London and the Season: Netrebko and Grigolo

When you read about London ,you sometimes come across comments about The Season, that period in late May and all of June, when London comes alive with social activities. It all sounds a bit Edwardian in this day and age, but it still goes on today and is centered around the races at Ascot, crew races at Hendley, and of course tennis at Winbledon. There is also a very fine short opera season at Covent Garden, and last Sunday I heard a the debut of a great new tenor. His name is Vittorio Grigolo. a very handsome 32 year old from Arezzo, Italy. I was pleased to read he was from Arezzo, as that is the neighboring city to Cortona, where USC had a wonderful opera program for a number of years. Also, it is the birthplace of Guido of Arezzo...remember Guido's Hand from music theory class! (he is the father of modern music notation). Grigolo stunned the audience as Des Grieux in "Manon" by Massenet, first of all as he was virtually unknown, and what was known was that he writes popular Italian lovesongs very successfully, and of course records them. His Manon was no less than Anna Netrebko, the hottest ticket in opera in Europe. I went with some misgivings, as the times I have heard her I felt she was very uneven, with a sometimes sloppy regard for accuracy and rhythm. The fact that she is drop-dead beautiful and you can't take eyes away from her on stage, such is her charsima, is a given. In this role she was magnificent, and she had cleaned up her musicianship to an entirely new level. She literally threw herself into this role, where she begins as a 16 year old off to a convent school, continues on as a runaway to be with her first love, abandons him to become the mistress of the wealthiest man in Paris, gambles away everything in a casino and ends up dying in the gutter. Fabulous role! As for Grigolo,he plays the ardent young rich boy gone wrong to the hilt. He was by terns lovestruck, petulant, hysterical, repentant,and at the end, heartbroken by his own willfulness. Fabulous role! To say we were all swept away is an understatement.I continue to be impressed with Antonio Pappano, the wonderful music director of Covent Garden, who has lifted everything up tremendously. Can you believe a first class seat at Covent Garden runs to about 350. these days. Considering all else, and the limited time I have to experience these treats, its worth every penny.

A Hidden World in London ....

Hidden away from the main throughfares like Piccadilly, Park Lane,and Oxford Street, are small pockets of neighborhoods where you can still feel connected in a vast, booming city like London. It doesn't take long to remember familiar faces in the post office, the sandwich shops, or be greeted by the doorman at the Ritz. The Over Seas League in St. James, where I stay while in London, is on Park Place, a deadend street that backs up to Green Park. On St. James Place, the next street over, one finds the plaque to Frederic Chopin, who stayed here on his visit to London in 1849, the year of his death. He played his last recital in the Guildhall, in The City, where there is a handsome bust of him on display.

London must be the take-out food capitol of the world. The high class stuff comes from Fortnams, where the assortment of cheeses is endless, and the sandwiches have fresh baked bread for starts. The best sandwiches are made in the small shops that abound off the main streets, where you can make up choices as you order. Marks and Spencer has gone into take out food in a big way, opening small branches in tube stations. One never use to see people eating in the streets...now they eat everywhere, except the tube and busses, where it is just too crowded.

The restaurants at the Over Seas League are just so fine that it is hard to go anywhere else. The Buttery is open all day into the evening, and has classic dishes like lamb curry and kedgeree, plus great grilled fish and interesting salads. The main restaurant is one of the better ones in London, and still has its 30's decor, and an incredible, well priced wine list. Then one can eat in the garden, sandwiches in the Spring, and hot food in the Summer.

London Transport has solved the ticket problem for tubes and buses by use of the Oyster Card, a small yellow card that you press against a meter that registers each use. You can put any amount of money into the card electronically, and many tube exit meters tell you how much money is left in the card. This means that traffic really flows through the various stations with no long ticket lines as of old. Getting transport information is so easy via the internet, and you can make your plans for excursions down to the minute.

Finding a place to practice usually means a ride on the C2 bus from Berkeley Square ( " a nightingale sang..in Berkeley Square" ) up to Albany Street in Regents Park. This is not "The Piano Shop Around the Corner" but a well run affair that does have a big shop for piano restoration and a few practice rooms. Its a casual affair, and cheap. I had lunch across the way in The Victory, a pub with a faded atmosphere, reminding me of pubs from fifty years ago. I ordered a ham and cheddar cheese, expectations running low. What arrived was served on a handsome white sqaure plate, and consisted of a huge sandwich of real cheddar on a wonderful Cornish loaf, rather like french bread but not as light. Also included was a serving of fresh coleslaw and another salad of greens, peppers, and tomatoes. All this, plus a pot ot tea, came to five pounds....aabout $8.50 at the current exchange. A steal...plus the fact the pub instantly rose in my appreciation to the status of a FIND. Dress down if you go.

Lessons From a Late Spring

There's a wonderful song..."Spring Will be a Little Late this Year" (Frank Loesser)..remember Ella and Sarah singing this! A photo on the State Newspaper web shows strange red flowers growing out of tree trunks in Peachtree Rock Preserve. The writer notes that lichens and moss are at record levels this Spring, due to the long,wet,dark and cold winter we experienced. Now imagine my surprise to see this attraction right in my own yard. I have a wonderful rock that my mother picked up in Colorado...she was spotted stealing rocks in all the Western states....and it has a wonderful small hole in it that fills with water, making a great water attraction for the birds. It usually has a small coat of moss. This morning I noticed it was dark green all over, with the heaviest coat in years. The blazing sun on the past few days will take its toll, but for now it is such a beauty spot.I have been fascinated with my squirrels, who have spent days digging up all the nuts they buried last Fall. I made a prediction then that this would be a cold winter, and it proved right. How do they know where they are? All I know is that I don't have to wear those strange shoes with small nails protruding to aerate my lawn!! The squirrels have done it for me.

Which brings up the point that perhaps we do not pay enough attention to Mother Nature. She is trying to tell us things of great importance, but we are deaf in our worldly pursuits. While teaching at USC I was always aware of the beauty of our campus, a real refuge in a busy city, and filled with rare plants from our state and beyond. I would often talk to the gardeners, especially in the earlier days when many of them were still around after long years of working there. I remember the transplanting of the camellias from the yard of a well known professor. There were many rare examples, and I cringed at the thought of their survival, as camellias are loathed to be moved. They moved them, a huge task, to the front of the Administration Building, and then pruned them down to almost the ground. They struggled for years, but slowly regained their strength, and now they are fabulous, especially this Spring, which saw the most amaizing display of camellias in years.

If you walk around to the front of the McKissick Museum, you will note a large magnolia on the right side of the steps. Years ago...in the late 1960's, a Midnight Raid by Clemson before THE GAME made mincemeat of this tree. They tried to cut it down, but botched the job. One of the gardeners took what was left and nursed it back to health. It now has several trunks, and if you know the magnolia tree, that is very unusual. Everytime I look at it I remember the story in The Gamecock, and how offended the whole campus was.

So what is Mother Nature trying to say! I think it is obvious..."Take note and take care of me, and I will reward you with many lessons that will enrich your lives."

What about Schumann..?

Pianists are lucky when it comes to Robert Schumann, who left us a treasury of immortal works. We are lucky also because we have the challenge and necessity of unraveling the secrets embedded in his music, so as to come up with a sympathetic interpretation. His music is so bound up in his heightened imagination that it is neigh impossible to get near his "truth" without a great deal of reading, both his own writings and particularly works by Jean-Paul Richter, ETA Hoffmann, and various other German writers of his time.

I have long felt that Schumann is more for the pianist than for the general audience. He lacks the immediate charm of Chopin, and the more overt playful quality of Mendelssohn. What he does have, in large doses, is passion. It is a throughly Germanic type passion, that involves both the head and the heart. His tenderness is heart breaking at times, especially in Kreisleriana and the less played Humoresque. There is something always very noble about his melodic writing, made even more complex with the underlying counterpoint. One can just see Robert and Clara spending an evening playing Bach, absorbed in his counterpoint. We have to remember J S Bach was enjoying the great revival set in motion by Mendelssohn, and the impact on the Romantics was enormous.

Pressure must have been a daily double dose for Schumann, what with seven children to provide for. His output is big, even in spite of the detours of depression and illness. Clara certainly had her hands full. How on earth she continued her career with all these children and a demanding husband defies understanding. But, there must have been great love in that marriage. One feels it tremendously in the great Fantasy, Opus 17. Such originality of expression makes it a landmark in his compositions, and nowhere does he reveal himself more than in this work.

In this Bicentenial Year of Chopin and Schumann, perhaps Chopin is getting the greater play. That is understandable in light of Schumann's more complex nature and his more introverted half. But I feel he somehow is better off this way, making those who turn to his music work a little harder at getting to know him.

Schumann reveals his fatherly love in the Kinderszenen and the Album for the Young. What is revealing about both is that, for the greater part, they are not pieces for children at all, but an adults view of a child's world. They do reveal Schumann's great love of children and their imaginative play world...almost the same for him in adulthood, where he succeeds in creating a unique world of imagination, fantasy and passion.

Playing Around South Carolina...January 2010

Sometimes deja-vu takes me by complete surprise. Arriving in Hartsville, South Carolina last Tuesday to perform at Coker College, I suddenly realized it had been almost 30 years since I performed there. Keeping an eye out for the restored Opera House where I dedicated a Steinway all those decades ago, I suddenly found myself staring at a huge new auditorium, part of a new performing arts center on campus. Suddenly I had to adjust my sights upwards, as I had expected a very small venue. Going inside I found a very attractive proscenium stage, with enough equipment to install a traveling Broadway show. Better still, even though the hall looked big, there were actually only 400 seats. Skillful lighting by the technician helped create a more intimate feeling, and I felt very comfortable. This was a free community concert, and a large audience turned out on a beautiful evening...the best one in weeks after record cold in these parts. I kept things informal by introducing each number,and since it was a varied program of both classical and film music, that approach worked very well. There were some surprises along the way. I found they liked some pieces I had worried about programming, and that gave me courage. Trying to scale down a very loud Steinway concert grand was challenging, and especially after I discovered the sound would drop off the scale if I used the soft pedal. So to avoid having a big hole in the dynamics, I kept my foot off of it the whole time.
They loved the first movement of the Schumann "Fantasy" Opus 17. Schumann was apt to write rather big and grand first movements that tend to stand by themselves. A good example is the first movement of his Concerto in A Minor, for piano and orchestra. Several years went by before he added the second and third movements, at the urging of his wife, pianist Clara Schumann. They responded beautifully to this piece, and having the time to tell the story about its composition to the audience was a great plus. I will write furthur about this in my next entry.

Chopin always delights an audience, and I chose wisely with Mazurkas and Preludes. I left the Barcarolle Opus 60 off the program as I felt it was not quite ready yet, and also the program was getting on the long side. But it does need to be there to balance the effect of the Schumann.

I ended up with three popular selections "The Dream of Olwen" by Charles Williams, "All the Things You Are" by Jerome Kern, and the "Warsaw Concerto" by Richard Addinson. These are from my CD "Spellbound", featuring themes from the 1940's. Funny how the films and stage shows these numbers came from were not really successful, but somehow the music caught on. For instance, a friend in London explained that the Warsaw Concerto was featured in a film about a Polish fighter pilot, who fought for the RAF after escaping from Poland. She said the film came just at the end of the Battle for Britain, when the English feared the worst, and morale was very low. The stirring quality of the Warsaw Concerto lifted their spirits, and became a symbol for Victory. I told the audience this story before I played it, and they cheered and stood up at the end of it! That was great, as one doesn't get that very often. Its fun watching faces as you are speaking, and in this instance, I had everyone's attention. I'm all for attention!

Chopin

The World is ready to celebrate the Bi-Centennial of the birth of Frederic Chopin in 2010. My fingers have been digging into his music with renewed vigor the past months. Never have I felt myself to be a "born" Chopin interpreteur,but I have neverthless played a fair share of his music, and as a professor have taught all the major works for years. What is fascinating to me at this point is how differently I hear his music than in years before. I find a renewed interest in how he actually achieves his extraordinary sounds and his fascinating technique, very new at its time and still enormously vital today. One of the pieces I have been close to since my teens is the Barcarolle, Opus 60. This is a very late work, and best described as the apothesis of the Nocturnes, where adventuresome harmonies meet a new aesthetic of pianistic art. The Barcarolle is almost like an improvisation, caught upon the cogs of the relentless rocking rhythm of the Venetian boat song. The rhythm is almost like a drone, so regular and repetitive. But overhanging this is a supple, almost unending melody, that intrigues with its varied colors and sensuous, undulating line. One feels as in a boat, yet floating in a hazy atmosphere of almost impressionistic haze. It is a boat journey like no other, caught up in some magical time machine that enters us into a new world.

Chopin makes incredible choices in his voicing of chords, in his fleeting spirals of fiorituri, and in the melodic line itself. When we speak Bel Canto, we refer to the operatic line of the great composers such as Donizetti, Bellini, and Rossini, masters at spinning out the vocal line in pure melodic delight, with ample room for flights of fancy. Chopin keeps the melody supreme, especially here in the Barcarolle, yet it is often a duet in thirds, with the alto adding just the right amount of drama. When I say he makes excellent choices, I refer to the underlying voice leadings of the most refined order, yet assuming a new guise in its freely minted romantic idiom. When you try to guess what he might have written, one's choice is often banal. When you examine the notes he actually chose, you marvel..." how did he think of that!" He has exquisite taste always.

The Mazurkas fascinate me endlessly. Here is the pure spirit of Poland, with its regional dances and quirky instruments mmostly unknown to us. All the gesture and pose of the native dances are here to explore. The rhythms change quickly, and vary tremendously where the stress falls. The shifting from major to minor creates light and shadow, often mysterious. Yet, melody is always supreme.

What makes the Preludes so difficult to perform is their brevity. One has to capture the mood immediately, with no space to breathe in between. I love the stark simplicity and almost abstract quality of many of them, and best of all, the sudden appearance of unforgettable melodies, so masterfully placed. Is there a more beautiful moment than the second page of the Prelude in F Sharp Major?

On Switzerland, the Swiss, Cows, Mountains, Tunnels, and Bridges.

Travels in Switzerland began in 1960, when I accompanied in the Pablo Casals Masterclasses in Zermatt. Traveling with a group from the UK that included the very young Jacqueline du Pre...only 15 at the time...this was my second experience in an international music setting. The first was three summers at the Aspen Music Festival, at the time in the mid 1950's a very small but captivating festival that featured musicians like Jennie Tourel, Rudolf Firkusny, Rosina Lehvinne, and Vronsky and Babin, perhaps the greatest of the two piano teams of that era. Pablo Casals was quite a different story. He had long since excused himself from the Franco Dictatorship in Spain, and declared himself a citizen of the world. Contrary to so many famous musicians today who have their own private jets, multiple apartments in multiple countries, and carefully craft an image that overcomes bad nights in the major houses of the world., Casals lived a simple, almost monastic life in the south of France, devoting himself to study, contemplation, and performance preparation. He had already enjoyed decades of popularity by the time I caught up with him. His musicianship was already almost of another era by 1960. He indeed seemed to live in a world that was a total combination of concentration, exacting musicianship, consumate communication and stillness of spirit. Every morning for three weeks we were in class with him, as he taught hand on hand the great literature of the cello. He seemed to know all the standard works by memory, including the biggest concerti and the smallest suites. I guess if I had a word for him it would be DIRECT. THere were no veils, curtains or other contrived barriers between you, Cassls, and what he was directing you to do. He was complete authority. I remember especially the last student concert when I had to play the most fearsome accompaniments by Hugo Wolf for a very fine singer from Zurich. There was no missing Casals. There he was in the front row...inches away... and so nowhere to hide. I strangely remember very little now about the performance, except to say, at the moment of truth, I was absolutely calm. He jumped up at the end and came to the edge of the stage to congratulate us, as he often did when he was pleased. How thrilled we were, and how grateful for his presence.

Now it is almost 50 years ago, and Jackie du Pre died in her forties after a dramatic career that brought joy to millions. Just the other day in Zermatt I found a photo of the masterclass, and there I was on the outer edges, long hair and gazing into space...no doubt in a trance. How formal we all looked...Casals in coat and tie, many lisners also, and the students all neatly dressed. No blue jeans, sandals, Blackberries, cell phones, headphones. How dull we were! Typical for the age, we dressed in respect, and took away what we could.

Now, all these years later, Zermatt has a yearly music festival. It has one great strength, and that is the presence of members of the Berlin Philharmonic, who take direction of the student orchestra, which plays without conductor, and sit alongside the students. It is the old method of "laying of the hands", where you have a master near you to guide and counsel.

The greater weakness is the lack of public relations from the festival itself. It is surprisingly laid back, as I often say, "waiting for an introduction". The Euros are so formal it gets in the way of spontaineity. What the staff needs is a bit of Yankee know how, so that more support comes in by way of fund raising. They so easily let Credit Swisse get all the credit (pun intended), and seem content with whatever they get.Also, programming often misses the mark, as per having this year's opening concert be an old music group, period instruments, and a counter-tenor. Many left at intermission. One Spanish lady was rather frightened by the counter-tenor, obviously having a gender crisis of identification! She left, also.

As for the lovely cows, they are still everywhere. I was too early this year for the weekend they bring all the cows down from their pastures high in the mountains. What a lovely, time honored procession. But, HEIDI is alive and well. I saw her several times, with her charming smile and simple ways. May she live forever.