David Stabler
  • Home
  • Classes
  • About me
  • Blog
  • Contact

​music and life

​

Sarah Chang, Yuja Wang, Vladimir Horowitz: Why prodigies and virtuosos are not like you and me

1/22/2017

1 Comment

 
This is going to be fun.

For my next class, I’m going to do something a little different. Instead of focusing on the music and its meaning, I thought just this once, it would be fun to focus on the performers. Generally, we want to resist the cult of stars and celebrities. They come and go and they often have egos the size of Utah, which puts attention in the wrong place.

But for this class, I thought it would be fun to look at a dozen performers who have done extraordinary things without obstructing their art.

Performers fascinate us because we enjoy watching someone do something well. And almost all accomplished performers — let’s call them virtuosos — start out early. Many of them were child prodigies; children who do adult things astonishingly well.

So, we are going to look at two types of musicians: prodigies and virtuosos.

We will thrill to videos of young-and-old violinists Yehudi Menuhin and Joshua Bell. We will see the great Bejun Mehta as a boy soprano and then, years later, as a formidable adult countertenor. We will watch the violinist Sarah Chang dazzle as a 14-year-old and as a poised adult.

We will also shake our heads in disbelief at the artistry of such virtuosos as pianists Martha Argerich, Glenn Gould and Yuja Wang, the incomparable mezzo-soprano Cecilia Bartoli and old lions Vladimir Horowitz and Jascha Heifetz.

No, they are not like you and me. Or, as Tom Lehrer, the singer, songwriter and satirist, put it: “It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.”

4 p.m. Jan. 29, Classic Pianos, 3003 SE Milwaukie & Powell Blvd., Portland. 503-546-5622.

Join us!


1 Comment

Super Bowl versus music

1/12/2017

6 Comments

 
I am writing to apologize for an unfortunate incident that approaches. My Feb. 5 class is the same day as the Super Bowl. I did not think to check when I booked the dates last summer — beginner’s mistake! I tried moving the date, but Classic Pianos had no other Sundays available, so I am going ahead with the class, knowing many of you will rightly want to stay home.

I have booked dates for 2017-18 and avoided all important conflicts — Super Bowl, Easter, Tax Day, Epiphanies, Equinoxes.   

See you Jan. 29 for some major fun with Prodigies and Virtuosos.  


6 Comments

    Author

    David Stabler is a teacher,  writer, dad and cyclist. He's working on a novel based on his childhood years living in Africa. In 2017, he rode across America with his brother.

    Archives

    December 2020
    March 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    August 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016

    RSS Feed

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Classes
  • About me
  • Blog
  • Contact