute for Dismantling Racism. I took part in a fascinating discussion of the use of arts in missions work led by Jonathan and Tina Bailey who are artistic missionaries in Indonesia. They discussed the complexities of creating new Christian expressions within traditional styles such as gamelan and shadow puppetry. I also attended a presentation on the history of Chowan University given by our president, Dr. White. I learned many interesting things there including some facts about the recent restoration of the MacDowell Columns building. The massive columns on the portico are made of cypress and had around 35 layers of paint on them before they were scraped and repainted.

Today I played a concert for the Northeastern North Carolina Chapter of the American Guild of Organists at Roanoke Bible College in Elizabeth City. I had not been on that campus before and was impressed by the facility in which I played. It housed a nice chapel with a good older Baldwin, a gym, and a library. The building is situated right next to the water where there are swings, geese, and ducks.

I've felt a little frustrated practicing lately, but I've pushed through it each time and kept practicing. I felt like it paid off today as the memorized works held together better than in the previous performances. Also, my frustration pushed me to connect on a deeper level with the Prokofiev Romeo and Juliet pieces I've been playing. I played them more personally today and with more focus on the various characters from the play as they are expressed in the music. I had been trying to do less with time and more with color, which is what my best Russian-trained friend tells me is most stylistically appropriate. I appreciated that and agree with that, but I allowed myself a little more rhythmic freedom today, and I believe the pieces really came to life in a way they hadn't before for me.

Maybe frustration in practice is sometimes a sign that the opportunity for better playing and a deeper personal connection is at hand if only we don't give up.

As an encore I played my recently composed Ragtime Etude. The piece is a little bitonal and I think the bitonality of the last page keeps any one pitch from sounding like a strong tonic. I think that may be a compositional problem I need to solve. As Dr. Benjamin often told us, most composing is editing!

Easter

We're enjoying a beautiful spring here in Murfreesboro.

Last week was Easter and also a special day for me as it was my first Sunday as the official organist/music associate at the First Baptist Church of Ahoskie. For offertory and postlude I played Handel: I Know That My Redeemer Liveth and Palestrina: The Strife is O'er.

I'm still reflecting a bit on the nice spring break we had. On our trip to Raleigh, we visited the state capitol building. As a native North Carolinian, I was very inspired by our time there. Three things I found especially stirring were plaques commemorating the Edenton Tea Party (I graduated from high school in Edenton and some of my ancestors lived there,) and the Halifax Resolves, and the monument to the North Carolinians who were presidents of the U.S.

Kathy's family was here this weekend, and we visited a local store that is typical of many of the things we love about Murfreesboro - The Woolery. The Woolery is owned and run by a couple who moved from Syracuse, NY in search of better weather. In their store we saw all sorts of spinning wheels and looms. They also sell every imaginable sort of book relevant to topics from knitting patterns for your dog's neck warmer to a work called Making the Most of Your Llama to several reference books on the various Tartan plaids. There is also a section of used books on a variety of topics as well as a whole shelf of literature in French!

Da Capo Concert and Masterclass

Over the weekend, I played a concert and taught a masterclass in Richmond, sponsored by the Da Capo Institute.

As I turned 36 a week earlier and I was also on spring break, the occasion proved to be a good time for reflection on my musical life.

Right before the concert, I had a feeling I'd never had before, and that was that having to play from memory is somehow undignified - as if art music required some sort of parlor trick.

After performing, I realized that I am more comfortable performing James M. Guthrie's Intermezzo and Fugue than Schumann's Papillons. From a techical standpoint, the Guthrie is a lot harder to play. But it fits me better tempermentally, or at least my current way of playing it does.

That evening, I had a good long talk with my good friend and musical collaborator, Jeff Prillaman. We shared our autobiographies as performers. Out of that came at least two solid bits of pianistic wisdom for me to remember:

Different works as well as different eras in one's life require different performance approaches. When I was a lot younger, I used a method acting approach to most of what I played. Then I came to trust the music more. Now I am trusting the music and my talent. Ultimately, I would do well to keep my music-making focused on my theme of integration - particularly the integration of my art and faith. I believe there are many ways in which one might make music so as to honor God - and I ought to pursue them more intentionally .

The other point also deals with difference and that is that different pianos can be radically different and one can't do everything one wants to with a piece on every piano. This ought to be taken into consideration when one evaluates one's performance goals and efforts.

Chowan Pianofest

We held our first annual Chowan Pianofest at the beginning of March, and it was an inspiring few days around town for musicians.

Richard Becker who teaches at the University of Richmond was our guest pianist. Richard inaugerated this new fest with a brilliant recital which was, as Kathy described it, an event. While the music may or may not have been about something outside itself, it was an event of importance in and of itself - like a sunset or the Grand Canyon.

He played two Beethoven sonatas, probably as well as they can be played. The second half consisted of a group of Debussy preludes and a Chopin group concluding with the First Ballade.

On the following morning, Richard worked with seven local students in a masterclass where he expounded on the work of the pianist: to express what's on the page and to be responsible for the progress through music that occurs in performance. He helped our students relate more closely to the piano and its technical demands and possibilities. He also helped students recognize their talent through sensitive and open listening and encouraging comments.

That eveing, I performed a solo recital. The program is posted here I think the Intermezzo and Fugue of James M. Guthrie really made the program. Guthrie is a colleague of mine that I've mentioned before. I was also intrigued by comments indicating that the Friar Laurence movement of the Prokofief was a special favorite for some audience members. I revisited passages of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet the afternoon of the concert and realized how significant a character Friar Laurence was, and also what a genuinely good fellow he was. (And as always, I am amazed at Shakespeare's ability to create what seem like real people - many of whom also happen to speak in verse a lot of the time!) I find his conversations with the young Romeo very moving because of his understanding and his caring. I think we'd all do well to have a Friar Laurence in our lives.

I used the Friar Laurence movement as an organ postlude at church the next day, and I thought it worked quite well. I added a little chime on the last two chords.

My colleague, Paula Pressnell, played a lovely recital the next day showing off her terrific clear and even technique in a couple of classical works. (She doen't show off, though. She's quite humble.) The second half included Brahms rhapsodies which struck me as not very rhapsodic because what seems like a big exposition repeat at the beginning of the B minor Rhapsody! Paula ended our weekend of piano music with a sparkly Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody.

Hearing the three of us on the same piano and in the same hall reminded me of the amazing variety of sounds and affects that can be created with a piano by different hands and temperments.

I'm already looking forward to next year.

Eugene Onegin

We saw Virginia Opera's production of Tchaikowsky's Eugene Onegin last week.

Early on, I was struck by the Mozartean clarity of the ensembles and the almost instrumental nature of some of the vocal writing.

I think some of the best music in the opera conveys sentiments that we seldom hear in opera - domestic sentiments such as the two elderly sisters singing about how habit had replaced joy for them or the scene in which one of the sisters is helping her young charge get ready for bed.

Finally, Pushkin's plot seems a lot like Jane Austin's Pride and Prejudice only with a sad ending. Normally, I think about how much life in the past was like living today when I go to the opera. But at Onegin I felt like my society is quite different from the one portrayed onstage. I haven't engaged in class-oriented cultured social dancing or dueling over my honor in a long, long time.

Learning

I've been learning old and new lessons the last several weeks -


Faure studied with Saint-Seans. I think that explains the various piano figurations in the A major Sonata for violin and piano.


Most musicians go through at least two stages if they stick with it long enough:

stage one - you think everything always comes out fine in your performances regardless of your preparation - and you're wrong!

stage two - you think your perfromance didn't sound very good, but when you listen to the recording you discover you were wrong!


Now for something really basic: you need to practice every day if you want accomplish anything.