Reviewing Richmond

We have lived in Richmond seven years now and are preparing to move in a month.

Interestingly, I have had several musical opportunities that are helping me to review the work I've done here.

Last week, I was invited back to Collegiate School, a private school where I taught for several years when we first came to town, to provide a yearly evaluation for a number of the piano students. It was an inspiring day filled with bright young people. There were two brothers with great attitudes who played a ragtime duet from memory. There were several students who had not studied more than two or three years who were making great strides and had prepared lots of repertoire. And there was a brilliant student who really grasped and conveyed the exact character of the accents in the classical era work she was playing. That really impressed me. I also enjoyed lunch with my former boss in the fine cafeteria where I used to eat (including the giant bowl of graham crackers that's always available for an easy dessert.)

On the weekend, I accompanied a senior recital at Collegiate which brought back more memories of student recitals, playing for baccalaureate, and gigs across state. One such gig was accompanying a senior in a scholarship competition in Bristol which was a very long drive, especially after the competition.


This Sunday, I had the opportunity to play for Pentecost Sunday service at Grace Baptist Church. Kathy and I were members there for a couple of years. The congregation is very open to creativity and the arts. I played Chopin Revolutionary Etude for the prelude as the piece seems firey and windy - appropriate qualities for Pentecost. Accompanying the congregational singing for the service also gave me an opportunity to encapsulate much of what I have come to view as relevant to the art of hymn playing while living in Richmond in a final service with that church community. This involves some (hopeful tasteful) text painting, a sense of tension and release following both the text and musical sense of the phrases, ideas about tempo change between verses relating to the text, ideas about the relationship of the pianist and the congregation regarding tempo (sometimes I follow, sometimes I push), and the possibility of binding together numerous musical events in a service by incorporating textures or figurations in the hymn accompaniments that appear in the other service music.

Finally, tonight at choir rehearsal we worked on Ken Medema's "To This Altar" which I first learned at Woodland Heights Baptist Church during the last several years with Kathy leading our choir. It's a very moving piece that touches me everytime we rehearse it. Medema describes it in this way:

"It is about bringing our life problems to God's altar for healing."

The text is broad yet somehow specific (maybe I'm saying that it is deeply thought out and felt, and thus has deeply human and universal application.) Whatever my day's experience is, it finds a healing and warming context in this worshipful anthem.

Competition Advice

I'm entering a competition with a singer friend this fall. It has been years since I've entered a competition. Last time, I learned all I needed to know through mail and phone calls. Today, most of the information is available on-line.

There is at least one drawback in our current, seemingly convenient situation. The design of some websites, as in the case of this competition, can make it hard to find out everything you need to know. Ironically, it seems like a lot of energy was put into getting all the information onto this website, only the information a participant needs to know is spread throughout the site instead of being in a single participant-friendly location and format. I've returned to the site again and again to make sure I'm not missing anything.

Thus, my advice to anyone entering a competition in this day and age: you might need to visit multiple pages of a site to get all the information you need. Don't assume you've got it all. Look thoroughly and don't hesitate to e-mail questions to the appropriate folks.

Gottschalk and Gershwin

This week I had the fun of performing excerpts from several Gottschalk works for a documentary on Cuban jazz that should be completed in November. Gottschalk travelled in Cuba and wrote some works that contain quintessential rhythms that have come to be associated with jazz and permeate much of the music we hear today.

In addition to practicing the excerpts, my preparation also included finding shoes and cuff links that looked like something Gottschalk might have worn.

I coached the excerpts with Dr. Mike Davison, one of my colleagues at UR who is an expert regarding Cuban jazz. He suggested that I play more percussively as Cuban music is very percussion-oriented. At the same time, Gottschalk was a 19th century parlor pianist known for his polish and charm. It's interesting to conjecture what type of performance would have amounted to flamboyance , exoticism, and visceral appeal in that world of poetry and highly melodic music.

Sometimes we classical musicians assume that a jazz influence is somehow a sign of primal and raw expression. But I think the composers who incorporated touches of jazz into their concert music were viewing jazz as modern, sophisticated, and suave as often as they were viewing it as being expressively primal or raw. I wonder if some unexamined, inherited prejudice may be at play that robs us of recognizing a wider range of expressiveness in this music.

Last night we went to Richmond Ballet's performance of George Balanchine's Who Cares? based on the music of George Gershwin and premiered by the New York City Ballet in 1970 . The ballet injects the rhetoric and forms of a traditional ballet with the jazzy flirtatiousness and glitz of a 1920's Broadway show -
a prime example of the neoclassical impulse.

Change of Address

This little announcement may be important to those of you who read this blog periodically. I'm thinking of changing its name and address to hulinmusic.blogspot.com.

If you look for the blog in a few weeks and can't find it, try that address.

Rocks Crying Out

Yesterday I listened to my last day of music juries as a member of the University of Richmond faculty. One student who was in my theory class this semester played the first movement of Brahms E minor Cello Sonata. This student, Heather Stebbins, is very bright, and in addition to being a budding cellist, is also a gifted composer.

As I listened to her consistent tone, her variety of vibrato, her unfolding of the details of the score, and noted her grasp of the function of each line she played, I realized that her instrument was singing.

As I am quite accustomed to instrumental music, I often miss the miracle of a performer causing inanimate material stuff to sing. In this performance, wood and strings, metal and bow hair, lifted up their voices in a way that was mysterious, poignant, and longing. I thought of the strangeness of the musical saw - a pedestrian tool that emits an ethereal tone - and I realized that the same extraordinary dynamic exists whenever instruments sing.

Perhaps this is a good part of the creativity of the performer - breathing elegant speech into soul-less materials, much like God breathing life into soil and making humanity.

Maybe instrumental music is inherently worshipful as musicians and instrument makers ornament God's creative work through their endeavors. They cause wood and metal to cry out, just like the stones Jesus said would praise him if the people didn't sing.

Cage: 4'33"

My friend Bill Vickery recently shared with me an article about Cage's 4'33" from the Wall Street Journal. I teach the piece in my classes and here's part of what I teach about this piece.


The piece is deeply artistic in that it is a multi-layered reflection of musical culture and of the composer's thoughts. Cage made no decisions regarding what sounds would be heard during the performance except that the performers wouldn't play or sing anything. This brings up many philosophical questions regarding traditional ideas about composition and performance:

What should the composer control?

What does a performer do?

What is the role of the audience?

How do these ideas shape our expectations and experience of musical events?


In addition to these philosophical questions about the nature of art, there are also religious issues at play. Cage contemplated some sort of silent piece that could have been called "Prayer" years before he wrote 4'33". Also, Cage was involved with Zen Buddhism. Perhaps 4'33" is a secularized invitation to the meditative experience that he encountered in Eastern religion.


Having performed the work on several occasions for my students, I can confirm that the experience is akin to the entrance into meditation. First there is some awkwardness and discomfort at the unusualness of the situtation. Audience members are focused to take in a performance, but the performance involves little action and no traditional musical sound. This awkward stage may include some giggles and restlessness. Soon these give way to a calmer atmosphere, and listeners become aware of everyday sounds that they usually tune out - the ticking of a clock, the bussing of the lights, a car passing. Little by little, it seems that listeners become more personally focused and become aware of their own breathing and so forth. This self-awareness can be very calming, and we rarely achieve that sort of focus and tranquility as a group in our society.


4'33" presents another quandry.

What's the next step for a composer who has written a piece with no notes in it?

Cage continued down his path by writing aleatoric music - music in which chance procedures replace the composer's choice regarding various musical elements. 4'33" is part of that larger movement, and that larger movement also expresses the Buddhist ideal of removal of one's will from the situations one faces in life.

Chaos Theory

I learned a bit about chaos theory at lunch with my friend Robert Johns a couple of weeks ago. Two ideas immediately related to music in my way of thinking.

1. Chaos theory suggests that seemingly random or chaotic phenomena may be based on some extremely organized and intricate order. This is illustrated by many 20th century musical works, expecially works in the realm of serialism. Such works often sound totally unorganized to listeners on the first hearing, but many of these works are among the most tightly organized in every parameter of music from pitch and rhythm to timbre and register.

2. Chaos theory suggests that tiny bits of change at one point in a process may bring about radical large-scale change at some later point. My mentor, Dr. Vern Falby, often described tracking the tonality of a piece of music as being similar to tracking a bear through the forest. A broken twig here and a twisted branch there are the tiny signs that point the way to the bear. A sharp here or a flat there are the initial signs that the music is moving into a new key.

Westminster Choir College Performance

March 16 at 7:00 PM the Westminster Choir of Westminster Choir College will present a concert at Huguenot Road Baptist Church, co-sponsored by the Da Capo Institute.

Admission is free and the concert will be a treat that includes a wide array of music from American spirituals to works by contemporary Estonian composers.

For more information about this performance and other Westminster Choir College-related events in Richmond next week, click here.

Return to Blogging and Schumann's Waldszenen

My mother passed away in July of 2006 after a difficult three months in the hospital. Since that time I haven't really had time or desire to blog. At one point I was pretty sure I'd stop altogether, but I'm back in the mood now.

Two things put me back in the mood. First, my friend Jeff Prillaman designed a new website for the summer music festival with which I work and included the blog address in a prominent location. That got me started thinking that I should not give up on the blog. Second, yesterday I came across the blog of Ben Witherington who is providing what I think is an excellent reponse to the Jesus Tomb book and upcoming film. Dr. Witherington's blog affirmed for me the value of this medium and the quality of work that can take place through it.

Now, on to music.

My pianist friend Samir Vugdalic is working on Schumann's Waldszenen. The set includes movements with titles such as "Friendly Landscape" and "Hunter in Ambush." Thinking of these pieces got me thinking about the changing contexts of classical music. I assume that the people who originally heard and enjoyed these pieces knew a good bit about rural life and hunting from first hand experience. Maybe they were wealthy and hunted for sport, or they were poor and hunted for food. I don't know any of this for sure, but it seems likely that Schumann's first listeners would have at least been more in touch with these aspects of life than the majority of the modern classical audience members who are mostly urbanites.

I'm interested in playing some of these pieces for contemporary rural audiences to see what insights they have into the music and what enjoyment they might have of it.

Another friend, Robert Johns, helped me develop another example of meanings or perceptions of music changing depending upon context. Light shows, electronic sounds, and jarring percussive effects are experienced by many listeners as being completely normal at a rock concert. The same listeners perceive those elements as being unmusical and weird in the context of an avant-garde art music concert. Somehow the avant-garde-ness outweighs the familarity and coolness/neatness of the technological media.

(By the way, these seemingly hypothetical listeners are actually numerous classes of music appreciation students I have taught over the past few years.)

David Esleck Trio at Dogwood Dell

If you're looking for a nice night in Richmond this weekend, I'd recommend David Esleck's jazz trio performance at Dogwood Dell on Sunday (June 25) from 7 to 9 PM. They will be featuring special guests Margaux Lesourd, vocals (Margaux is a University of Richmond student)and William Hobbs on bagpipes.

If you want more information on Esleck's trio, you might want to read my review on this blog of his concert at Dogwood Dell last June.

Westminster Concert Bell Choir

On June 1, I attended a great handbell concert. The performers were the Concert Bell Choir from Westminster Choir College, and there performance was by far the best handbell music-making I've heard. They play the widest range of bells and choir chimes of any ensemble today, and the level of musicianship is very high as most of the players are talented young musicians with good hopes of pursuing careers in music after their fine training at Westminster.

Here are some of what I felt were the highlights of their perfomance.

In Cathy Moklebust's "Five Inscriptions" - During the movement entitled "I Console the Living" there was an accumulation of bell sound that was reminiscence of a comforting caress somehow symphonically applied.

An arrangement by Moklebust of "Greensleeves" featured choir chimes (instruments invented to introduce young children to skills needed for playing handbells) introduced me to new sound experiences - primarily hearing that a wide spectrum of choir chimes played simultaneously and in a flowing figuration can take on the character of a pipe organ's sound as these instruments do not stress the attack on each sound and have a very sustained quality instead.

Next was a performance of Bach's "'Little' Fugue in G minor." Here the musicality of the performers was most brilliantly demonstrated. One of the main difficulties of playing bells really well is that the musical lines are frequently broken up between numerous ringers. Thus, everyone needs to know exactly how his or her bells fit into each phrase. Bach's fugue involves many different lines at the same time, thus increasing the difficulty of a thoughtful and well-executed performance. Certainly thanks to the good guidance of their conductor Kathleen Ebling-Thorne the ringers rose to the occasion.

The climax of the program was Arnold R. Sherman's "Song of Peace." Commissioned after the Oklahoma City bombing, but not completed until after 9/11, this work begins with a dissonant and jagged version of the famous "Dona Nobis Pacem" tune that is often sung as a round. Eventually, this dissonant treatment gives way to the ensemble prayerfully singing the tune as a round as they accompany themselves with the bells. I cannot begin to say how deeply this work and this experience state the problems of, and desires for, peace - problems and desires that flow just below the surface of our day-to-day living.

Two other works illuminated the nature of musical expression - During Julie Stitt's "La Paix" we could see the stately dance of a bass line as the men playing the low bells performed. Similarly, but with a different affect, we could see the coy danciness of a famous jazz melody in the motions and interactions of the ringers as they played Paul Desmond's "Take Five."

All of this repertoire and more can be heard on their new CD entitled "By Request."

Piano Competition

On Saturday I was one of three judges for the piano competion for the central region of the Virginia Music Teachers Association. We heard 21 pianists from grammar school through high school.

One thing that surprised me about the day was that many of the children communicated sad music much better than the spritely happy music that seems like it would fit so well with their character. I wonder why.

I am reminded of a moment in Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes when Ellen Orford tells Peter that the woes of little people may be greater than those of grown ups.

Maybe I was just struck by the poignancy of children playing sad music.

Or perhaps child-musicians don't appreciate their own youthfulness.

Lloyd Arriola and Hammerklavier

If you're looking for a classical work with great emotional breadth, a work worthy of obsession, you ought to consider Beethoven's Hammerklavier Sonata, Op. 106.

For a review of a terrific recording of this great sonata, check out my good friend Lloyd Arriola's review.

Flute Music and the Olympics

While the Winter Olympics were going on, I was preparing and performing a flute recital with my friend Jeremy MacEntire.

One of the pieces we played was Casella's Sicilliene and Burlesque. The Burlesque is full of directions from the composer to the performer to speed up. Thus, playing this piece seems a lot like downhill skiing. I heard that Casella was from Turino.

Another of the works we played was Schubert's Introduction and Variations which is based on Schubert's own song "Trockne Blumen." I think this work is a real masterpiece for flute and piano. One of the variations features rapid ascending scales in the piano part. Normally I think of scales of this sort as representing getting somewhere. But to me, having watched the Olympics quite a lot, these scales suggested a figure skater twirling around in place. This phenomenon reminds me of something Fleisher once said. He was discussing a piano piece in which there was a downward spiral of notes that somehow suggested an upward movement, as if the music were somehow implying an ascent into heaven. The idea that musical materials could suggest some movement other than what seems like the obvious choice based on register, is fascinating. Perhaps it depends on context and also harmonic content.

Mozart Marathon

Last week, I took part in a Mozart marathon at the University of Richmond. Upwards of three hours of Mozart's music were presented by various Richmond performers.

One nice thing about important composer anniversaries is that they encourage musicians and the public to take another, and perhaps better look at the composer. I haven't played much Mozart in years, but the anniversary is drawing me back into relationship with his music.

I was surprised that hearing as much Mozart as I did during the marathon did not leave me with as joyful a feeling as I had anticipated. Maybe this is only because of the specific repertoire performed on the occasion, but it may be that his works are somehow more somber than I had realized before.

Horowitz Plays Mozart

A while back, a blogging friend mentioned that he would like to have some recommendations regarding classical recordings to buy, so I got inspired to start making some recommendations.

2006 is this 250th anniversary of the birth of Mozart.

My favorite Mozart recording is "Horowitz Plays Mozart." On the recording Horowitz performs the Piano Concerto, K. 488 and the Piano Sonata, K. 333.

Of course the music-making is energetic and refreshing, but what makes it my favorite is that Horowitz's musicianship is more than aural or conceptual here, it is somehow palpable.

Even better than the CD would be the film that was made about the making of the recording!

Christmas Contrast

On Sunday, we sang "What Child is This" at church. As I considered how best to play the hymn, I noticed the constant contrast between the verses and the chorus. Each verse focuses on the humanity and lowliness of the Baby Jesus: "What child is this who laid to rest on Mary's lap is sleeping?" The verse emphasizes the glory of Christ's divinity: "This, this is Christ the King whom shepherds guard and angels sing."

As I thought on the contrast and paradox of God becoming human, I realized that this concept might be the most profound and poignant archetype with which many other contrasts resonate.

As a musician, I see this as a possible insight into the interpretation of sonata forms. Sonata forms are structured around the contrast of two themes. Traditionally, one theme is of an assertive quality while the other is more passive and lyrical. Perhaps these qualities suggest to us the majesty of God and the tenderness of the incarnation. And maybe the tumult of the development sections of sonata forms sound out the mysteries of God becoming human.

Juries

"Jury" is the ominous sounding name music schools have given to the end-of-semester exam for students studying to play an instrument or to sing.

I enjoy listening to juries, but they can be very stressful for the students playing them. Last Saturday, we held juries at the University of Richmond. This time around, most of the students seemed pretty relaxed, and most also did a very good job.

Part of the fun of listening to juries is to see what music teachers are assigning. Sometimes you learn of good material to use with students through this process.

This time, I heard several piano preludes by the composer Mompou. The first of these was for left hand alone, and sounded a little like Scriabin. Another had a very interesting shape, beginning in the upper to middle registers of the piano and descending ratther rapidly and unexpectedly to the lower registers towards the end.

I was also introduced to two pieces for saxophone and piano by Hartley. These pieces use what sounds like a twelve-tone vocabulary, and are constructed in such a way as to keep the listener closely engaged throughout. I was also struck during one of these pieces at how loud and beautiful sounding an instrument the baritone saxophone can be given the right acoustic.

Holiday Performances

I will be involved in several Christmas-related musical events this Decemeber that may be of interest.


12-4
11:00 AM
Woodland Heights Baptist Church - Richmond, VA

During the worship service a cantata I have been composing this fall will be presented. It is entitled "The Promise of a Child" and is based on passages in Genesis, Matthew, Luke, and Revelation. In addition to the choir and instrumentalists of the church, soprano Susan Meador and bass-baritone James Lynn will be singing.


12-15
7:30 PM
Woodland Heights Baptist Church

During this Christmas concert, I will perform arrangements of music from Handel's Messiah and will accompany hornist Kathy Hulin (my wife) and tenor and soprano Jeff and Tracee Prillaman in a varity of Christmas carols.


12-18
7:00 PM
Lasker Baptist Church - Lasker, NC

In this solo concert I will play a set of Christmas pieces by Mendelssohn, the Messiah arrangements, and arrangements of favorite carols.

Faure Songs

Last week we attended Richmond Ballet performances that incorporated songs by Gabriel Faure. Since then, I have been struck afresh by how haunting and exquisite the melodies of these songs are.

When we got home from the Ballet, we took out a volume of Faure songs and sang and played a few because we were both still thinking about them.

In the middle of that night, I woke from a dream to find myself singing Faure's "Apres un Reve" in my mind!

And in the days following, I have enjoyed strolling the leaf-scattered streets of my neighborhood in the autumn moonlight and humming more Faure songs to myself.