Weather update, Sunday, Dec. 18: We will have class today. See you there! Weather update, Friday, Dec. 16: I do plan to have class on Sunday, Dec. 18. But if the weather changes and I have to cancel, I will post a notice here and Classic Pianos will post signs at the store. Thank you for your understanding. The music for our next class nicely matches December’s storms and tempests. On Dec. 18, we will explore how composers write, both literally and metaphorically, about storms, wind, rain and gloom. But, we will also enjoy sunrises and morning sun. Remember morning sun? We will luxuriate in a gorgeous daybreak in “Daphnis et Chloe” by Maurice Ravel. From silence, arises the murmur of a brook, fed by dew trickling over rocks. The opening is a marvel of orchestral warmth and light. We will end the class in sunlight, too, with the lyrical sunrise in “Peer Gynt” by Edvard Grieg. Inbetween, we will enjoy Claude Debussy's brilliant playing of his own “Gardens in the Rain,” and shiver in the frozen silence of winter in the final song of “Winterreise” by Franz Schubert. At midnight in a desolate, inn, we will shudder at thunder and lightning as Rigoletto waits to avenge his doomed daughter in Verdi’s masterpiece. And we will hear perhaps the greatest storm in music, from majestic “Alpine” Symphony by Richard Strauss. Join us at 4 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 18, Classic Pianos, 3003 SE Milwaukie at Powell Blvd. $20 at the door; 503-546-5622 or peggie@classicportland.com.
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Friends, I’m happy to tell you I have added three more classes to my music appreciation series. I originally scheduled six classes, not knowing how people would receive them. But, based on your wonderful reactions, I’m delighted to add these new classes. 4 p.m. Sunday, March 26: Music of Grieving. What music do we turn to in our time of greatest need? A powerful blow that brings rage and violence? The quiet settling in of pain and sorrow? The waves of anguish that continue through time? Sorrowful music can be some of the most beautiful in the world: Samuel Barber’s “Adagio for Strings,” “Nimrod” from Edward Elgar’s “Enigma Variations,” Gustav Mahler’s Adagietto from his Fifth Symphony. Let’s explore music of the gravest beauty. 4 p.m. Sunday, April 30: The Great Pianists. We devote an entire class to the piano and the artists who bring it to life in so many different ways. We’ll admire Artur Rubinstein’s gorgeous sound in Chopin, Sviatoslav Richter’s ferocity in Beethoven, Glenn Gould’s mastery of Bach, Mitsuko Uchida’s pliancy in Mozart, plus the artistry of Martha Argerich, the Norwegian Lief Ove Andsnes, Stephen Hough and Britain’s latest sensation, Benjamin Grosvenor. 4 p.m. Sunday, May 21: Opera Versus Art Song. We explore the human voice on stages both large and small. Franz Schubert, Hugo Wolf, Aaron Copland and William Bolcom give us exquisite moments of intimacy, while Handel, Mozart, Verdi, Puccini and John Adams sweep us up with magnificent power. Please join us! We had a wonderful time with Mahler's Second Symphony, Sunday. For some people, Gustav Mahler is one of those composers who is difficult to approach. All those funeral marches, the death shrieks, the jaunty folk tunes. Not to mention the incredible length of his symphonies. But we broke it down with musical context, the cataclysmic changes erupting during Mahler's lifetime and why his music has such a powerful effect on us. With cue sheets in hand, we listened to much of this wonderful recording by Sir Simon Rattle and the City of Birmingham Orchestra: The key to understanding Mahler, as Leonard Bernstein said, is his duality. A composer and a conductor. Born Jewish, converted to Catholicism. Naive in some ways, sophisticated in others. Terrified of death, yearning for immortality. Music of great vulgarity and radiant beauty. Born in rural Bohemia, rising to the top musical post in Europe's music capital.
Since music director Carlos Kalmar arrived in Portland in 2003, he has conducted all but one of Mahler's 10 symphonies with the Oregon Symphony. No. 8, "Symphony of a Thousand," is the exception. The orchestra performs Symphony No. 2, "Resurrection," May 20, 21, 22, 2017. I, for sure, will be there. Next class: "Weather Wonders," how composers respond to rain, wind, oceans and sunrises. 4 p.m. Dec. 18. Classic Pianos, 3003 SE Milwaukie & Powell Blvd., Portland. 503-546-5622. Join us! Are you ready for some Mahler?
My next class, Nov. 13, explores Gustav Mahler and his brilliant Symphony No. 2, the “Resurrection.” Mahler fans — and it’s hard to think of another composer who arouses such devotion — this is for you. Mahler (1860-1911) was obsessed with the Big Questions: Where are we going? What is the point of toil and sorrow? Will death reveal the meaning of life? His music reflects his doubts and anxieties on a massive scale. He saturates it with funeral marches, radiant hymns, screams, birdsong, peasant tunes, sarcastic trills, shrill humor and ecstatic triumph. This is the kind of immersion we seek as fans: a stirring of something deeply embedded in our souls. The “Resurrection” is Mahler at his best. It’s a mammoth thing, with a huge orchestra (10 horns, eight trumpets), full chorus, two solo singers and off-stage bands. The fourth movement is one of his loveliest songs and the fifth and final movement is a triumphant hymn of redemption and rebirth — not in the Christian sense, but for all humans. The music ascends as if to heaven, filled with hope, a vision of paradise with pealing bells and a final moment of quiet, like a deep sigh of contentment. I hope you will join me for a deep dive into this remarkable music: 4 p.m., Sunday, Nov. 13, Classic Pianos, 3303 SE Milwaukie, next to the Aladdin Theater. Cost: $20, payable at the door. To register and save a seat: 503-546-5622 or peggie@classicportland.com. The class should last 90 minutes. If anybody would like to explore more about the four "warhorses I talked about at my Oct. 16 class, here are the primary sources I used. I've also added the videos we watched. Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1 1. I found this essay in the National Registry helpful in describing Van Cliburn's 1958 win at the Tchaikovsky Competition. www.loc.gov/programs/static/national-recording-preservation-board/documents/cliburn.pdf 2. A good description of the Romantic concerto as a hero's journey: www.clt.astate.edu/jbonner/THE%20ROMANTIC%20CONCERTO.htm Nicolas Slonimsky's justly renowned "Lexicon of Musical Invective" is an entertaining collection of misguided quotes from music critics. Their reactions to music of their time is hilarious and instructive. 3. Reviews of Cliburn with the Oregon Symphony, including my interview with the pianist in 1997. www.oregonlive.com/performance/index.ssf/2013/02/van_cliburn_in_portland_review.html Here's his performance immediately after winning the competition in Moscow. Beethoven's Fifth Symphony 1. Michael Steinberg's "The Symphony" has detailed information about the composition and historcial context of the Fifth. 2. Matthew Guerrieri's new book, "The First Four Notes: Beethoven's Fifth and the Human Imagination" looks promising. It will be published Nov. 13, 2016. 3. My story in The Oregonian about the wide ripple effect Beethoven's Fifth had on the Oregon Symphony, its audiences and the country after music director Carlos Kalmar programmed it during his first season, in 2004. Since then, the orchestra has received three Grammy nominations, performed a successful concert at Carnegie Hall and increased audiences at home. www.oregonlive.com/performance/index.ssf/2011/02/carlos_kalmar_brings_fierce_fo.html Two versions of Beethoven's Fifth: the great German conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler, who takes a magnificently deliberate approach -- listen to how he holds the fermatas; and John Eliot Gardiner, who takes a brisk, aggressive, approach. His first movement is 1'35" faster than Furtwangler's. The "Hallelujah" Chorus from Handel's "Messiah" An enlightening look at the tradition of standing for the "Hallelujah" Chorus: Michael Steinberg's "Choral Masterworks." Two versions of the "Hallelujah" Chorus, the might Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the slimmed-down Choir of King's College, Cambridge. Claire de Lune" by Claude Debussy Paul Roberts, an English pianist and frequent lecturer at Portland Piano International events, is a good source about Debussy's music: "Images: The Piano Music of Claude Debussy." I wrote this essay for Artslandia, Portland's arts magazine, at the start of the fall season in 2015. It's a defense of "old repertoire" and what the great composers can still offer us.
I’m going to faint. We are standing like cattle in a holding pen at the back of Vienna’s gilded concert hall, the Musikverein. As lowly students, too broke to buy seats, we crane our necks, shoulder to shoulder, breathing air that is hot and lifeless. But from the stage, miracles float our way. We are following Schubert down long winding paths, transfixed by the pianist Alfred Brendel — jutting chin, black curls atoss — throwing light and shade over the composer’s last three monumental sonatas. And then a woman actually faints. It’s a little hard to tell at first. We are standing so tightly, she remains upright for a while. But we are definitely slumping while Schubert’s beauty runs over us. Schubert! Brendel’s thundering chords and death-still tone are devastating, humbling, exhilarating. Despite the heat and slumping, Schubert/Brendel show me possibilities of spectacularness the way Nabakov’s Vasili Ivanovich describes in the short story “Cloud, Castle, Lake”: Without reasoning, without considering, only entirely surrendering to an attraction the truth of which consisted in its own strength, a strength which he had never experienced before, Vasili in one radiant second realized that here in this room with that view, beautiful to the verge of tears, life would at last be what he had always wished it to be… This is Schubert’s gift: Life as we wish it to be. Old music gets a bad rap, these days. Symphony orchestras and opera houses perform the same old stuff. Superstars play a perpetual glamour game of greatest hits. Jet streams of Vivaldi circle the globe. The music doesn’t wear out, but our capacity for awe does. So here’s a radical thought: Let’s reclaim it. Ah, but how? The old-fashioned way. Not with YouTube or an Xbox or a touchscreen, but with our hearts and imaginations. The trick to recapturing awe is to imagine you’re hearing something new. Get past the marketing buzz and the personalities and savor as if for the first time a melody, a rhythm, a harmony. A phrase, a crescendo, a repetition. Listen for a story, a narrative. An intention. Yes, new music nourishes us, too. Oregon composer Robert Kyr’s haunting oratorio, "A Time for Life," is a profound plea to heal the earth. It is of the moment, yet it synthesizes modern and ancient modes with tender, rapturous lyricism. John Luther Adams astonishes audiences with his lush, 40-minute seascape, “Become Ocean,” which won last year’s Pulitzer Prize. Portland composer Kenji Bunch riffs on Americana rhythms and textures that hurtle us out of our seats with delight. These works feel fresh, vital, mavericky. Our culture prizes fresh, vital, mavericky. We covet the latest gadgets and devour new books, plays, films, art and dance. We train our gaze ever forward. But, while I, too, roll my eyes at yet another Beethoven Ninth Symphony, let’s blame marketing, not Beethoven. Six seconds of “Porgi amor” still stops me cold. Why do we need Mozart? Because he expresses extremes of life — affirmation, despair, delight, emptiness — sometimes in a single phrase. The slow movement of Piano Concerto No. 21 (“Elvira Madigan”) lulls us into a trance. The finale of the “Jupiter” Symphony surges in triumph. We still need lulling and surging. What fills me with awe is when a pianist such as Mitsuko Uchida plays“the thoughts within the notes,” as Jeremy Denk says, “…shading a picture in sound so finely in color and intensity, it forms a landscape in the middle distance.” Schubert invites us to slow down, to ponder a melody reflected by a dozen different harmonies that change our perception of a tune. He is the music you will hear when you die, Uchida says. A life in all its possibilities. In our sharp, quick, Instagram lives, we still crave mystery and miracles and these guys give them to us. Embrace them. “We are broadened, not narrowed, by our fandom,” writes Adam Gopnik of The New Yorker. What a composer is really saying in music, Leonard Bernstein wrote, is, “Has this ever happened to you? Haven’t you experienced this same tone, insight, shock, anxiety, release?” And when we “like” a piece of music, we are simply saying to the composer, “Yes.” Late Beethoven — stone-deaf Beethoven — takes us inside a secret. The rise and fall of single notes in the opening of the C-Sharp Minor String Quartet feel like he is revealing something new and hard won. “An unsuspected possibility of the mind, hardly connected to anything we’ve experienced before,” writes the renowned Beethoven writer J.W.N. Sullivan in his “Beethoven: His Spiritual Journey.” At that Schubert marathon nearly 40 years ago, Schubert gave me the moon, with its wavering reflections of mystery and light and love, as well as fear and sorrow and grief. It helped set me on a life in music and taught me how to stay upright, even when life felt like I was standing in a crowded cattle pen. Listen anew. Listen afresh. The music deserves that. “The past is never dead,” William Faulkner said. Let’s believe him. At my second class, Oct. 16, we explored four very familiar works: Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1, with Van Cliburn playing in Moscow, fresh from his win at the 1958 Tchaikovsky Competition; two versions of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony; two versions of Handel's "Hallelujah" Chorus from "Messiah" and, to end on an intimate, meditative note, Claude Debussy's "Claire de lune." You could feel the energy in the room during Cliburn's bravura performance, but I was still surprised when people applauded, even though I shouldn't have been. Tchaikovsky wears his heart on his sleeve, communicating great beauty and intense emotions -- conflict, nobility, triumph -- that Cliburn perfectly captures. Tchaikovsky is so unabashed at this, he frees us to feel the same things. As the pianist Stephen Hough says, we have a feeling of internal release. The smiles and gasps in the class tell me we all felt it, yesterday. But the concerto form also captures something deeper, something we are instinctively drawn to: a hero's journey. A concerto soloist enters the stage filled with 80 or 90 players, and faces a hall with 1,000 or more people acting as witnesses. He or she faces severe obstacles, alone. The music begins by pitting the pianist against the entire orchestra, and the movement ends with a cadenza, where the orchestra falls silent and the soloist must forge ahead, alone in the wilderness. Moment by moment in this cadenza, the soloist navigates the challenges until, by the end, he or she soars in triumph and the orchestra rises to greet the hero. We had a great class and I'm grateful to everyone who joined me. I hope to see you Nov. 13 for a look at "Timeless Symphonies." I’m calling my next class “Warhorses,” but not because the music carries a military theme. In classical music, the term “warhorses” refers to works that are so popular, even people who know little about music recognize them. Think “Bolero” or the “William Tell” Overture. We will explore four works — not those — that span three centuries, one from the 18th century, two from the 19th and one from the 20th century. Each piece plays on our souls in compelling ways. For example, in 1958, when the Cold War was approaching the frigid zone, a gangly 23-year-old Texan flew to Moscow to compete in the first Tchaikovsky Competition. Of the 50 contestants, Russian audiences immediately warmed to the shy young man with the unruly hair and thunderous touch. The Russian judges were taken aback. Who was this unknown? As Van Cliburn played through each round of the competition, his popularity grew. Tickets to hear him sold out. At the final round, he played three pieces: Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano Concerto, a work by Dmitry Kabalevsky and the piece that would change his life: Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto. As he finished the Tchaikovsky, the crowd erupted. “First prize! First prize!” they shouted and showered the stage with flowers. What happened next has become music lore. Come find out why, as we explore Tchaikovsky’s piano concerto — once deemed unplayable — and its place in history as the first piece to fully combine the virtuoso and symphonic styles. The other three pieces we will explore are just as powerful and fascinating. 4 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 16 at Classic Pianos, 3003 SE Milwaukie, next to the Aladdin Theater. $20 at the door. To register, contact Peggie Zackery, 503-546-5622; peggie@classicportland.com Here are the primary sources for my Sept. 11 class, "10 Tunes That Shook the World." Beethoven’s Ninth and Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring”: “First Nights: Five Musical Premieres” by Thomas Forrest Kelly. Kelly, who teaches this popular class at Harvard, writes stylishly about the social, economic, political and artistic currents that swirled around five important musical premieres: Claudio Monteverdi’s opera, “Orfeo,” Handel’s “Messiah,” Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, Hector Berlioz’s "Symphonie Fantastique" and Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring.”
Beethoven’s Ninth: “The Symphony” by Michael Steinberg. The late music critic for the Boston Globe writes about composers and their symphonies from Beethoven to William Walton with deep knowledge and colorful musical descriptions. “The Rite of Spring”: “The Rest is Noise” by Alex Ross. One of my favorite books about music, this is a smart, engaging history of the tumultuous music and culture of the 20th century. Ross is a music critic for The New Yorker. Biographical information on Mozart, Beethoven and Stravinsky: “The Lives of the Great Composers” by Harold Schoenberg. A fun read, this out-of-print survey of composers from Bach to Bartok by the late chief music critic of The New York Times is witty and opinionated. Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque music: “Inside Early Music” by Bernard D. Sherman. The early music writer interviews two-dozen musicians and scholars about style, performance practice and controversies over “authenticity” in music from plainchant to Brahms. I also found Wikipedia helpful for information on the function and evolving styles of chant in church music, for biographical information on composers and translations of texts. For contemporary events that occurred in each century, I used this web site: World History — InfoPlease. A huge thank you to all who came to my first class, Sunday. I was thrilled we had such a good house and equally thrilled we got through 1,000 years of music in 90 minutes! The questions were excellent and kept me on my toes, so, thank you for that. And thank you for your kind comments.
A couple of people asked about a bibliography of sources I used for the class and I will assemble that as soon as possible. A great idea, which I will do for each class. Up next: Warhorses. By that I mean, works that have become mega-popular over time, to the point where we take their genius for granted. Handel's "Hallelujah" Chorus. Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Claude Debussy's "Claire de lune." But, why do they tower over other works? Why are we so devoted to them? I do the deconstruction, 4 p.m. Oct. 16 at Classic Pianos. See the Classes page for details. Join us! |
AuthorDavid 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
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