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.