Mysterious Mr. Masselos

It is funny, all these pianists I have never heard of! I was looking up Leonard Pennario's debut in this book called "American Chronicle: Seven Decades in American Life." For some reason they have his debut in 1939 which, neither he nor I could make sense of that.

Well, what the heck, we are lucky he is in there at all. Normally no books ever mention him!

But here is what I am getting at. Also listed as debuting in 1939 is this pianist William Masselos.

I have never heard of him!

That is a picture of William Masselos up above. Not a bad-looking gentleman except I wish I could find other pictures so we could get a couple of perspectives. Anyone can look good for one photo anyway.

Oh, look, here is another picture of him as part of the Alan Hohvaness Artistic Circle. Our man Masselos is in the back row, third from right. If you look carefully you can also see Merce Cunningham and John Cage.


Wikipedia says Masselos studied with two disciples of Clara Schumann at New York's Institute for Musical Art, now the Juilliard School. I had not known that Juilliard used to be called the Institute for Musical Art. Now I do.

Also I like the word "disciples" used in that context. Disciples of Clara Schumann!

Masselos was known as a champion of contemporary music and premiered Charles Ives' First Piano Sonata and Aaron Copland's Fantasy.

And how about this, he was born in Niagara Falls! His parents moved him to Colorado when he was a baby, but still. It's funny, any entry you see on this guy, in any listing, there it is: Born in Niagara Falls, N.Y. He died in 1992.

Here is Masselos on the organ playing Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.

Now that we know who he is.

Land of the Laendler

There is this great video of these people who learned to dance the Laendler by watching "The Sound of Music." And here they are dancing it at a wedding.

Everyone is applauding and laughing!

What a world, where you can get out there on the dance floor and bump and grind and no one thinks anything of it, but you dance the little Laendler and everyone screams with laughter! It sure makes you think, I will say that.

Mozart and Schubert used to write music for the Laendler. Mozart generally called his "German dances." People who love "The Sound of Music" should explore these other Laendler.

And, perhaps, learn to dance it themselves!

Will the real Von Trapp please stand up

This is off my usual beaten track, my usual beaten track being Schubert and Hugo Wolf, but I have been listening to the soundtrack to the Broadway musical "The Sound of Music." It has Mary Martin and Theodore Bikel. There is some kind of anniversary. Fifty years or something. Who knows.

What I am realizing is I prefer Theodore Bikel to Christopher Plummer as Captain von Trapp.

Theodore Bikel owns that role!

There he is up above, with Maria and all the Kinder. Here he is with Maria.


Theodore Bikel loved playing Captain von Trapp. That is, ahem, what he told me. I interviewed him a few years ago. The down side of that is, I was really stressed out and out of it because I had three interviews scheduled that day. The interview with Theodore Bikel was the third, and it was so disastrous that it had a lasting effect on me: I instituted the Theodore Bikel Rule which I still follow. It is not to schedule more than one interview in one day.

But Theodore Bikel was gracious to me in spite of me not having done my homework. Not exactly "nice," but gracious.

One thing he told me was that once when they were all out eating, Richard Rodgers kept getting up and bowing whenever the sound system played one of his songs. He says Rodgers was bowing every five minutes.

Another thing was that Rodgers came up with "Edelweiss" at the absolute last minute. He felt the show needed that one song to anchor it. I read that the same thing happened with Andrew Lloyd Webber and "Evita." He felt it needed that special something. So at the last minute he wrote "Don't Cry For Me Argentina."

These signature songs, they were last-minute additions!

Anyway, Theodore Bikel further confided to me that "Edelweiss" was kind of a tough thing for him to swallow because being Jewish he had no great love for Austria, because of Austria's history of anti-Semitism. So it was goofy that at the last minute Richard Rodgers comes running up to him with this song.

Now whenever I hear this "Edelweiss" I keep thinking of my little heart-to-heart with Theodore Bikel. I still have it on tape somewhere. He also told me though that even though he had reservations about things like "Edelweiss," he loved playing Captain von Trapp, and he would have liked to have played it in the movie. Especially as the role went to Christopher Plummer who was vocal about not liking it.

Christopher Plummer ...


... what a snippy pain!

Theodore Bikel told me that the trouble was, he and Mary Martin were a kind of matched set. She was too old to play Maria in the movie so they had to get a new Maria. And that meant he had to go too.

That is too bad! Theodore Bikel would have been better in the movie than Plummer as Captain von Trapp. Bikel had that adorable German accent. He once played a Nazi in "The African Queen." And he looks good, too. Admit it.

Theodore Bikel owned that role.

He and Mary Martin sang this song "An Ordinary Couple" which was not in the movie. In the movie, Julie Andrews and Christopher Plummer sang "Something Good."

"Something Good" is better.

But still.

Richard Strauss - "Allerseelen"

Today is All Souls' Day so here is a song I have loved since I was a teenager. So romantic!

There is nothing like early Richard Strauss.

Hugo Wolf

Today I was ranging around the Internet and came upon this photo of a monument in Graz, Austria -- I think -- to Hugo Wolf.

Hugo Wolf is a composer I love.

And I love his name in Italian. It is Ugo Wolf!

That is how the Italian photographer identified his photograph of the Austrian monument to Wolf.

Wolf seems to get bashed a lot because people consider his songs boring, or tough to take. I disagree. Maybe I am made for this stuff. I like Chekhov plays too and everyone is always trying to tell me they are boring. I remember once watching "Uncle Vanya" and thinking, this could go on all night and I would love it, watching various scenes unfold, listening in on various conversations.

One song of Wolf I love is "Verschwiegene Liebe." That piano! Hypnotic! A beautiful video too, with translation. There is this girl who loves Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and she does beautiful videos to go with his performances.

Not that she loves Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau more than I do. No one loves Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau more than I do.

Where was I? Hugo Wolf.

Wolf wrote beautiful religious songs that put people from Scriptures into a context that is very loving and human. He was sometimes inspired by paintings and it was as if he could take a picture and put you in it, so you can feel what the people felt and sense what they sensed. One Wolf song I love and keep going back to over the years is "Nun Wandre, Maria," about Mary on the way to Bethlehem. You can feel how tired she and St. Joseph are getting. Not to mention the donkey she is riding on! I bet the donkey is getting pretty tired too.

I can't find that song on YouTube. I looked and looked. Alas!

So here is "Schlafendes Jesuskind," or "sleeping Christ child." I love how the song ends, with a kind of tender question.

Once I visited Hugo Wolf's grave in Vienna. It is surprisingly erotic. Most people do not warrant a gravestone like this! Here is a picture.


Hugo Wolf wrote a song called "Anakreon's Grave." In the song you kind of stumble on the grave, you wonder whose it is and oh, it is Anakreon's.

Winter, summer and fall the happy poet enjoyed
Now finally this stone protects him from winter.

That is my own translation of the last few lines. Isn't it beautiful? The poem is by Goethe. The author Robert Gutman used that quote to preface his biography of Mozart.

This is such a beautiful thing to be doing on an autumn night.

Listening to Hugo Wolf.

Richard Strauss, Deal Maker

Yesterday my friend Carl Herko and I got to kidding around about Richard Strauss and witty things Strauss, pictured above, said. Carl brought up the quote: "Never look at the trombones. You'll only encourage them."

After laughing about that, I was joking to him that we should come out with "The Quotable Richard Strauss."

With which, there is this site www.thinkexist.com which gives you lists of people's quotes. Isn't this a tremendous era in which to live? You never have to do any work. You just hit a few computer keys.

The trombone quote is up there front and center on the Strauss page.

Then there is this:

“I may not be a first-rate composer, but I am a first-class second-rate composer.”

Strauss was wrong about that. He was a first-rate composer. Another funny thing about that quote, I heard it attributed to W. Somerset Maugham who said it about himself as a writer. It seems to me I have heard it attributed to other composers too.

That might be one of those quotes that flies around. Like the famous, "There are just two kinds of music, good music and boring music." I have heard it ascribed to Mozart, Rossini and Duke Ellington, to name just three.

Back to the quotable Strauss. What else did he say?

“The human voice is the most beautiful instrument of all, but it is the most difficult to play.”

Fine, that sounds good.

Wait, what's this?

“Building brand name is key. That's what America is all about." I did not know Strauss had opinions about America but I like that!

And:

“We've actually been at the low-end of the Street range for the fourth quarter ... (and) felt that we had to go even lower, so we did -- a nine percent across-the-board trimming here for the fourth quarter, ... The backlogs are still very significant, but the current environment is just not allowing deals to get done.”

Hahahahaha! The thing about the brand names I maybe could have swallowed but not that second one.

There must be two Richard Strausses and the computer could not tell that.

“It's a wonderful networking opportunity. I've definitely furthered deals. I meet high-level and influential people here, and it's a good way to touch base." That is another quote from The Other Richard Strauss.

The other Richard Strauss must be something like Bruce Wasserstein, who warranted a big obituary the other day in the Wall Street Journal. I loved the obituary's headline: "Bruce Wasserstein, Deal Maker."

That is a great way to be remembered!

Hey, you never know, maybe the two Richard Strausses are the same person after all.

I seem to recall that Strauss was a Gemini.

The magic of 'Der Rosenkavalier'

We got a question!

Yesterday, Ola Fumilayo asked:

I have an unusual (maybe) question for you - help! My fiancee's parents are taking us to the opera this weekend, Der Rosenkavalier, his step-father's favourite. I love, am moved by and perform instrumental classical music (in solitude in my home usually), and could very easily deal with a Mozart opera (who couldn't), but I've really never been interested in opera at all.

This Web log can be moody and procrastinating about answering questions but Ola Fumilayo is an important person. She lives in Toronto and she does music boxes! And I get a kick out of her blog. It is all about being a music box girl in the modern high-tech world!

To my new friend Ola, I am flying out the door but I want to say a couple of things about "Der Rosenkavalier" in case you are leaving for New York today and will not get time to read this otherwise. I am imagining you are going to the Met because that is where "Der Rosenkavalier" is on stage, with Renee Fleming and Susan Graham.

I am so jealous! I was just looking at pictures of the production the other day and it looks beautiful. There is this author I might be talking to for my book on Leonard Pennario and she lives in New York and we were discussing getting together. If she is free this week I will take that as an excuse to go there to see "Rosenkavalier." That is how much I love that opera.

With which, here is my memo to Ola on what to keep in mind when you see "Rosenkavalier."

No. 1, try to think of opera as just like any other kind of music you listen to. It requires no special skill to enjoy. Approach "Rosenkavalier" as you would anything else -- a symphony or a Broadway show. The only secret is to be open to it.

Ola mentioned that she would probably be OK with a Mozart opera. It might help to keep in mind that Richard Strauss was inspired by Mozart when he wrote "Der Rosenkavalier." The tender 18th century atmosphere was a response to "The Marriage of Figaro." The whole opera reflects "Figaro" in a few ways. It is kind of genderbending -- you have a woman playing Octavian in "Der Rosenkavalier" the way you have a woman playing Cherubino in "Figaro." And the character of the Marschallin was inspired by the Countess in "Figaro." They are both worldly women, complicated, with a tendency toward brooding and melancholy.

That leads me to something I love about both operas: Both of them are bittersweet in a way that I think is very difficult to achieve. You have to achieve it without trying, I think. The thing about "Figaro" and "Rosenkavalier" is, when I watch either of them, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. It is the way life is a lot of the time.

"Der Rosenkavalier" is, like "Figaro," full of rich music, but a lot of the music is shot through with a bittersweet quality. The famous "Rosenkavalier" waltzes -- that is something to listen to -- have a nostalgia about them. There are these sweetly dissonant descending tones you will hear when the Marschallin reflects on her life. They make you think of a clock running down, i.e. the passing of time, something we all face.

At the end of "Figaro," you have the Count forgiving the Countess. And at the end of "Rosenkavalier" you get the enchanting love duet between Octavian and Sophie, the young woman he grows to love.

There is a famous moment in that duet when the Marschallin has to give up Octavian. She walks in with Sophie's father and he says, "That's the way young people are." And she says, "Ja, ja." That is very famous. For every singer who sings the Marschallin, that is a big moment, how she crafts that simple "Yes, yes."

You can see that in that clip above.

Oh, and one more thing. My mother said to tell you that you have to listen up to the last few seconds of "Rosenkavalier." And she is right. It is magical. Do not slack at this point! Do not try to beat the traffic to the restroom!

I am going to try to get back to this later and add a few more things. In case I do not get to, here is one story that just came into my mind as I thought about this.

I read that the great conductor George Szell was once rehearsing the Cleveland Orchestra in Wagner's "Die Meistersinger." (Another opera, by the way, with that peculiar bittersweet quality.) And one of the musicians made a mistake. He apologized, saying it was his first time playing the piece.

All the musicians held their breaths, expecting Szell to blow up.

But Szell surprised everyone. He said quietly, "What I would not give to be hearing 'Meistersinger' for the first time."

That is how I feel about "Der Rosenkavalier."

Enjoy!