Gottschalk - La Savane

This is a live, not note perfect performance of Louis-Moreau Gottschalk's ballade, La Savane.

Gottschalk was a unique figure in Classical music history, because he was an America, born in New Orleans, who conquered the capitals of Europe with his virtuoso pianism. Chopin apparently told him he would be the 'king of pianists.' Sadly he died young, just a little older than Chopin, at the age of 40 from a quinine overdose, trying to treat the yellow fever. Quinine should always be enjoyed responsibly. 

Not only was he exotic in that he was American, but his Creole heritage added another level of flavor. He inflected his music with Creole and Puerto Rican sources, and was surely the only person in Classical music doing that in the mid-19th century.

While his music has all the hallmarks of the Romanticism and cinematic piano writing of the time, he was never able to develop his art to the degree of Chopin or Liszt, and for me, some of his music that must have been charming at the time now sounds pretty dated. 

This piece, La Savane, is subtitled Creole Ballade, and is apparently based on a Creole song, "Pov'piti Lolotte." It's really a set of variations on that tune. Most people hear 'Skip to my lou' but the minor key gives it the haunting atmosphere. The ballade itself is a story of runaway slaves, trying to escape through the swamp; they die and are transformed into menacing oak trees. Hence the ghostly quality of the variations. 

I programmed this piece for 'The Cosmopolitan Pianist' specifically for concerts in Louisiana, but it was just too popular, and so am still playing it on the road. It's a bit of a novelty item; there's very few recordings, and of well-known pianists I've only heard Eugene List and Lambert Orkis play it. 

September 9: Terre Haute - The Cosmopolitan Pianist

the recital hall at ISU in terre haute

bill hughes taught piano at ISU for 40 years

the lovely michelle & alexis 

terre haute is a town a little over an hour from indianapolis and was the site for the next Cosmopolitan Pianist. the recital hall is gorgeous if a little zealously air-conditioned and the steinway D is superb with new hammers and dampers. 

after the concert i met Bill Hughes, who was on piano faculty there for 40 years. he told me that in 1968 he was drafted for vietnam, and his temporary, two-year replacement was Anthony Smetona, my formative teacher in my cleveland years. they never met in person. it was Anthony's name in my bio, that brought him to the concert.

i didn't realize till later, that my idolized view of Anthony was not shared by the wider musical community in cleveland, and the realization of how wide that gulf was still haunts me today. every appearance of his name is like a mirror i can't help peer into - but dimly. still dimly.

i had planned to scrap the Gottschalk 'La Savane' after baton rouge but it proved too popular, and played it again. 

September 7: Baton Rouge - Tourism Day

the senate chamber at the Louisiana state capitol

huey long's monument to his-self outside the capitol

should i post this? i did sit in the senate president's seat and reign fire and brimstone on the state.

the bullet that did not kill huey long

i stayed with artist Dub Lee. this is his studio 

a detail from Dub's studio wall , where he does his practicing. what if there was a disaster tomorrow; what would future peoples interpret about this tableau?

September 6: Baton Rouge - LSU and Goldberg

the recital hall at LSU - the seats are purple & gold

niloufar iravani (the midnight), me, maestro dinos constantinides (variations on an ancient greek theme), liz knox (three descriptive pieces), and austin franklin (five miniatures)

posture

the chimes tower at LSU, and yes i went to chimes bar

today was the recital at LSU, featuring music of three students, pictured, and composer and longtime professor Maestro Dinos Constantinides. after intermission was the goldberg variations.. 

i was thrilled to find Dinos' variations on a greek theme, a solo piano piece, written in a totally pianistic, creative, and colorful way. this concert was at his invitation, and with pleasure i learned the music of his advanced students, which i hope to post but do not yet have the recording. 

LSU is a beautiful campus, spanish - inspired architecture, and very homey. i went one day to the music library for some light reading on pavanes and galliards, and the music librarian came to my desk to tell me i had a phone call.  ok then. i was raised to be silent in libraries but i guess this is the south. you answer the phone when they call. it was the music school and it was my rehearsal time. 

the goldbergs are a piece that bring an eccentric and committed audience out of the woodwork, and sort of go with everything and nothing. i hope the composers were inspired by the depths bach traveled, for such a huge range of variety. 

September 5: Baton Rouge - The Cosmopolitan Pianist

first christian church in baton rouge has a small kawai, with a big sustaining sound. 

non-caribbean peoples of baton rouge

the cosmopolitan pianist is a program featuring music of national identity: adopted nationalities (godowsky's star-spangled banner), appropriated ones (bach italian concerto and liszt spanish rhapsody) and what i call 'psalm 137' pieces: composers in exile writing in their native language (chopin mazurkas, dinos constantinides greek variations, even gottschalk creole ballade). 

baton rouge itself is an american city with a european and caribbean heritage. if anything i get that caribbean heritage is more prominent, but there's a conversation between the two. my program was about that general idea, of all the ways one culture can be expressed through another. the central european way of composing, especially for the piano, and the theory involved, was the meeting point for music sourced from very foreign places. chopin didn't just write mazurkas in a strict style, he adapted them to his internationalism and to some degree his audience. 

that exotic flavor must have sold in paris in the 1800's because gottschalk brought his mildly creole - puerto rican musical memories there, and was a smash hit. his music hasn't aged as well as liszt and chopin, but you can still feel the drama. 

as an encore i played the 'turkish' rondo of mozart, and the crowd went wild. 

here's the live performance of chopin's mazurkas op24: 

Poets of the Piano - On Tour 2018

'Poets of the Piano' is a concert series, or brand, or concept, that has been my focus for the past five years. It started in Pittsburgh, when I needed a memorable title for a class I was teaching at the Osher Institute connected to Carnegie-Mellon University.

This class was a lecture-recital, featuring a very wide range of piano music knit together into four one-hour programs. Because the repertoire was so diverse, I thought I needed some umbrella ideas to tie everything together and make a bigger statement, something inspiring and informative. 

'Poets of the Piano' comes from the liberation of poetic forms from any specific words, and the re-creation of story-telling drama in piano music. I'm struck by the historical footnote of Chopin's Ballades, which originally were published as 'Balladen ohne Worte,' or ballades - without words. People needed to be told, I guess, that they didn't get to sing along. 

Beyond that, lots of literature crept into piano music from the 19th century on, and that's a rich topic for exploration, because it represents an intersection of culture, and often a translation of effect, from text to music. I think it's possible to get a deeper understanding and love of music, by getting a feeling for these things.

So 'Poets' was born, and under the general series of 'Poets,' I created lots of themes - The Cosmopolitan Pianist, showcasing music of international ambition; 'Songs of Night, Love, and Morning,' with serenades, aubades, Liebesträume, whatever; 'Phantasmagoria,' music of imaginary creatures or atmosphere, with some satanic pieces; 'A Night at the Theater,' all transcriptions from the stage, from Classical times till today. That sort of thing. They are just ways to experience music written across continents and centuries and styles, as kin.

So now, in the Fall of 2018, 'Poets' goes on tour, to 25 American cities, from September to December. There are four programs: 'The Cosmopolitan Pianist,' 'A Night at the Theater,' 'Phantasmagoria,' (starts on October 31) and 'Acts of Faith.'

In addition to those, whenever I have the chance, I'll play Bach's Goldberg Variations, a cult classic that always brings a devoted audience out of the woodwork. You might think it's a lot of work, and you're right, but I do the work so you don't have to. You can see the events in the tabs above, and see what you missed under 'Archive.' 

Follow here for a travelog of the tour, I hope to post pictures, sound clips, and a general diary. If I'm in your city please don't hesitate to contact me through the website and say hello.

Until soon,

Nathan

The Bluest Eye

In Toni Morrison's first novel, she rhapsodizes on Cholly's unfortunate life, writing that only a musician can tap into the primal feelings he suffered, that words alone weren't up to the task. But her novel captures something that music cannot, that is the depth of time. 

Thr Bluest Eye is written in waves of biography, the outcome already known from the beginning, but each character getting a carefully remembered history and clear line of development independent of the linear action. We go back in time to read about Cholly and Polly and Geraldine and Soaphead and others; their back stories interrupt the flow but give the context of the present time.  even though the narrative is broken up like this, it's all woven in, and the characters in our eyes gain depths of experience and time.

i can't think of any opera where the linear narrative isn't the main driving force. Even in reflective arias that don't push forward the action, we never see characters back in time, only as they are presently and how they develop. Opera moves from present point to present point. Is it able to have a structure like this book? 

in any case I see a lot of parallels to Faulkner here: writing about the poorest people with the richest prose, for one. The scene of Pecola going to the market combined with the scene of her going to Soaphead's brings to mind Dewey Dell in As I Lay Dying and her silence at the pharmacy, and her feelings of ostracization there. The mad dialogue at the end brings to mind Vardaman and his naive, run-on thoughts. The rape, incest, subjugation and poverty are all familiar to readers of Faulkner.

Review of Carnegie Mellon recital

If you can read Korean, my concert of Quentin's music at Carnegie Mellon University has an online review for your pleasure. Enjoy.

http://m.newsis.com/inc/inc_article_view.php?ar_id=NISX20141219_0013367241&cID=10100

recordings

some of you have been inquiring about the Arsenal Duo recording from Stambaugh Auditorium in March. we were scheduled to make a studio recording of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, as well as Virgil Fox's arrangement of Bach's Come, Sweet Death in May but due to scheduling conflicts that has been rescheduled. Those two pieces will be recorded in late September at Stambaugh and hopefully available for release a couple of months after that. 

Wolf Hall and the memory palace

When I was a young piano student I had a very inspiring teacher, who was always pushing me to the edge and beyond of my limits. A small suggestion from him would lead me into a frenzy of concentration.  Once he suggested I learn Schumann's Carnaval, and I memorized the entire piece in two days, practicing after school until dinner. 

I absorbed a lot, and memorized fast, but even for me that was a feat, though I was so enthused with the music that I didn't question or examine it until much later. Every movement in Carnaval has a title, some from the Commedia dell'arte, some from his private imagination, some people from his real life, or some dance or scenario. They all lend themselves to visualization, and as separate characters or moods, they are easy to distinguish. It was this visualization that allowed me to absorb the music so fast, and even now when I play it, I can see the characters in the Lodge, the house where I learned it. 

Unbeknownst to me I was using the memory palace technique, sometimes called method of loci. It came up only a year or two ago on the Diane Rehm show, and I knew it right away! It involves spatial memory and weird imagery. Take any object, or in the case of music a starting point and a finishing point, attach to it some image that is conspicuous, and put it in a room, or in a tree, or coming out of a sewer grate, or floating in a cloud. There on that object is attached to your memory in a certain way, and to recall it, you only need to picture part or all of your scene - the location, or the strange image.

Schumann did the work for you in Carnaval, if you have enough imagination to tack onto his titles. But the spatial memory is also crucial; there are endless places to use as your memory palace. 

anyways recently I read the miraculous novel Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, the story of Henry VIII told through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell, his most powerful servant. Her interests lie in how Cromwell obtains and uses his power, and a skill that sets him apart from his other competitors at court is... The memory palace!  

Mantel conjectures that that as a guerrilla soldier in Italy he learned the technique, which came down from Simonedes in Greece and Cicero in  Rome, and therefore had a command of faces, facts, figures, land entitlements, conversations, intrigues, whatever, that he could recall for his own purpose at any time. It's worth quoting a passage: 

“in Italy he learned a memory system and furnished it with pictures. Some are drawn from wood and field, from hedgerow and copse: shy hiding animals, eyes bright in the undergrowth. Some are foxes and deer, some are griffins, dragons. Some are men and women: nuns, warriors, doctors of the church. In their hands he puts unlikely objects, St Ursula a crossbow, St Jerome a scythe, while Plato bears a soup ladle and Achilles a dozen damsons in a wooden bowl. It is no use hoping to remember with the help of common objects, familiar faces. One needs startling juxtapositions, images that are more or less peculiar, ridiculous, even indecent. When you have made the images, you place them about the world in locations you choose, each one with its parcel of woods, of figures, which they will yield you on demand. At Greenwich, a shaven cat may peep at you from behind a cupboard: at the Palace of Westminster, a snake may leer down from a beam and hiss your name. ”

later, when Cromwell is discussing a duke with someone, the issue of their land entitlements comes up; a "spider scurries from under the chair and supplies him with a fact." And there he has the exact entitlements, and when they were given. 

definitely the memory palace is a function of his character, and a source of his power, in the book. I think it also contributes to the particular fast pace of the story, and it's situation in time. This book comes to life through its use of the present tense, but also the passage of time: events are always attached to Saints days, or liturgical seasons, and occasionally to fixed dates. cromwell's memory gives the current time texture, and in effect ties everything together, since we see it all from his point of view. It's as powerful a literary device as a practical one. 

busoni and aristotle

there's a striking similarity in these two passages:

“For the word ‘nature’ is applied to what is according to nature and the natural in the same way as ‘art’ is applied to what is artistic or a work of art. We should not say in the latter case that there is anything artistic about a thing, if it is a bed only potentially, not yet having the form of a bed; nor should we call it a work of art. The same is true of natural compounds. What is potentially flesh or bone has not yet its own ‘nature,’ and does not exist ‘by nature,’ until it receives the form specified in the definition, which we name in defining what flesh or bone is.”

— Aristotle - Physics, Book II

“The term ‘musical’ is used by the Germans in a sense foreign to that in which any other language employs it... ‘Musical’ is derived from ‘music’, like ‘poetical’ from poetry, or ‘physical’ from physic(s). When I say, ‘Schubert was one of the most musical among men,’ it is the same as if I should say, ‘Helmholtz was one of the most physical among men.’ That is musical, which sounds in rhythms and intervals. A cupboard can be ‘musical’ if ‘music-works’ be enclosed in it.”

— Busoni - A New Esthetic of Music

on one hand Busoni is pointing out the absurdity of the term musical as applied to individuals, given that unless they are singers (he mentions in a footnote) they themselves do not produce musical sounds. a cupboard (music box, I thinkdoes, or an instrument, even if manipulated by people. on the other hand, he consistently saw and described in his treatise music as a living spirit, and a being unto itself. at the end of this chapter he adds a characteristically 'artistic' coda:

“A thousand hands support the buoyant child and solicitously attend its footsteps, that it may not soar aloft where there might be risk of a serious fall. But it is still so young, and is eternal; the day of its freedom will come. - When it shall cease to be ‘musical.’”

— Busoni - A New Esthetic of Music

More thoughts on a Reader's Manifesto

going back to Myers Reader's Manifesto provokes some mixed feelings. I remember not being thrilled about it at first, mainly because he's very critical of Paul Auster, my mother liked Paul Auster, and I couldn't stand it when anyone criticized something my mother liked! it's just all too mortifying. But I know enough at least now to admit that 'Smoke' was a terribly boring movie.

looking through his other published criticism I see a takedown of Denis Johnson (Tree of Smoke) and Toni Morrison, two authors I'm reading now, so that's unfortunate. Unfortunate because he is so convincing. There certainly are ridiculous metaphors in "Jesus' Son," and maybe I would have given Johnson the benefit of the doubt, the thought that there was a deeper thought there, except for Myers ruthlessly literal critique. 

but he is definitely wrong in one area. Here he quotes a passage from cormac McCarthy's "All the Pretty Little Horses***," critically: 

While inside the vaulting of the ribs between his knees the darkly meated heart pumped of who's will and the blood pulsed and the bowels shifted in their massive blue convolutions of who's will and the stout thighbones and knee and cannon and the tendons like flaxen hawsers that drew and flexed and drew and flexed at their articulations of who's will all sheathed and muffled in the flesh and the hooves that stove wells in the morning groundmist and the head turning side to side and the great slavering keyboard of his teeth and the hot globes of his eyes where the world burned. (All the Pretty Horses, 1992)

the syntax is indeed silly. But Myers also disapproves of the subject matter:

"The obscurity of who's will, which has an unfortunate Dr. Seussian ring to it, is meant to bully readers into thinking that the author's mind operates on a plane higher than their own—a plane where it isn't ridiculous to eulogize the shifts in a horse's bowels."

But in literature nothing is ridiculous, until a writer makes it so. Here is Nabokov, from a short story called "A Bad Day*****," writing much more artistically about the very same subject:

"From time to time this or that horse would half-raise its tail, under the tensed root of which a bulb of flesh would swell, squeezing out one tawny globe, then another, a third, after which the folds of black skin would close again and the tail droop."

unfortunately I have a good memory for things like this! 

*** Odetta singing 'All the Pretty Little Horses'

***** Mika singing 'Rain' (Baby, I hate days like this)

How I became a Famous Novelist - The Manifesto

Steve Hely's 2009 novel "How I became a Famous Novelist" tells the story of a pathetic bachelor, Pete Tarslaw, who games the New York Times best seller lists to crank out a trashy, pseudo-literary novel, a pre-fab best seller awaiting movie rights. 

 "A Reader's Manifesto" is an article by BR Myers published in 2001 in the Atlantic (I thought originally anonymously, but can't confirm) ripping to shreds techniques of "literary" best sellers like Proulx, Auster, McCarthy, delillo and others.

going back to the manifesto after several years I'm totally convinced it was the source material for Hely's novel. All the literary pretensions are appropriated by Tarslaw: the vague metaphors, the assumed wisdom in all things rural and folksy, the unrealistic high falutin language that would never sound good read aloud (as opposed to real southern grandiloquence), the pointless repetition, and so on. The novel is like a dramatization of Myers complaints. 

Here is Myers quoting David Guterson as an example of "generic literary prose" from "Snow Falling on Cedars:" 

On the night he had appointed his last among the living, Dr. Ben Givens did not dream, for his sleep was restless and visited by phantoms who guarded the portal to the world of dreams by speaking relentlessly of this world. They spoke of his wife—now dead—and of his daughter, of silent canyons where he had hunted birds, of august peaks he had once ascended, of apples newly plucked from trees, and of vineyards in the foothills of the Apennines. They spoke of rows of campanino apples near Monte Della Torraccia; they spoke of cherry trees on river slopes and of pear blossoms in May sunlight.

Here is Hely quoting from Tarslaw's fictional "Tornado Ashes Club:"  

---- 

 "do you remember when we went to the old Presbyterian church?" Grandmother said. "The church up in Gethsemene? Up in that notch of mountains that they called a village?" yes, said Silas. I remember. I played in the rhododendrons. Pretended they were a cave. Pretended they were a pirate's cave and I was burying treasure... He remembered. Remembered the touch of old sorrowful hands, pressing against his scalp. Remembered the sight of somber nods, passing one another in the pews and aisles. Remembered the taste of maple syrup, poured over pancakes at a mournful breakfast.

 ----

the pancakes at the end are a particularly delicious touch. Once again it's all there: wise old characters, too much pointless description, non-dramatic repetition, and non sequitur at the end. This is perfect literary parody worthy of George Saunders in "My Chivalric Fiasco."  

Tarslaw reaps all the self-perpetuating awards noted in Myers essay, but becomes more and more conflicted as earnest people see his commercial success as literary merit, rather than the hodge podge he knows it is. His character does have sincerity, established in the opening paragraph which is essentially an apology for his actions (we find out at the end this is his confessional memoir, another cliched pulp genre),  but succumbs to envy and perhaps the corrosive effect of capitalism on art. He is left particularly dispirited after encounters with a soulless mystery novelist and a high powered Hollywood producer, only searching for the bottom line.

his big insight is the melding of "art" prose with this bottom line, personified in Preston Brooks and his insufferable books. But he is crushed in a debate with Brooks, who puts him in his place as a cynical upstart unworthy of the world of letters.  He does that by pretentiously reciting a litany of human pain that he himself never experienced. Tarslaw's downfall is actually his sincerity. Brooks knows enough never to give up the game. 

Marian Anderson

today is the 75th anniversary of Marian Anderson sticking it to the Daughters of the American Revolution and giving a concert for 75,000 on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial! She didn't sing this but it's a classic recording of her singing, capturing both her intimacy and the drama. the four characters (narrator, father, son, and erlkönig) are amazingly etched out..

Review: Arsenal Duo at Stambaugh Auditorium

 Cleveland Classical reviewed my latest concert in Stambaugh Auditorium.