Thomas Hampson and Schubert Week

 

Today is Mozart's birthday however just this once, the day is about Schubert. Schubert Week is going on in Heidelberg, Germany! I am guessing it is timed with Schubert's birthday, Jan. 31. It takes place over the next few days at 3 p.m. Heidelberg time, 9 a.m. Buffalo time. You can find it on YouTube.

I became aware of Schubert Week over the last year. It appears to be run by Thomas Hampson. Hampson is a singer I love! Twice when he has visited Buffalo he sang one of our Erie Canal songs, the great song that goes "Oh, the E-R-ie was a-rising, and the whiskey's gettin' low, and I scarcely think we'll get a drink till we get to Buffalo!" That is a great song and he rocks it!

The one problem with watching Schubert week is that it is mostly in German with no subtitles. I can understand a lot of Hampson's German, perhaps because he is American and does not talk too fast. And he throws in a lot of English, which I get a kick out of. However there is a lot that I miss. Including jokes! The audience cracks up and applauds and I am just sitting there, fie. They should add subtitles. That is the only suggestion I have.

Otherwise Schubert Week is pretty much perfect. Up at the top of this post is the first episode of this year's Schubert Week, the one I saw yesterday. You know how YouTube videos always start with "Stay to the end, because...." I will say it in this case! Stay to the end because the fourth and last singer, a very good baritone, sings the Schubert song "Alinde." I love "Alinde"! It has this beautiful accompaniment that makes me think of a barcarole. And you do not hear it very often. I was thrilled when I saw it on the program.

I keep a notebook around when I watch Schubert Week and I jot down hacks I can use. I sing in the choir for the Latin Mass at St. Anthony's and I just joined the great choir at St. Louis Church. It is kind of a hobby gone out of control.

So I love collecting pointers. However here is one hack Hampson shared with us yesterday that we can all use in our lives. If you feel you are forgetting something -- lyrics, or maybe someone's name, or the last line to a poem you have memorized and are reciting to your friends -- look to the right.

It activates the right side of your brain, and you are more likely to remember! That is what Thomas Hampson said yesterday.

Last night at Lounge Academy at the Hyatt downtown this wisdom was passed around and discussed. Howard is going to start using it at the piano on account of you never know. We were all testing it, looking to the right, trying to do it gracefully. It can just be your eyes. You do not have to swing your entire head.

Useful information, from Schubert Week.

Only 45 minutes until the next episode...

Close Encounter with Schubert Week

Every morning I put myself through Pilates and recently the Pilates routine has become easier.

That is because I watch these singing master classes. It is amazing, the stuff you can find on YouTube. You do not have to be a singer or a pianist to appreciate them, either. It is a wonderful way to learn your way around a Schubert song. Or whatever it is they are discussing.

The video above, all it is is Schubert. It is like being in heaven!

There is this thing called Schubert Week. It takes place in Heidelberg, as far as I can figure out. There is a hall oddly named the Pierre Boulez Hall and that is where this takes place. Thomas Hampson presides over it and he talks, at least in the above video, mostly in German.

I cannot always understand German in movies or when actual Germans are talking it. But I notice that when Thomas Hampson is talking German I can usually understand him. It must be because he is American and talks just a little more slowly and clearly. 

There are a lot of things I love about this video. I will get into a lot more detail about this in some future point, but for now I just want to say one thing I appreciate about this Thomas Hampson Schubert Week master class.

It is recent!

This video streamed live on Jan. 28, 2022. I am guessing the Schubert Week is tied to Schubert's birthday which is Jan. 31. So many things were canceled because of Covid however Hampson seems to have observed Schubert Week come hell or high water. 

Not virtual. In person!

I love that!

I am so sick of virtual this and virtual that. Not only that but these other master classes I am watching, they are usually eight or 10 years ago. That can preoccupy me. I start wondering what happened to these students who are singing in the master class. I think of them being older now. I think of the singer leading the master class. What is that singer doing now?

In contrast the Schubert Week is in the here and now. That Korean singer -- I think he is Korean -- singing the first of the "Gesange des Harfners," he was singing that only a month ago. That is a song I love, by the way. It takes me back to when I was a teenager. However this is funny, I was thinking today, I know it by heart but I never took it into my head to learn anything about it. The song's poem is from Goethe's "Wilhelm Meister"; I knew that, but I never knew what that story was, or anything about it. 

I find all this fascinating. I kept leaving the mat so I could rewind the video a few minutes and pick up something I missed. I would be drawn into a discussion about the difference between "allein" and "Einsamkeit."

"It is remarkable how many people are watching," Hampson says at some point, introducing the class.

I am late to the party, but I am one!

Me and My New Voice

I have a new hobby, classical singing. I try to get in some practice every day in addition to the piano.

Before we get any further: That is not me in the video! I just lifted this video off YouTube. I will get to that in a minute. First I have to start with what happened. What happened was, I have been singing in choir at church for some time, and two or three weeks ago, I asked Howard for some coaching. Howard is evolving into quite the fine tenor thanks to lessons he took with the great Andy Anselmo.

To be honest I did not expect anything to come of this coaching. I had always sort of assumed in my life that I was a pianist and not a singer, that I could not sing. My sisters sang. I would beg my sister Katie to learn Schubert songs so I could accompany her. She was not as motivated as I was but she did learn a few songs. We did "Der Musensohn" -- that is fun to play on the piano! -- as well as "Lachen und Weinen"; "Wohin?", a bunch of others. A few times I tried to sing them along with myself. But I always had this problem, I had this small range. Even in the alto book, the song would go up to an E above the C above middle C, and I would be stuck. Even the D below would give me problems. I just couldn't sing these higher notes. 

Speaking of which I think that is the case with most women. I am thinking that few people have much of a range. Howard sings on the app Smule, and I am unimpressed with most of the people he sings with. The women, especially, they sing songs that are good and low, with a range of only about five notes. If I were smart I would just do that. 

But now it is too late. To my astonishment Howard's coaching took exactly five minutes to work this magic on me. All of a sudden I could hit all these notes comfortably that I had never hit in my life. That elusive E came into play, and E is for easy. The F above it is there too. And the G above that. It was something about the way I had held my mouth all these years. I had not been going at the note right. Suddenly singing these notes -- and the ones leading up to them -- is as easy as striking a note on the piano. You order them up and they are there.

What in the world, you know?

Anyway, it is like this new toy. I just have never sung these notes and now I just want to sing them! I went to choir practice and sailed up and down the warmup arpeggios. I sang this chant I could never sing before and I got tears in my eyes. I actually texted Howard from the choir loft before Mass and I told him that. I told him thank you. It has honestly changed my life.

So now I have this new voice and I have to work on it. I started singing a few songs. I do Schubert's "An Die Musik" and Schumann's "Widmung." Those are kind of my two. I know hundreds of songs by heart so I often try others as well.

Times have sure changed since I was singing these songs with my sister!

Number one, you can look on Youtube and find accompaniments. You have your choice of keys. It's not as easy as playing the accompaniment for yourself because you have to adjust to the pianist's tempo which can be strange, but you can stand and concentrate on your singing.

Another thing, you can find master classes! I looked for "Master Class Widmung" and immediately found two great ones, one featuring Sir Thomas Allen -- that is it at the top of this post -- and the other one the pianist Graham Johnson. I have listened to Graham Johnson's Schubert recordings millions of times. 

It was like heaven! This really good singer taking the stage, singing "Widmung," and right next to her you've got Thomas Allen, ready to give his insights. Howard came in to talk to me right as the singer was finishing the song, and I had to pause the video. It was torture, having to do that!

Anyway. I thought it would be fun to write about some of these online master classes. I certainly am coming at them from a unique angle. And this music I have been listening to all my life, I am learning it in a new way. So look for more of this in the future.

So much fun!

Schubert karaoke, sing it loud, sing it proud

I should not let this get out there because if anyone out there is like me, we will have done the last work we will ever do. Nothing but fun and games, from now on.


You can do Schubert karaoke!

There are these accompaniments on YouTube. I have found "An Die Musik"...



... and it is amazing, great fun, singing along with it. I would rather play the accompaniment myself to tell you the truth ...

... but I can't find my Schubert Lieder book anywhere. Not surprising because the last time I played anything out of it I was 17, but I know I saw it around here recently somewhere. It did wash up on the tides of the house and one of these days it will wash up again.


I used to play Schubert accompaniments for my sister. We did a bunch of Schubert songs, "Der Musensohn" (yes, I have always been a pretty good pianist!) "Fruehlingsglaube," "Litanei"... we did a million of them. Here is an old snapshot of us performing.

I would try to get her to learn the songs because I was not a singer.

Well, guess what.

I am a singer. As Goethe said you must do the thing you think you cannot do.

I am buoyed by my success at church recently singing Tomas Luis de Victoria. I have sung as one of a small ensemble of singers and I have done well. So although all my life I have said, I am not a singer, today I am changing that. And I am saying, I am a singer.

I am singing a different tune!

I sing alto at church so the Schubert is in an alto key. There is no shame in singing alto either. Brahms wrote great songs for low voices. I should do one of those. I am also going to work to expand my range. Howard is helping me. He studied with Andy Anselmo, the vocal coach who taught Liza Minnelli and Mandy Patinkin and learned from the soprano Eleanor Steber. With an artistic bloodline like that, how can I lose?

Mi mi mi ... me!!

Jan Martinik's "Winterreise"

I am going to start writing about new CDs on this site, just for fun. I was honored for years to review CDs for The Buffalo News but now that I am on my own, why stop?

German Lieder is something I have loved since I was a teenager and my brother Tony gave me the Seraphim Guide to German Lieder, which was one of the best presents I have ever received in my life and one I would recommend to anyone.

Because I follow the Lieder -- sorry, I could not help that -- I was interested in a new record on the Supraphon label of Schubert's "Die Winterreise" by the Czech bass Jan Martinik.

Martinik is a millennial who won the competition a few years ago for BBC Cardiff Singer of the World. Cardiff is in Wales and if you can win a singing competition in Wales you can win one anywhere. Those folks in Wales can wail! Look at Bryn Terfel, Gwyneth Jones or, heck, Tom Jones.

Here is Mr. Martinik singing for the discriminating and musical people of Cardiff.



And here he is in his winning performance, which was Schubert.



Having listened to Martinik's "Winterreise" I can say he has a rich and appealing voice. It is not a deep barrel bass. I would call it smooth and lyrical.

And his approach to "Winterreise" is lyrical. I think it is too much so. Certain lines should just be spat out: "Ihr Kind ist eine reiche Braut!" Your daughter is a rich bride! You have to take that to the wall. Fling it out.

Other lines should be hardly breathed: "sacht, sacht, die Ture zu." Close the door softly. Very sad, that line in the first song, "Gute Nacht."

If Martinik had a contrast control I would tell him to turn it up. The lights have to be lighter and the darks darker. You learn that in art too. You do not want everything to be too delicate. In music like this you need to be restrained but also, at least on occasion, fearless. There are times when "Die Winterreise" careens into real anguish.

Watching that Schubert video up above makes me wonder. Martinik is intense there. He connects with an audience. He brings out the haunting nature of that song.

I wonder if he has to learn to do the same thing on studio recordings. It can be a challenge. You do not have the audience there.

All that having been said, the recording has a lot going for it. The pianist, David Maracek, clearly appreciates Schubert and brings out the subtleties of the accompaniments, which are often spare, almost avant-garde. And Martinik's quiet emotion does carry him a long way. A reflective song like "Der Lindenbaum" has a natural grace and sense of rhythm and tone. Martinik is a pleasure to listen to. The heartiness and the power of his voice break through occasionally like the sun. (OK, like the winter sun.) He gets across a subtle sense of foreboding that gives the music atmosphere.

All he needs is to take things to the next level, and there is no reason he cannot do that.

Thinking back on all the Schubert recordings I reviewed for The Buffalo News I realize I have leveled this kind of criticism many times, that singers are too cautious. I guess it is just how I feel. Plus, maybe I wish I were a singer, I admit it. Also I have listened to a lot of the greats singing these songs, because I am so crazy about this music, and when you do that you get an idea of what can be done with them.

But on the bright side I think that, as I said, this is something that can be learned. And grown into. Martinik was born in 1983 which makes him what, in his mid-30s? He has time. He has the pipes. He has what it takes.

I hope he sings more Schubert!

He could start with "Die Schoene Mullerin."

Just an idea.

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!

Hear the tolling of the bell

I have been wanting to get this website up and running again and October is a perfect time to start.

It is a great time of year for challenges. I am doing Inktober for one thing. And you know what, as long as I am drawing an ink picture every day I am kind of in the mood for music too.

I think what I will do is link Inktober and music and explore some music that is, shall we say, inky.

One such dusky gem that comes to mind is Schubert's "Der Zuegengloecklein." I am sorry for all the vowels! I am too lazy to figure out how to type umlauts. The title, anyway, means "the little funeral bell." The accompaniment is beautiful, how you hear the soft chime of the bell, repeatedly. And the melody takes a cool twist at the end.

I loved this as a teenager and listened to it a lot, always with Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. So here is Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau again.




Hyperion Records always had excellent notes to Schubert songs, by pianist Graham Johnson. My friend Peter and I used to listen to the Hyperion CDs and we would always laugh at the cover because you would see Graham Johnson at the piano, and his keys were sitting there on the piano right next to the keyboard.

Ha, ha! No one ever said, "Hey, Graham, as long as they're taking pictures, you might want to move your keys." No! Album after album, disc after disc, there they were.

Well, he had higher things on his mind. It seems Hyperion is posting his notes online so here are the notes to this one. "This hypnotic song," it begins. Hypnotic is right.

The notes say that the little bell was rung in churches when someone was dying, and it meant you were supposed to pray for that person. We should bring back that tradition. That is a Zugenglocklein at the top of this post! I did a search on the word and that came up.

The notes also reveal that the poet who wrote the words to this song was just 22, hence the poem was kind of immature. That is the advantage to being an English speaker. Bad poem, who cares? But here is the translation anyway.

Enjoy this October song!

A haunting performance

At Kleinhans Music Hall yesterday we had the violinist Mayuko Kamio playing Mozart's "Turkish" Violin Concerto. As an encore she did this unbelievable piece, Schubert's "Erlkoenig" arranged for violin.

The concert went late and I didn't have time to Google around to find out whose arrangement it was. I wrote my whole review in 25 minutes, yikes! But now I am looking it up and it appears to be by Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst.

That was my grandmother's last name, Ernst!

But anyway. Here is Hilary Hahn playing it.

The description says it is one of the most difficult pieces for solo violin because of all the voices. I did touch on that in the review. I did kind of sense how challenging it was. How could you not?

Listening to this piece last night I found myself regretting it was not 150 years ago because then more people would know the song. I doubt that a lot of people in the hall knew the song because, even though it is one of Schubert's most famous songs -- probably the most famous -- people just don't know Schubert songs.

And even if you had heard the song before and recognized it, you would have to know the lyrics from verse to verse to follow what is going on. When Kamio got to the line where the little demon Erl King tells the child, "I love you," it was really cool and creepy.

My sister Katie who teaches German sent me this cool video. Now seems like a good time to share it.

The book of Liszt

Yikes, I should just let this Web log go. I never write in it any more. I have been so busy and then often when I try to write the computer messes up on me and I end up walking away.

Maybe I should make a last stand. So often through the week I walk around with something on my mind I want to write about.

Today it is Schubert songs arranged by Liszt.

I have been working on a few of them in my spare time. I am doing "Das Wandern" and "Der Muller und der Bach" from "Die Schoene Mullerin." I also have "Wohin" lying around and that will be next.

The challenge with these pieces of course is that you have to keep them flowing smoothly at the same time that Liszt is bending and stretching your hand in all these different directions.

Listen to how Rachmaninoff pulls it off.



What a romantic he must have been, you know? The way he plays the Serenade. His hands are not always together which ordinarily would bug me but in this case you have to forgive it,.

And I like how he does "Das Wandern." A few other pianists I listened to were too clinical with it. Too staccato, too, with the introduction. I have listened to that song cycle millions of times and that intro does not have to be choppy.

Anyway we are back to the idea of David Dubal, play the piano daily and stay sane. I get my little half hour with these pieces as long as I have gotten in my other work. It is a kind of reward. It is funny because you walk over to the piano with a glass of wine and an hour later the wine is still sitting there. That does not happen too often!

You heard the man.

Play the piano daily and stay sane!

A view of the Schubertiade

A nice anonymous person leaving a comment hipped me to a story in the Guardian about the Schubertiade. Remember, the Schubertiade, who got in touch under byzantine circumstances.

The story is by Alan Rusbridger. My favorite part (I will cut and paste):

I get to meet the figure who has run the Schubertiade since its earliest days, Gerd Nachbauer. A neat, shy, reserved man of few words, he speaks in German, translated by his press officer – called Schubert, of course. (Editor's note: Hahahahahahaaaaaa!)

It's evident that he feels he has a settled, successful formula and has no plans to change very much at all. The audiences – mainly German-speaking, but with a significant British contingent – keep coming back. He can attract more or less any musical luminary in the world. He has no subsidy, the sums add up. Schubert sells.

Contemporary music? It's not really to the audience's taste, he explains patiently: that's not why they come. Is there anyone he hasn't been able to draw to Schwarzenberg, or its twin centre in Hohenems? He silently searches his mental Rolodex for any large musical fish he's failed to land. Eventually one word: "Pollini."

Who needs Pollini. Also, good on the Schubertiade for sticking with Schubert and with tradition. I did read elsewhere in the story that "anything goes" as far as the music, other than contemporary, I like to think. They have Britten and Ives. Nothing against them but I say stick with Schubert. It is the Schubertiade. Everyone is always trying to get you to change things, you know?

You are not going to do better than a song like this tiny exquisite gem.



Rusbridger should not have brought his wife to the Schubertiade. All she wants to do is make him go on hikes. It is interesting though what he writes, that the Schubertiade has a lot of British fans. It is mostly German and British.

I also like the observation:

"Schubert sells!"

A letter from the Schubertiade

Some time ago at work, I began getting emails from a group called the Schubertiade. The messages were all in German. Even the subject line. I never had much time to figure it out or look at them closely but I enjoyed it, that I was getting these emails from the Schubertiade. That is a Schubertiade pictured above! It is a party in honor of Franz Schubert.

Maybe it was because I wished I could say I were the director of the Schubert Club. Maybe it was because I have written so often how much I love Schubert song.

Whatever, it would make me smile that I was on the receiving end of the Schubertiade emails, whatever they were saying.

And then the other day something happened. To my astonishment, the Schubertiade contacted me via traditional snail mail!

It was not just some robot on the Internet that had hooked me up with them. There was a human being behind this. Because here was this letter, and it had a picture of Schubert ...

... and it had my name with an extra "n" so it was "Goldmann." That was funny!

That meant that in Schubert Land someone was apparently dictating and said, "Mary Kunz Goldman." They got the Kunz right but they added an "n" to the Goldmann.

Plus it said in German something about if it were not deliverable to return it. The Schubertiade did not want this letter to go to just anybody. If I were not there to receive it, it would be winging its way back to Schwarzenberg where it is from.

I learned that because I have learned what the Schubertiade is. It is this magical sounding festival. Somewhere I read that it is the only festival in Germany, or Austria, or wherever it is, to operate without any government subsidies.

Inside the envelope was a brochure. I kept seeing the name Peter Schreier. That is a tenor I love! And funny, just last week that had occurred to me. I found myself at the gym listening to him singing Schubert and thinking how great he was, how I had always underrated him. I mean look. Well, maybe don't look. He is just so square looking. But listen.



Now I get this mailing all about him.

What's it all about, Alfie?

Furthermore I had assumed Peter Schreier was dead because, I mean, everyone's dead.

So there I have it, this festival I had never heard of, featuring this singer I thought was dead. All focusing on Schubert. Unlike the Schubert Club these people actually perform Schubert.

I might just have to go!

Contestants tackle Schubert on 'The Amazing Race'

Did anyone else catch the Schubert song-singing contest on "The Amazing Race"?

My sister Margie hipped me to it! I had not only never seen "The Amazing Race," I had never heard of it. Apparently it is a kind of obstacle course where teams race each other from place to place while having to complete challenges along the way.

On this recent episode they had to stop in Vienna to sing the famous "Die Forelle" ("The Trout") with the Vienna Choir Boys.

It's not perfect. The millions of viewers who aside from this show would never get to hear a Schubert song never get to hear this song the way it is supposed to sound. The one guy who finally sort of gets it together sings the song in a ridiculously deep register so it sounds silly. When he finally sings a verse in the right register, the music is blocked by a voice-over.

Perhaps the Schubert Club could get in touch with the show and suggest a follow-up.

On the plus side, any publicity for Schubert is good publicity. It is hilarious and heart-warming to see the show's contestants poring over the formal German score. This one guy has had a good shot at it but blows it and his team-mate yells it him: "You've come closer than anyone! Go and fix it and bring it back!"

I never heard this arrangement, with choir, and it is a lot of fun. There is a kind of thrill when the song finally comes together. Also you are just hit in the face by how good the Vienna Choir Boys are. They sound fantastic.

It's fun to see them giggling over the bad efforts. And to see the choirmaster shaking his head and saying, "Leider nicht gut."

Also a big Bravo to the show for attempting to show Schubert song singing as the essential life skill that it is.

In the link above, you will have to sit through some commercials but you can kind of skip around. The Schubert segment starts about 16 minutes in.

Here is a fine performance in case you want to practice.

Or just enjoy!

Thomas Hampson Sings John Denver

 And Placido Domingo, and Denyce Graves, and Danielle de Niese, and other well-known names from the opera world also sing John Denver. Who would have believed it?

This CD "Great Voices Sing John Denver" apparently came out a couple of months ago and I cannot believe I have not heard more about it.

A dozen opera singers singing, together, "Annie's Song"! Oh, baby, it's a wild world. (There's an idea, Great Voices Sing Cat Stevens.)

It brings back memories of Sacred Heart Academy and the Pillow Room, where there were pillows on the floor and the nuns would have you sit on the pillows and listen to John Denver. The nuns loved John Denver. This was a hippy-dippy era. And let me tell you this, my obsession with Mozart and Schubert and Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau did me no good. Ha, ha! It was a privilege growing up in an era that wacky, you know?

But anyway. Back to this CD. How in the world did they organize this?

The entertaining Web log Opera Obsession says Placido Domingo organized it. That would make sense. There is a picture of Domingo with his arm around Denver.

These crazy singers, you know? Judging from the YouTube video this disc has its fans. "Wirklich wunderbar," writes a John Denver listener from Germany.

Anyway, fascinating on many levels.

I get to write about this in The Buffalo News next week. I will link to it when I do!

A brave British pianist

The Liverpudlian pianist Paul Lewis, pictured above looking cagey, is in the Wall Street Journal today. I know, this violates my rule that holds that I talk only about musicians who are dead and irrelevant. And also I am not crazy about Paul Lewis' programming skills. The last three sonatas of Schubert, all on one program, too much, too much.

But I was impressed by something he said. Let me cut and paste, in case you cannot read it on the Journal's website. God love Lewis for speaking up, you know?

Unlike other pianists today, Mr. Lewis pays scant attention to newer music. "I'm cautious about my ability to commit to something that hasn't been written yet," he said of commissioning pieces. "I want to know what the music is first, because I have to be 100% with it. So that's why I'm reluctant. In recent years, I've played some Ligeti and delved into Kurtág every now and then. But it's not something I spend a lot of time in. Perhaps I should make more of an effort."

As John Otto, a dear departed Buffalo radio host, used to say: "Yes, maybe ... maybe not."

Why play that when you could play ...

No notes, no notes

Here is something funny but true: When I love a piece of music a lot, I find I do not like to look at the score.

I mean, if it were a piano piece and I wanted to play it , obviously I would have to look at the score. But if it's something I just listen to, I don't want to.

Because once you look at the score you will always picture it, and it changes the music for you. For me it does, anyway.

I just want what is in my head to stay in my head and I don't want to be picturing the score.

For instance I find when I am listening to, say, "Liebesbotschaft" from "Schwanengesang" -- God, it sounds as if I am naming a couple of auto parts, but it is a beautiful song, trust me -- I just do not want to get the picture of the notes in my mind, where I will never be able to get them out. It is like after you watch a music video, you will never hear the song the same way again.

I also think that is a reason when you are playing a piece you memorize it. You see it differently when the notes are not in front of you.

So I looked away just now as I played the video on YouTube.




Then I found this earlier Fischer-Dieskau recording where they do not show the score.



Eventually I will play the piano for this piece and then I will see the score and see the song differently. But for now, I want it the way it is.

What amazing pictures in this video, by the way. That baby-faced Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in the first shot. Unbelievable, that he would grow up to be the greatest singer of the 20th century.

Look at that girl grinning behind him. Hahahahaa... you know who that looks like? It looks like me!

These are the rewards of not looking at the score.

You see things you never would have seen!

Luisa, Luisa!

 Since my encounter with Luisa Tetrazzini I keep thinking of this Schubert song that ends with "Luisa."

It is "Der Jungling an der Quelle," or the Youth at the Brook. It is a song I love, about the young man who goes to the brook and sits and wants to forget all about this girl, this Luisa, who has done him wrong. But the leaves and the brook, all day they whisper her name. At the end of the song that is what you hear.

"Luisa! Luisa!"

The beautiful little sing-song-y song has been on my brain all day.

Now it can be on yours!

'Please, I don't want to be happy'

There is this charming new video I found with David Dubal talking. We have gotten to like David Dubal on this Web log whether or not we agree with him on every little thing. Most of the important things we agree on.

There is nothing like Dubal giving you a pep talk.

"Go buy that piano! Don't whine and say, I'm too old. And if you need to because everything is so instant, well, I would say take one year to learn one page of a Two-Part Invention. Then why not take a year for the second? Take a third year to put it together."

Then his voice drops as he imitates a complainer.

"What, three years to do one minute of music?"

"Yes, that's right, that what I ask, that's what I demand of you. Because I demand us to survive. I want us to survive. Let's take a look at the reality of the world. We are uncreative today but consciously, where we do live, that's where we do live, including that wonderfully unknown language which is so vital called the dream."

There is other stuff in here that made me laugh out loud. But I do not want to give it all away. For now, no Dubal video is complete without him running down modern technology and this one has a great sequence confronting that issue.

"There is no silence and every day they are inventing new machines to make us more anxious. We can't do without the computer or the iPhone." Then he goes on to add generously that  if used properly "they can be as helpful as any household appliance."

But then he attacks the notion that machines are always supposed to make us happy.

"Please, I don't want to be happy, I want to be Franz Schubert."

Hahahaa! I love that. I got to talk with David Dubal on the phone a few weeks ago, a startling episode in my life because I read all his books but just never imagined I would ever be talking with him. But that is a whole other story. Meanwhile, I keep thinking about what he said, what I wrote about that one time, about "Play the piano daily and stay sane."

I try my best to follow that advice!

'Blossom Time'

One comment the other day got me thinking about "Blossom Time," this old movie about Schubert, which I had never seen. I picked up the vinyl record and it is somewhere, so that is a start.

I found this clip of Richard Tauber singing songs from the movie and I was thinking, that is funny, he looks a little like Schubert.

Now I find out he was cast as Schubert!

That is funny! Talk about making Schubert truly superhuman. Not only does he write this heart-stopping music but he has Richard Tauber's voice.

I mean, I do not think so.

Sorry Charlie.

When Schubert's songs were being performed and he was there, I believe he was playing the piano and not singing. There is that famous account of how he said the accompaniment to "Erlkonig" was too tough for him.

Richard Tauber was my father's favorite singer. He sent his record of Tauber's "Schoene Muellerin" back to the shop because it had a scratch or something, and he never got it back, and he never got over it. They sent him Heinrich Schlusnus' recording instead. I always remember my dad griping about that. Nothing against Schlusnus but he was not Tauber.

Here is Tauber singing "Horch, horch, die Lerch." That title is great in German, you know? Instead of  "Hark, hark, the lark" it is "Horch, horch, die Lerch." English and German are related in hilarious ways.



 I have Web-logged about Tauber before so now I should just stop.

Besides which people are telling me that all I do is write about dead people which is not good for ratings. I should stop writing about dead people and write about living people.

Celebrities.

Hmmm. I cannot believe I cannot find that movie "Blossom Time" anywhere on YouTube. This is the closest I can come. I am not used to having to deny myself like this. I am accustomed to instant gratification. Remember the movie about Brahms and Schumann?

"Blossom Time" must be out there somewhere, free.

It must be!

A song for the ship

Today when I saw the Herbert C. Jackson steam out of our harbor I thought of Schubert's "Der Schiffer."

That is what it is like to be a music nerd!

You do not really need the words to "Der Schiffer." It is all about a sailor reveling in the power and danger of the sea. He ends by saying what a heavenly joy it is to fight the storms. It is a very macho song! With a marvelous piano accompaniment.

Schubert loved those macho manly-man songs. It reminds you he was always kind of a kid. He never grew old enough to outgrow that, these chest-thumping songs about storms and ships and lords and ladies.

A song I love to play late at night. I used to listen to this as a teenager and just swoon. You never want to lose that, you know. Schubert never grew up and neither should we.

February dreamin'

Writing about spring on my other Web log I found myself thinking of this song.

This is one of the beautiful videos by this wonderful YouTube video maker who styles herself FiDi Tanzer. The FiDi must stand for Fischer-Dieskau because she is a fan of Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau as I am. Wow, look at the cute pic of Fischer-Dieskau on her YouTube page! That hat! You go, Herr Fischer-Dieskau! You are styling!

I am loving that video up above. FiDi Tanzer always includes exquisite pictures and she also includes translations, which I love.

Ah, spring!

We can dream!