HANS HOTTER ON LIEDER

I've been reading the memoirs of the German bass Hans Hotter (1908-2003)
called, conveniently, Hans Hotter by Hans Hotter (translated by Donald Arthur, published in 2006 by Northeaster University Press. The original title is 'Die Mai ward wir gegonen'-May was kind to me, a line from Schubert's Winterreise)

Hotter, in addition to telling us about his personal life and professional travels, thankfully offers some insight into the performance of lieder. On paper he's a secondary source. Seek out his recordings if you want to listen and hear the words and music from the oracles' mouth.

Here's an excerpt from pp. 236

"...a friend of Schubert's, the lawyer Dr. Leopold Sonnleithner, has passed down to us some hints from the great genius himself who created these "gruesome songs" (as he himself described Winterreise). In these hints, Schubert gives us what can certainly be regarded as authoritative answers...Schubert's friend reports, "I heard Schubert coach and accompany his songs more than a hundred times. He never tolerated violent expression in the performance of lieder. He always kept strictly in tempo except for those few passages where he himself specifically marked a tempo change in writing. The lieder singer should as a rule only relate the experiences and sensations of another person; he does not assume the role of the person whose feelings he is describing. Poet, composer, and singer must approach the song lyrically and not dramatically. Particularly in the case of Schubert's true expression, the most profound sensitivity has already been placed in the melody a such and is splendidly enhanced by the composer."

CP: Sing what's on the page. Nothing more and noting less.

So there.

I recommend this book and any of Hotter's recordings to anyone interested in learning to make music drama. Absent that, they are completely enjoyable for their own sake.

COLUMBUS SYMPHONY...WOULDN'T IT BE NICE?

I was thinking of the Columbus Symphony today, in anticipation of the Musicians of the Columbus Symphony concert set for tomorrow night at Veteran's Auditorium. The OSU Marching Band will be there, which is as savvy a piece of marketing and promotion as I've heard in a long while. They are, of course, regular participants in the CSO Summer Seasons.

I attended last Saturday's concert, conducted by Alessandro Siciliani. It was great. Crowded house, with lots of gutsy, passionate music making coming from the stage. In the intermission, I chatted with one of the CSO board members. I wondered if he felt like he was wading into enemy territory. (I didn't ask him that)
This gentleman has been a big supporter of the arts in Columbus for many years, and I'm sure there's no way he'd want to see the CSO fold. I didn't see any other board members there, but it was crowed and I don't know many of them, so for all I know the entire board could have been there. Good for them.

Wouldn't it be nice if tomorrow night the CSO Musicians, Mr. Hirokami, Mr. Beadle and all the board members in attendance could take a bow at the end of the evening, together, and in so doing signal and end to vituperation and who lives where and who cares and further signal a willingness to find some way to keep the band playing, period.

There are good and devoted people on both "sides" of this issue. Come out and take a bow. Music can do that much.

MUSICIANS OF THE COLUMBUS SYMPHONY

Musicians of the Columbus Symphony
Alessandro Siciliani, conductor
Saturday July 26 08
Veteran's Memorial Auditorium

There was already a good buzz in the hall with the downstairs seating pretty crowded when Siciliani came out to conduct this concert by the Musicians of the Columbus Symphony. Then the audience roared and leaped to their collective feet. What followed was a high octane, terrific romp through Verdi and Rossini overtures leading to a majestic reading of Finlandia. I imagine there was little or no rehearsal.
Given the emotion of the evening, its worth saying again that the band played beautifully.
One audience member remarked to me, well these overtures are like Pops pieces and I said try playing them. The evening ended with Dvorak's 4th symphony. It danced, as did the overtures. I'd like to acknowledge the beautiful playing by David Thomas, clarinet, Steve Secan, oboe, Randall Herster, flute...hell by everybody.
And say what you will, the paying public still loves Siciliani
and he clearly still loves these musicians.

Well, we've had several evenings of great music. This shows the best of our local performing arts community and a strong response from its many supporters. With everyone working at their best, maybe people can stop giving each other the proverbial finger and save this orchestra, restore these artists to their jobs and get serious about a quality of life issue for the capital city.

MORE CSO RANT

I seem to be getting grouchier than ever. I don't know if its the weather, the diet or just what, but the debacle at the Columbus symphony isn't helping my mood. Today it was reported that the Greater Columbus Arts Council is withdrawing funding, a quarter of a mill plus for the orchestra's 2008-2009 because the season has effectively been cancelled. Now you can't blame GCAC for this. They can't hold up monies that can go to other worthy organizations. I do wonder why they have never spoken publicly to encourage the orchestra's pooh bahs to either address the problems, sell tickets and get going or get out. Why hasn't GCAC said anything about anything. I sent 'em an e mail to this effect his morning. Politer in tone than I am now. But you and I both know that if there's any reply at all it will be along the "It's not our job " lines. My idea of arts advocacy is at odds with those in authority. Maybe they need to become as grouchy s I am.

LIKE ATTENDING A DEAR FRIEND'S FUNERAL....

...that's how I felt this past weekend as the Columbus Symphony played their last scheduled Classical Series concerts of the season, which will probably turn out to be their last concerts ever.
(Yes, yes we have Yo-Yo Ma en gala later this week, and a Pops
program with Marvin Hamlisch on May 31st. I'm sorry. Strike me dead if you want, but I don't want the last CSO concerts EVER to feature Marvin Hamlisch. God bless him)

The fiscal crisis at the Columbus Symphony is selling newspapers and keeping the blogs and websites humming.
The Columbus Dispatch has printed not one but two editorials telling the musicians (the product-thank you very much)to buck up and take all the pay cuts, all of the lost weeks and really everything the board can dish out to diminish the orchestra in size and quality. Stop whining and get over it.
The musicians take another view: where's the strategic plan? Where are the fundraising efforts? There's plenty of emotion from the public but how about from civic officials? The board will only negotiate further if the musicians accept horrendous cuts. The musicians will only negotiate further if these cuts are addressed. The board stance I find to be icy and patronizing. Very much the Esterhazy, use the servants entrance model. As stewards of a fifty seven year old civic organization, they clearly do not want the present Columbus symphony to succeed. Both sides vilify the other in the press. What's needed is a Dad or a playground monitor to knock some heads and get both sides talking. One has to wonder too, if CAPA , owners of the Ohio Theater wouldn't be just as content to let the CSO fail and fill the theatres with orchestra road shows. There it is folks: all music and all musicians are expendable and interchangeable.

If the board had any plan t fund raise or to improve this situation in any way, outside of firing half the orchestra they haven't made it known, it hasn't been reported or my fat ass has been under a very large rock. All they've said is, the musicians must accept these cuts. Period. If they don't, we have nothing to say to them.
Nor do they have anything we want to hear (including music, so it would seem)
Ah! Remember music? This past weekend, Beethoven, Schumann and Mendelssohn rang out splendidly. Will this-or Marvin Hamlisch-really be the end?

Look at these web sites:

www.symphonymusicians.com
www.glitteringstew.com
www.symphonystrong.com
www.adaptistration.com

SARAH CALDWELL AND THE REVOLUTION IN OPERA

SARAH CALDWELL, FIRST LADY OF OPERA by Daniel Kessler. Published June 30, 2008

Anyone wanting to know more about the art of stagecraft in opera should know these names. Google, Shmoogle or whatever but find their books and read: Stanislavsky, Wieland Wagner, Kroll Opera, Walter Felsenstein and Sarah Caldwell. They are all dead.

Today, I thrill to the work of Nic Muni, Stephen Wadsworth, Jack O'Brien, and Francesca Zambello. Peter Sellars is often fascinating but I don't always buy it. Sometimes its more about Peter than anything else (And lose the stupid haircut and the shmatte. It was cute in 1985 but most of us have moved on!)
All of them read scores. All go to the music and integrate music with text, and from this they prepare stagings.

A talented young friend who hopes for a career in opera reminded me yesterday of something I said at a rehearsal last year. I responded to another singer who said "Opera is a dying art." To which my friend quotes me as saying "Opera is primed for a revolution." I think we're in the midst of it now, a good one.

I grew up on Sarah Caldwell's productions of opera in the 1970s. Sarah died in 2006.. She had the cover of Time magazine (November 10, 1975) and was the first woman to conduct at the Metropolitan. Sarah's genius was not for conducting, not so much for stage direction, though her ideas were witty, crowd pleasing and always bound to the music. They came from the score. She read the score. Sarah's genius was surviving as long as she did-the company was "in business" from 1959 to 1990, scoring last minute funds, often in bags of singles at the last minute to get the curtain up, and in assembling gifted people around her who could be relied upon to produce exciting opera.

The singers of course, Beverly Sills, Donald Gramm, John Alexander, Shirley Verrett, Jon Vickers, John Reardon, James McCracken among them.

Her comprimario artists were extraordinary. They were first class musicians and actors. Gimi Beni, James Billings, Richard Crist, Eunice Alberts, Jan Curtis and Ron Hedlund are a few who come to mind immediately. Her sets and costumes were designed with great taste and style by Helen Pond and Herbert Senn. These two never saw a performance space they couldn't conquer. For years, Sarah didn't have a theater. She produced opera in an indoor skating rink, the gym at Tuft's University, various porno houses scattered through Boston's combat zone, and a cyclorama building. The roof may have leaked and there was never a pit but the shows went on.

Was she the first to approach opera as theater? Did the revolution in opera begin with her? No, but she continued it. Sarah told me that HER great inspiration was the German director Walter Felsenstein (1901-1975). He was stuck in East Berlin for most of his career and his work was almost never seen in the West. In the 70s Sarah brought him to Boston for some lectures and he brought with him a number of his productions on film: LEONORE, BLUEBEARD and I think CARMEN.

All of these films have just been released on DVD. Go find them. Felsenstein had a state run theater with a limitless budget and cast good voices in very interesting bodies and developed strong stage personalities in his performers. I don't remember disliking his shows musically, and I remember wanting to see each film again, immediately. He would rehearse for months at a time, until he was satisfied. I'm not saying that's the way to do it. Sarah, for all her touted theatricality, was known to nod off during a 3 a.m. rehearsal. If you added up the amount of hours spent preparing Norma or Der Rosenkavalier in Boston I'll bet it would be less than any where else. Certainly less than East Berlin.

Now, Felstenstin never had a voice that I heard in his company of the Callas-Sutherland-Corelli-Price-Tebaldi category. These great stars didn't need Felsenstein and he didn't need them. The public didn't tire of these great voices, and if they threw in an onstage gesture once in a while, great. Their main accomplishments were vocal and musical. (And what voices!) Beverly Sills was a stage animal and a singing actress to her fingertips so I put her in her own category.

Sarah was the heir to Callas in my opinion. Same with Jon Vickers. So for Felsenstein the opera was less about voices, and I believe he put the drama before the music. Interestingly, as far as I know Felsenstein did little "singer's opera.' No bel canto: no Lucia, no Rigoletto, no Tosca.

Who before Felsenstein? Wieland Wagner was shaking it up at Bayreuth in his grandfather's opera house. With minimal sets-there was no money after WWII-Wieland Wagner used the music and the text to present the characters, just as Wagner with his talk of gesamtkunstwrk had intended.

I would love to have been in Berlin in the 1920s for the productions of the Kroll Opera. Otto Klemperer was in charge there. His productions were influenced by Gordon Craig, who was the first I know about to design abstract sets, using shapes, color and lights. Thus a tree was not always a tree, and audiences were expected to use their imaginations. They were given permission to enter into the drama with the music. It could be any kind of a tree you liked. And really, what does the music tell you? What do the rests tell you? The keys? And above all the texts. Now, very few opera libretti survive as great literature. But the words are what the composers strive to illuminate and illustrate with music. So for crying out loud, study your texts ! And the historical context in which the opera was written. There are clues everywhere that the music at the last will fill in for you. Meanwhile, go find Mr. Kessler's book about Sarah Caldwell. She was crazy, irresponsible, often brilliant and one never said "Never" to her. The paychecks bounced their way down the Charles river, but when she got the curtain up, it could be enthralling.

KNOCKEMSTIFF

If you want to have your heart and your guts ripped out
and at the same time read some superb writing, go read
Knockemstiff, a collection of short stories by Donald Ray Pollock.
Mr.Pollock assures us these are fictional. The stories are set in
and around the real town of Knockemstiff, Ohio. Mr. Pollock also assures us that he grew up in Lnockemstiff
and that his parents and neighbors are all good people who would do anything to help someone in need.
I' m sure that's true and I'm relieved to hear it. Comparisons have been made to Sherwood Anderson's Winesburg Ohio.
Forget it. This is brutally original. There is no love, no empathy, no pity and no whining to be found in any of these stories. Pollock writes the way a digital camera operates-with brutal honesty and clarity. His voice rings completely true.
You won't have read stories anything like these before, not from Poe, not from Hemingway, not from Shirley Jackson. You should put the book down and take a break every few pages. I tried to, I needed to come up for air. But I couldn't. I always had to peek ahead to the opening paragraph of the next story, and I was hooked all over again. It's not a long book and it doesn't need to be. There's no padding here.
This supremely gifted writer has a novel ready too. I can't wait. I may need to rest up to read it, but I can't wait. Don't miss Knockemstiff.

EDWARD DOWNES PAPER

My doctoral paper
Edward Downes, A Life in Music and the Media
may be read on line:

www.ohiolink.edu/etd/

Type my name into the search engine.

Thanks to my beloved faculty committee for their patience and brainpower:

Karen Peeler
Alan Woods
Mary Tarantino
Patrick Woliver

Thanks to Edward's friends for their help

Martha Lattimore, Father M. Owen Lee, Speight Jenkins, Martin Bernheimer

Thanks to all of you who asked over the years "How's it going with the doctorate?"

It's done.

Thanks most of all to Edward!

GEORGE JELLINEK: BUY THIS BOOK (do yourself a favor)

George Jellinek was affiliated with WQXR in New York for many years. His nationally syndicated program The Vocal Scene ran for over thirty years. I first heard Ponselle, Ruffo, Caruso, Lisitsian and many other great names on George's programs. Now he has written a memoir, "My Road to Radio and The Vocal Scene".
Do yourselves a favor and buy this book.
For me, George has always been the role model of intelligence and decency in music broadcasting.
I first met George on my Met Quiz debut (!) back in 1985.
He was already legendary to those of us who loved music and great singing.
I was selling records at Barnes and Noble on Fifth Avenue.
George was kind, friendly and altogether welcoming to me on that day and on any day I was privileged to be with him.
(We are hardly close friends. I don't flatter myself)
I don't think I ever heard the man say a derogatory word.
His new book is filled with warm reminiscences of may people
whose singing you have loved and I have loved.
If you want gossip of schlock criticisms this book is not for you.
Otherwise grad it.
Bravo, George!

______________________

I posted the above on the opera-l, site some days ago.
It was passed on to Geroge Jellinek who e mailed me as follows:

A dear friend called my attention to your lovely tribute. I am not in good health,
but your kind words brought back great memories and much consolation. Of course I remember you form the Quiz and other writings,
and consider you a DEAR FRIEND...

The caps are his.

So there!
But the book and say a prayer for George's health.

That's DOCTOR Big Butt, to you!!

Yesterday at Ohio State's winter commencement I officially became a DMA-doctor of Musical Arts. This after a few yeas of fun, some interesting times, help from good people and a bureaucracy that would be Orwellian if not in the end, so funny. In short, I rocked. So did a lot of people. The bureaucracy did not.

Did I march or walk or skate or what have you? I did not.
A fall on the ice last week dislocated my shoulder and has me reaching for the milk chocolate Eater eggs and jelly beans with my right hand.
In fact I'm reaching myself right back to Optifast. But this time I'll be drinking those shakes as a DOCTOR!
People ask me "What are you going to do with this degree?" Its a perfectly sensible question but it surprised me and the answer is I haven't any idea. Music therapy would require yet ANOTHER degree-dear Christ.
The DMA does me no good at WOSU. They have hit men looking for me here.
A classical music version of Laugh-In? Maybe. We'll see.

Still I guess its fun being a doctor, though its not a title I suppose I'll ever use.
The best part was finishing the Edward Downes memoir that became the dissertation.

Gotta go ice my shoulder.

COLUMBUS SYMPHONY

For people interested in learning more about the current situation with the Columbus symphony, I urge you to visit their website and download the document
The Path to Financial and Future Growth.

Go to www.columbussymphony.com.

You should also check out a new blog/website begin by a young musician at Ohio State, Mathew Brahm.

www.proudsupporterofthecolumbussymphony.blogspot.com

Mr. Brahms is putting a lot of effort into his-go look.
One thing that really saddened me was a comment by a CSO member, a fantastic musician, who said he feared repercussions if he commented on his own blog.
Ridiculous. This is a prime stakeholder and his opinions are important.
I hope this unhappy situation can at least be discussed constructively by both "sides" and their friends, all of whom have the same goal: supporting a world class orchestra in Columbus.

For myself, I don't envy artists or management. Good guys all. Lousy situation.
It was great being in the Ohio Theater Saturday night to hear the CSO w. Hirokami blow the roof off the place with Beethoven's 7th, the Vaughan Williams Fantasia and Wetherbee's elegant reading of the Korngold violin concerto.
This was first class music making. The program was held almost 20 minutes to accommodate a crowded box office with walk in business.
It was a great night. They can all be great nights! The talent is not in question, nor the willingness of a large public to turn out and applaud, and applaud, and applaud.

MUSIC AND THE MIND

If I were thirty years younger and a lot richer I'd go down to OU and get a degree in Music Therapy and start working with kids who could use music to re direct their brains toward seech, inclusion and acitvity. I may yet do it.
Oliver Sacks's new book 'Musicophilia' is fascinating and it led me to 'Music and he Mind' by Anthony Storr (Ballantine paperback c. 1992.) Storr was a British scientist who died a few years ago. He makes a deatiled study of Schopenhauer, Nietzche, Wagner, Haydn and Stravinsky in disucssing how the creative mind works and how music changes the psyche. Over and over he makes the point of music being the strongest of all the arts, since it proposes neither argument, nor takes nor evokes a position or opinion. Music can be the most accesbile of all the arts.

He quotes Zuckerlandl's Sound and Symbol:

Words divide, tones unite.
The unity of existence that words constantly breaks up
dividing thing from thing, subject from object is
constantly restored in the tone. Music prevents
the wrold from being entirely transformed into language
from becoming nothing but object, and prevents man
from becoming nothing but subject.

Storr's discussion of Freud, who wanted us all reduced to infant like perfection and absence of traume is enlightening and explains Freud's aversion to music. I've noticed this in several Freudians I knew years ago. Music was a distraction, keeping us from the nirvana of mother's breast! God!

I'll leave it there. This is not exactly stairmaster reading.
I fell off twice, destroying the house. But fascinating this book certailny is

MUSIC AND THE MIND-Anthony Storr

MESSIAH RECORDINGS

Every year at this time I'm asked about my favorite recording of Handel's Messiah and evey year I change my mind and every year I realize that my tastes don't mature, they seem to get quirkier. Of course, I can't have one favorite. I know every word and every note and so do you. These days I'm trying to listen to one Beethoven string quartet every morning, because I don't know the quartets or much chamber music at all, but as I continue to read and be fascinated by studies of music and the brain, I realize that these works define "making order out of chaos." But Messiah, comforting in its familiarty, I finds always has something new to offer. It might be helpful that no authentic final version exists. Handel used cut and paste, transpositions and added and delted arias to accomodate different singers appearing in his works. A generation later, Mozart reorchestrated the work to a German text. A century after that, Eugeen Goosens expanded the orchestration and put in instruments Handel never heard of. Messiah became a delightful noisy circus, pehpas befitting what we know of Handel's florid personality.

That said.

I'm commenting on a few sets by conductor

CHRISOTPHER HOGWOOD-- I threw this across the room when I first heard the LPS in college. Google around and you'll find this to be the first choice for a lot of people. Boy sopranos, countertenors, vibratoless strings, vibratoless sopranos! A bunch of reedy, anemic nincompoops. That's what I thought then. Now I think its beautful. You get to hear every word and every note and the fusion of the two, even in-especally in- the fast passages. Emma Kirkby's white tone sounded like a whistle to me, but now I appreciate the fine musicianship.
This would never be my only recording of Messiah.
I lack taste. But I'm older now, so the point of its music making is a comfort!


COLIN DAVIS #1 (I haven't heard his new version) This is about 35 yrs old, and was one of the first to really examine playing Messiah with smaller forces, but there is some vibrato, and there's nice warmth to the strings. Heather Harper, Alexander Young
and John Shirley-Quirk are first class soloists, and nicely balanced (see Bonynge below). This was the recording of choicee for a long time unitl displaced by the Hogwood, and the "rivalry" between the two of them helped start the HIP or Historically Informed Performance (Oy) Wars of the early 1970s. If you can find this, get it.


THOMAS BEECHAM. Ah, Sir Thomas Beecham! Musiccologists on five continents shudder in horror. Bbut this, like porn or pizza, is the quintessential Guilty Pleasure. Saxophones, harps, ballsy operatic soloists,m stately speeds, it is exactly how Messaih would NEVER be peformed like this today. It's a big marching band circus and it is wonderful. Great fun. And the soloists, led by Jon Vickers thank you very much, are not to be sneezed at. The drama of Vickers'"Comfort Ye My People" is unequaled. Go buy this, brown paper bag and all.


RICHARD BONYNGE. A party favorite Lets begin with the comedy of it. He uses a French Candaian mezzo soloist who is the most bizarre singer on record. She sings with "hot potato mouth" so there's no diction, and by Jesus doesn't she manage to go out of tune not phrase by phrase but on the same note at the same time! I thought that was physically impossible. But nope, this lady takes the prize. Her performance makes this a party disc. That's a shame because I listen to it all the itme and love it. It's over ornamented, yes-and the unfortunate Vienese tenor sings Com-FART ye my people, but the choral work is snappy. EXCEPT for this absurd retard in the middle of the Hallelujah Chorus. I like Tom Krause very much. His "The people that walked in darkness" is dramatic and moving.
And listen, admit it, who wouldn't want to hear Dame Joan Sutherland toss off Rejoice Greatly O Daughter of Zion. When she sings "Shout! O daughter of Jersualem" well yes by Christ! Bonynge keeps a bracing momentum making you want to replay this recording. But the mezzo had to be sleeping with SOMEBODY!

CLASSICAL MUSIC RADIO: WHAT DO YOU WANT?

Do me a favor and think about what you want from a classical music radio station?
If you are someone who does not use radio at all, or for whom the idea of an all classical station is new, tell me what you think you would need-what would make you want to tune it. Should we limit the format? No long Teutonic symphonies, or opera or music wirtten after 1960 during business hours, would that help? Or hurt?
Do you want background music? Do you want to be provoked, entertained, all three or just be left alone?
There are so many schools of thought out there. I began with the model that public broadcasting serves the underserved by presenting what is not commercially viable. But at 50, I fear I'm the last of that generation. Today, if it isn't comercially viable-if it can't bring in donors (thus serving the wealthy) or keep a maximum number of listeners happy-it doesn't play. I'm one of those people who got turned on during the 60s by the Met opera boradcasts. Are you? What would make you tune in? Some news and public affairs? Some specials? Or all music, and if all music what do you think would play best and what would you want feaured. Bottom line, how do I get you to listen?

No wrong answers of course. It's subjective. But tell me what you think.

CP

REALITY SHOW

Media critic Howard Kurtz's new book, Reality Show is entertaining, a bit gossipy
(Katie Couric's dog poops on the floor) and enlightening. It seems that our high profile news anchors, Katie , Brian and Charlie face the same challenges as many of us who live work and function on far less an exalted plane. They answer to younger people paid far less than they are (can't relate to that!) whose first mantra is to save money and cut corners. One way to do that is to increase revenue with cutesy newscasts. The Couric team tried that and failed--BIG. They're back now with a classier product. Newshounds like Williams seem to fight constant battles as to what is news. I thought Brian-and I'm a Brian fan-was paid all this money because he's supposed to know. Kurtz seems t0 give the overall nod to Charlie Gibson at ABC, and is fair to Couric. It's a good book.

All of us here fight to say what is music. And what do people want to hear? I don't presume to know m0re than anyone but one of the reasons my colleagues and I are here is because WE are supposed to know that. The new "no harpsichord-major keys-few vocals" rule is coming in. Sure we all want more listeners and we all want a wide variety but I just wish the focus wasn't so much on money and capturing people and more on "what is something fantastic we can offer to the public today?" A joyful job is getting harder to do.
And I wonder if Brian Williams deals with people who solicit his opinion , then ingnores it and does what they like...in secret!


But Kurtz's book is a good read. Recommended.

CARPE DIEM'S TANEYEV

TANEYEV: String Quartets 1 and 3;
Carpe Diem Quartet
Charles Wetherbee, violin
Robert Firdman, violin
Korine Fujiwara, viola
Wedny Morton, cello

NAXOS 8.570437

www.arkivmusic.com


Carpe Diem is a string quartet based in Columbus, Ohio, on its way to an international presence via a new recording deal with Klaus Heyman's Classical music cash cow, Naxos recordings.
Plans call for a cycle of the complete String Quartets by Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev (1856-1915) of which volume one, including the quartets number 1 in b flat minor and number 3 in d, has just been released.

Is it bad luck to be born a good composer among giants? For years even Haydn was dwarfed by Mozart and Beethoven, though Haydn was older, lived longer, wrote more and perfected the musical form Taneyev wrote in so ingratiatingly one hundred years later. Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky were the giants of Taneyev's Russia, with Rimsky-Korsakov's gift for pedagogy and orchestration nipping at everyone heels, and the young Stravinsky ready to cause riots with his pre World War I ballets. In fact, Tchaikovsky taught Taneyev, and the teacher mentor relationship switched in later years as Tchaikovsky began to depend upon the younger man's counsel and advice. In his lifetime Taneyev, well connected to the Russian nobility, had official posts in the government and -like Borodin the chemist-pursued music as an avocation.
He left several volumes of songs, six numbered string quartets plus three 0thers and parts of a seventh, two symphonies, numerous keyboard works and a massive opera The Orestia, the latter admired by Rimsky-Korsakov and Stanislavski and very successful in its day.
His support of the 1905 revolution cost Taneyev his place in the Moscow conservatory and even his connections and positions didn't keep him safe from retribution. He did manage to live under the radar, and was known as a complete gentleman with a gentle and aristocratic bearing. He died at fifty -nine in 1915.

Carpe Diem's new recording project is a blessing for anyone looking to explore under served repertoire. The performances are first rate and the recorded sound a fat, rich delight. The inner voices are scrupulously balanced, thank goodness- since Taneyev weaves a tight web of musical textures. There is not one voice more important that the others. This total synthesis of musical lines leaves room plenty of melodic developments, with the almost oriental
(Mozart called 'Turkish!') themes of seconds and pungent, non text book harmonies giving the music excitement and forward motion. Carpe Diem obviously plays together a lot, listens to one another intently and the experience of playing together and working together closely as first class musicians is evident throughout. There's no ego in this playing, but exquisite music making. Smooth when Taneyev requires, and more punchy and dramatic, as befits the heir to Tchaikovsky. For an heir Taneyev was, a gifted composer, in no way a routinier, who seized the day just as this fine new quartet is doing one hundred years later.

Christopher Purdy
WOSU FM Radio
89.7

WORLD WAR II: ONE MORE LETTER

My cousin Deb Martin Plugh has gone to work on the Purdy family genealogy and in just a short
time I've learned a lot, seen some photos that I never knew existed, heard of some PEOPLE
I never knew existed, shed some tears and had some laughs.

I have already posted the letters my father wrote home to his mother
during WWII. Scroll on down. They're here.
Here's one more letter, also to Grandmother Purdy.
It's on USO stationary, dated August 21, 1942
I've typed it exactly as it appears in the original.

Dear Mrs. Purdy:


This is just a few lines to let you know that I am a very good friend
of your son, Curtis.
I knew him only about three weeks, but during that time we
became very close and dear to each other.
But a week ago they separated us for good.
I am just about certain and I was just going to let you
know that he is okay, and in the 7th Army Division in Camp Polk.
I was just wanting to make sure that you would not worry about him
as he is a real good and honest man.
I say, this knowing that inside of me, there is an empty feeling
for I don't ever expect to meet a buddy like him again.
And feeling this way I wanted to let you know that I feel sorry for you
and my mother, to, for she has three of us boys in the service and I know her heart is very heavy for we had been with her all of our life.

So maybe you can understand why I write this letter to you, for it is to ease the minds of the
ones who are most dear to us. Bill has told me a lot about you, and I feel
as if you are my own mother. So please take this letter as if it was
from your own boy. I may never be able to meet you. But you most know that
somewhere there are lots of boys who are thinking of their homes and folks.
And Bill and I, I called him Bill, when we told each other about our homes
and what we did in civilian life, and we were just about the same in our ways
of what we like to do and we had the same reasons to and the funny fact of it
is that we lived across the country from each other.
My home is in the state of Washington so you
can see that we were strangers from far away.
And if this war is over in the near future, I will be coming
up there with Bill and visit with you for a while for I would surely
love to and the world famous New York.

So please don't worry to much about Bill cause I know he is
being watched over by someone great and mighty, our Lord.

So write if you wish to.

Love,
Pvt. H.C. Whiting
Corps of Military Police
Ft. Benning, Georgia

MY FATHER'S LETTERS: AN UPDATE

Many of you have e mailed after reading these letters, scroll on down, and I thank you for your interest. I don't have any more letters but I do have a few comments, especially as I'm watching Ken Burns's The War and learning my history

Bill was an army medic and called 'Doc' by his buddies

He was at the Battle of the Bulge which I'm learning was the bloodiest confrontation of the war, with 19,000 allies killed over six weeks, Dec. 1944-Jan. 1945.

There was a three hour truce on Christmas Day.
Bill was part of a squad that spent that time taking bodies out of the field. Many were frozen solid. He said later that a lot of the German soldiers were children, 12, 13 years old, crying
for their mothers.

By early 1945 Bill was in an army hospital in Luxemourg with a head injury.
He was awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. I have these medals.
I'm going to type in the ccommendations later.
He had steel plates pounded into his head.
When I knew him he was prone to outbursts and some violence.
My Irish grandfather-his father in law-would say,
"Ah, the poor fella. He has a plate in his head. He's not right."

He died in 1981.


My mother told me years go that when FDR died she and her girlfriends left work and went to church! Most people in Boston did that.

"PURDY'S CORNER"

Oy.
I would have chosen a catchier name, but the Columbus Symphony
has been kind enough to ask me to prepare podcasts for their website.
Previews of coming programs with commentary-hopefully pithy and informative-and musical examples. Find them at www.columbussymphony.org
This website can be hard to use. Persevere!

LUCIANO

It's been a lousy summer for opera singers! Beverly Sills's death in July was a shock. Worse still was the suicide of American tenor Jerry Hadley. He had it all. A wonderful voice, a smart, well trained handsome man who still had lots to offer. His death sucked.

Pavarotti had been ill with cancer for over a year. His death wasn't a surprise and the last years of his career, hampered by his weight, bad knees and failing strength weren't happy. But the legacy! That voice, the Italian sunshine on a rainy day, the wonderful -almost arrogant ease of the high register, the colors he kept in his voice all around the range, the technique that allowed him to sing so well for so long, with no breaks in the voice. Behind the weight problems and the women and the inability to read music, here was a great voice superbly trained. (Sorry, but nobody applauds an atist because he can read music) But there was more. We remember Sills thirty yeas after her last performances and we'll remember Luciano again, because they connected. They reached out. They had something-I don't know exactly what-that drew audiences to them. Certainly vocal prowess was a lot of it but there was something else. Luciano was a big sweet teddy bear who fought with his weight, yes, but like Eleanor Steber in an earlier generation he so loved to sing that you loved it too.

I first heard him in his breakout performance, Tonio in The Daughter of the Regiment. He was a big boy even then-this was 1972, but ran around like a kid. And those nine high Cs! Nailed, nailed and nailed. In Bellini's I Puritani with Joan Sutherland the two of them playing love struck teenagers weighed about 600 lbs between them and both had grandchildren and who cared? Vocal miracles the pair of them. Young singers today are short changed in language training in schools. No matter. Go to the library and listen to Luciano sing Italian. Its like living in Florence for a year.It was only after 2000 that he became a sad figure, limping on the stage, remaining seated during the most passionate scenes of Tosca. But he never lost that voice. Not to my ears. God bless him.