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!

5 classical pieces with unfortunate titles

"That's so beautiful, what you're listening to," your friend tells you. "What is it?"

Uh... uh ...

Don't you hate it when a piece of music has an embarrassing name? Here are 5.

1. Dvorak's "Dumky" Trio.

2. Tchaikovsky's "Doumka."

3. Completing this "dumb" trio, Stravinsky's "Dumbarton Oaks."



4. Gustav Holst's "The Mystic Trumpeter" (and his now forgotten cousin, John Alden Carpenter's "The Anxious Bugler").

5. Let's be honest. Elgar's "Nimrod."

Mahler's birthday

It is the twilight hours of the birthday of Gustav Mahler. He was born July 7, 1860. Mahler was older than you think, you know? If I did not think about it would have thought it was later than 1960.

Here is what a lucky dog I am, I work in a place where somebody reminds you when it is Mahler's birthday. The Gusto editor sent me a message about it.

"Happy Gustav Mahler's birthday!" she wrote!

Since then I have been passing that greeting on to other people.

Here is a picture of Mahler out walking with his wife, Alma.

And Mahler at his desk.

Here is a Mahler song I love, "Scheiden und Meiden." Saying goodbye is so sad!



It is one of the "Knaben Wunderhorn" songs, the settings he did of strange old German folk songs. There are a lot of things I love about this song. The galloping rhythms. The song mentions riders on horseback. The creative piano accompaniment. Judging from the pictures that is Leonard Bernstein on piano.

But most of all I love the ending. So cathartic! Scheiden und Meiden tut weh! It hurts to say goodbye! It hurts! It hurts! What else are you going to say, you know?

Ade, Gustav Mahler!

It hurts to say goodbye!

One chant on my Top 10 list

 Sometime soon I am going to make a list of my Top 10 chants. This will be one. We got to sing it in church today and next time we do it I will be ready!

There was one time a while ago when the choir was singing this. The women were supposed to come in by ourselves singing "O Jesu dulcis," and then the men joined in at some point. I forget at what point the men joined in because all I remember is that when we got to those words, "O Jesu dulcis," the other women dropped out for some reason -- there were just a few of us, and they must have been hesitant or confused or something. And there was my voice, solo, carrying over the church. Hahahahaaa!

My grandmother used to be the soprano soloist at St. Boniface Church on Buffalo's East Side so it is in my blood to rise to the occasion in such a situation. Still it was startling. That is why God created choir lofts, so people are not staring at you at a moment like that.

The chant:

Ave verum corpus, natum de Maria Virgine,
vere passum, immolatum in cruce pro homine,
cuius latus perforatum fluxit aqua et sanguine:
esto nobis praegustatum in mortis examine.
O Jesu dulcis, O Jesu pie, O Jesu, fili Mariae.
Miserere mei. Amen.

Hail, true Body, born of the Virgin Mary,
who having truly suffered, was sacrificed
on the cross for mankind,
whose pierced side flowed with water and blood:
May it be for us a foretaste of the Heavenly banquet
in the trial of death.
Oh dear Jesus, Oh merciful Jesus, Oh Jesus, son of Mary,
have mercy on me. Amen.

Most people including me know the Mozart version better. You know I am partial to the Leonard Bernstein performance but here is another one I love, by the Westminster Cathedral Choir. It is funny how the slideshow continues after the performance ends. But that is fine with me.

 It is so beautiful you need time to recover!

Julius Rudel, the doghouse, and me

I felt bad today about the passing of Julius Rudel, and so I am breaking my Web log silence.

Once I wrote about my interview with Maestro Rudel a long time ago in which I was something of, ahem, a ditz. Hahaha... I see I wrote that I demonstrated my familiarity with Hans Knappertsbusch, this Old World conductor, and that was what got me out of the doghouse. I remember exactly what happened.

What happened was, I asked Julius Rudel which conductors he admired growing up. And because I had made this ditzy mistake about Gregor Piatigorsky, which I would never make now thanks to Leonard Pennario, Rudel took it slow.

He said that there was one conductor he especially liked. And he said, "I'll spell it for you." Because I was this ditz.

I sat there, taking my lumps. Rudel goes: "K-n-a-"

And I said: "Oh, Hans Knappertsbusch!"

That was what got me out of the doghouse. After that the conversation was back to normal. It just happened I had a record by Hans Knappertsbusch when I was a teenager. And when I was talking with Rudel, it was as if my 14-year-old self were tapping me on the shoulder. "Pssst. Hans Knappertsbusch."

I wrote about Julius Rudel today in The Buffalo News. I hope it worked out OK because I wrote it fast and I was feeling sad.

I hate losing these old people. I hate losing our old music directors. And Rudel was so gracious, so gentlemanly. My parents rejoiced when he was appointed music director of the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra. I remember them gloating and dancing around. They loved Rudel and his Mozart and his Haydn.

As do we all.

The maestro will be missed.

A picturesque Humoresque

Just now after a hectic day of work, I found myself in a humor to hear Dvorak's "Humoresque," the little piece by Dvorak, played by Pennario.

Hahaaa... This one friend of mine who is a dear man posted this video and he unfortunately misspelled "Dvorak." But it is classic how he includes my Web site. He writes "www.Mary Kun," and then on the next line, "zGoldman.com." I love that!

But back to the music.

Obviously I am biased but I have never heard this piece sound so beautiful as in this recording, which is off Pennario's RCA album "Humoresque." There were number of other Humoresques on the album, not just this one.

A few idiot critics slammed this record, mocking Pennario as in, "listen to him, playing these teaching pieces." But you know what, I am so entranced by how Pennario plays this piece, how unhurried it is, how unaffected and direct, I couldn't imagine any pianist playing it better. So I decided to look on YouTube for other pianists playing it.

I could find hardly anyone! Well, except for kids and students. Maybe the sour critics were right, they are teaching pieces. But a teaching piece like this is real music, you know? It is beautiful in the hands of a master and if you do not hear it played by a master you are missing out.

Other great pianists must have played this. I did a search for "Horowitz Humoresque." And "Rubinstein Humoresque." Maybe they played it, but they do not play it on YouTube.

Most of the performances you find are not even played by pianists. They are played by violinists. It is not the same!

Oh well. A lot of talk over a little piece. But so beautiful, as Pennario plays it.

Remember the Dvorak family album?

It is fun to leaf through while you listen.

A song for Lady Day

I do not know about you but when I hear Lady Day I think of Billie Holiday.

So I was kind of surprised to read this morning on this priest's Web log that I look in on sometimes that there was, or is, a different Lady Day. That is today which is the Feast of the Annunciation. It used to be affectionately known as Lady Day. The Lady was the Blessed Virgin Mary (or BVM, to use an abbreviation I love).

All I can think is that when Lester Young gave Billie Holiday that nickname, this other Lady Day must have put the phrase in his head. Because once upon a time all these traditions were part of the public consciousness. Also Billie Holiday was Catholic and that might have fed into it too. I am not saying she was a churchgoer her whole life but she was baptized and had a Catholic funeral. I was at the Paulist church in New York City where her Requiem Mass was held.

Lady Day. Who knew it was in the calendar? All these beautiful traditions that lasted centuries and then just vanished, like that, overnight. You know what, if bad people had set out intentionally to obliterate all this stuff, they could not have done a better job.

Up above is a song by Lady Day.

And here is a song for Lady Day.