Mark Murphy's master class in my living room

Do not hate me but Mark Murphy, the great jazz singer, once gave a master class in my living room. I may have mentioned that before. I tend to mention it a lot even to strangers. Especially to strangers. But anyway, today we have a video.

I am terrible at embedding videos because they changed the system but even an overlarge video of this is better than nothing.

That is my brother George in the orange sweatshirt! I love how bored and impatient he gets when Mark Murphy is offering him priceless criticism and advice. That is a Kunz thing, to take criticism badly.

That is Howard at the piano.

That is my living room looking good with the overexposure.

Anyway, here it is, today's gift to musicology.

Jorg Demus' classic master classes

Ever since we discussed Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau's spooky Loewe ballads, I have had the pianist Jorg Demus on the brain.

He gives some great master classes on YouTube and they are criticized.

People say he has a bad temper. There was one where I read that he was mean to women.

You know what? I watched the video and what happened was, Demus said to the young woman pianist something like, "You can show your great love for Maestro Demus by playing it now again without moving."

Things got better, but then he said, "If you loved me passionately, you wouldn't move a single bit, like a marble statue."

Man, you just cannot make a joke, you know?

It does not sound to me as if he has a bad temper. He just gives you your money's worth. You take a master class from a master, you expect fireworks. It is like when I went to Confession after a million years, I needed the priest to be a little stern with me.

Useful info from this master class, by the way: Maestro Demus says to find a tempo in which you will not have to slow down when you get to the tough parts. Find a balance there. That is a good thing to keep in mind when you attack something challenging.

Jorg Demus is not a name known to the general populace but if you were a classical music nerd in the '80s, which I was, you probably had this album he made with the soprano Elly Ameling. It was called "Schubertiade." I listened to it so much I have it in my head. Demus accompanied Ameling on all these beautiful songs, like this one. He also played Schubert waltzes and he played them sweetly, on an 1800s fortepiano.

I had the album and I actually had friends who had the album, too.

And guess what, there is a Jorg Demus Festival. It is in Freiburg. God love the man, he is 90 this year. And by the way I am listening right now to that song I just linked to, Ellens Gesang I. It gives me shivers. Beautiful. Elly Ameling was excellent, a superb singer. That and, that song gets to me, always.

Anyway, I salute Jorg Demus, whatever his master class style. To top off my admiration I have a picture of him with Leonard Pennario. Leonard was laughing at me because I was not half as interested in the pictures of him with movie stars as I was in the picture of him with Jorg Demus.

I could barely recognize Jennifer Jones but, "That's Jorg Demus?" I said. "I have his great Schubert album. Wow. Pass me that picture."

Now I am going to watch the rest of that master class.

And apply what I learn!

Master Class

The other day I wound up watching this master class taught by Jorge Bolet, a pianist I like. This is funny, I always said Bo-LAY. It is not as if his name came up in conversation a lot, you know? So I did not have a lot of practice hearing it or saying it. But anyway, in that clip, the British announcer says right away, very matter-of-factly: "George BOL-let."

George BOLLet it is.

A couple of things about this video. The kid is obviously very good, playing the Rach 3. While he plays it is fun to watch Bolet restlessly pacing around in the background. Pacing, thinking, brooding about what Rachmaninoff intended, what Rachmaninoff had in mind, how we may do honor to Rachmaninoff's vision. That is what Bolet is thinking.

Periodically he stops the kid. And this is the best: He tells this story at one point. "It is like the farmer, who was going to the market and ...."

And this kid's face is just this blank. He's looking at Bolet and you can tell he doesn't have the foggiest idea what this old mustachioed guy is talking about. He just knows he has to wait it out.

As Howard said, "You just have to eat it."

That is the truth, when you are a kid in a master class! You just have to take it. You have no choice.

I covered a master class once at UB that Leon Fleisher was teaching. Fleisher had stopped one of the kids and he launched into this sing-songy talk about Schubert and the maid of the mill. He returned to the subject later. "Now, Schubert's maid of the mill..."

Much as I loved him for bringing up "Die Schoene Muellerin" I was there with my notebook thinking: Are you on drugs?

Do you actually think these kids have the foggiest idea what you are talking about?

Mill, Schmill!

Back to Bolet. I was seeing how many master classes there are on YouTube, more than a few by him. Bolet was very pedigreed in the teacher department. He had famous teachers and he felt he had an obligation to pass on what he learned.

Lucky for us, you know?

I am game!