Dohnanyi Radio

I love the wild and woolly world of Internet radio.

Today writing on my Leonard Pennario Web log about a conversation I had with the biographer of Ernst von Dohnanyi I was Googling around looking for this and that. And I found Ernst von Dohnanyi Radio. That is Dohnanyi pictured above. Here he is a little bit older.

It is funny how he kept that same look. Very distinguished, a little suspicious.

Back to Ernst von Dohnanyi Radio. I listened for a while. It was not strictly Dohnanyi -- as a matter of fact, I did not hear any Dohnanyi in the 10 or 15 minutes I listened. It seemed to be music that someone who liked Dohnanyi would like. Which, I have to say they are right. I like Dohnanyi, and I liked what I heard on Ernst von Dohnanyi Radio. They played the Brahms Lullaby, Then an orchestra-plus-soprano version, in the original German, of Schubert's "Ave Maria." Then a weird choral piece by Rachmaninoff that I loved.

Intrigued, I began looking around this site -- Last FM, it is called -- to see what else it offered. "Why not try Foo Fighters, Muse, indie or rock?" it prompted me. Ha, ha! Because I do not want to listen to them, that is why.

Instead I opted for a string of Cyrillic letters. And it wound up being Prokofiev.

As you listen to Prokofiev Radio you get to look at a whole bundle of beautiful old photos of old Serge. They were playing Vladimir Ashkenazy playing the Piano Concerto No. 1.

This is a fine way to get behind with your day first thing.

The piano teacher

Here is something I sometimes walk around thinking about. Consider two great musicians who taught piano, Ludwig van Beethoven and Frederic Chopin.

It is hilarious who was the tough one and who was the softie.

You would think Chopin ...

... would be the softie. He played so soft you could hardly hear it, he looked like a girl (at least in that picture), he wrote those heart-melting nocturnes.

And you would think Beethoven ...

... would be the one yelling at you.

But no, if the books I have read are true, Chopin was the meanie. There are accounts of women leaving their lessons with tears streaming down their faces.

Whereas it was Beethoven who was the cream puff. He fell in love with women he taught piano to, and even the ones he did not fall in love with, he was nice to. You could twist him around your finger, is the impression I get.

It would definitely have been more fun to take lessons from him.

But you would probably learn more from Chopin.

Risky business

Here is a book waiting to be written, though not by me because I am too busy with Pennario.

Isn't it odd that in Tudor England, so many of the great British composers were Catholic?

There was William Byrd, above.

Thomas Tallis.

And the melancholy god of the lute, John Dowland.

Wow, these men all look pretty much alike. Perhaps they are in fact the same person!

But seriously. This seems like an unusual situation, all of them being Catholic in an era when that took great courage. It makes me wonder about the theory I have read about, that Shakespeare was Catholic. Judging from these three -- and there are more, I just can't think of them right now -- it seems to have been the thinking man's religion.

Wikipedia suggests that Dowland was defiant about his faith, even working behind the scenes for the Vatican. Elizabeth was supposed to have said that he "was a man to serve any prince in the world, but [he] was an obstinate Papist."

It is hard even to imagine his courage. In Elizabethan England you could get executed simply for being Catholic. The memory was still recent of how Henry VIII had beheaded Sir Thomas More in the public square because he would not renounce his faith. Here he was the Chancellor of England, one of the king's closest friends, and he went to the block with his wife and children watching.

And he got off easy next to some of the others. They would execute Catholics in terrible ways. Hanging, drawing and quartering seems to have been a common way to do it. That happened to a London bookstore owner who would not stop selling Catholic books.

Anyway, given the situation, it seems amazing to me that these composers were Catholic, stuck to their guns and seem to have gotten away with it.

Elizabeth must have liked their music an awful lot.

A Monday in the country

Let's get this Web log rolling again! If I see Ivo Pogorelich's face one more time I am going to lose it. Every day I log onto my Leonard Pennario Web log and there is Pogo in the corner, staring at me.

No more!

He reminds me of the villain from the "Austin Powers" movies. I cannot think of that character's name right now but I cannot like at Ivo P. without thinking of him. Maybe it's me. I just cannot help it.

Today the Web log zooms across the world to Heiligenstadt. I would rather have Heiligenstadt looking at me. Above is a statue of Beethoven at Heiligenstadt. I think they made Beethoven a little short. I read he was 5'6" which stuck in my head because it is my height. Well, a minor quibble.

Heiligenstadt was the town where Beethoven used to go to relax. There is the famous Heiligenstadt Testament, an anguished letter he wrote to his brother about his deafness. Beethoven wrote that letter in Heiligenstadt.

A few weeks ago my friend Prof. G sent me a video of the house in Heiligenstadt where Beethoven lived.

The homemade video, made 16 years ago, is so touching. You see the thunderstruck young Beethoven fan, exploring Beethoven's house in Heiligenstadt, looking at his manuscripts and playing a sweet Bagatelle. Doing a fine job with the Bagatelle, too, as Prof. G pointed out.

I love when he runs his hands gingerly over the piano keys and then holds his hands up in the air, as if, "I won't touch."

One of the comments gives the impression that if you ask to play Beethoven's piano at his Heiligenstadt house they are often pretty good about it. It depends on who is on duty, but there is a good chance they will tell you yes. That is a nice and very Beethoven way to be!

Most of all on this hectic Monday morning I am drawn toward the part of the clip where the camera takes you down the stairs and casually shows you the countryside. You can almost feel the breezes and the summer air. I can see what Beethoven loved in the place. I wish I were there this morning and not going to the office, I will tell you that.

I want to be at Beethoven's house in Heiligenstadt this morning.

Looking at his manuscripts.

Playing his piano.

Pianists on the verge of a nervous breakdown

This is the week for musicians having meltdowns, that is for sure! Yesterday we dealt with the situation involving Keith Jarrett. That sparked quite a discussion! Today we have a case of a classical musician gone wild. It is Ivo Pogorelich.

Ivo Pogorelich misbehaved in Israel, according to this story in the Jerusalem Post. The paper said that during a piano recital he was giving, he began yelling at the audience for talking. Then someone from the crowd yelled at him. It was a lot like the Jarrett incident.

I do not know where to begin to ask questions.

Is it something with the moon?

Also I did not know that people in Israel have a habit of talking in concerts. Is that so? I would not have thought that.

The story in the Jerusalem Post was by Jonathan Beck. It was well-written, I thought, and contained this analysis of the situation:

There is a paradox to every performance of classical music: while instrumentalists or singers may attain superstar status, there is always a measure of servility inherent to their art, in that their abilities are measured by the extent to which they can make the composer’s intentions shine through their own work. Thus, the player is, even at his finest, only a vessel for something greater than himself; he is there merely to make the notes on the page come to life, and anything he manages to express should already be implied by the score, waiting to be brought to life.

I have caught myself thinking that -- or something like that, anyway. I mean, Glenn Gould played fantastic Bach, but it was not as if he was Bach.

I wonder if along with seeing the end of the tyrannical conductor, we will be seeing the end of the tyrannical soloist.

On the other hand hot tempers make good copy. Always have, always will.

The prima donna

There is this hilarious story about pianist Keith Jarrett being a prima donna in San Francisco.

I remember once he was a prima donna at Artpark too, when he played that great old Artpark Jazz Festival. He kept stopping and hitting the same note on the piano over and over, quizzically, critically. There was nothing wrong with that note.

Walking out of Artpark that day, my friend Diane and I were laughing about that, and all these Keith Jarrett fans turned and gave us stink-eye. They will put up with anything.

Finicky jazz musicians are not always as entertaining as they think they are. Especially when you have shelled out for tickets, their behavior is not fun. Once I shelled out money to go hear Branford Marsalis. This was years ago and though the tickets were not astronomical, I didn't have much money. I always remember how Branford thought he was being cute, wandering constantly off stage so he could check the score on a basketball game. Boring! And annoying. And furthermore it's been done, you know?

Branford played a short concert. The whole event lasted an hour and a half, as I recall. And he spent most of it backstage. Wow, I was mad. At least now if something like that happens I get to vent in the paper.

More recently there was a time I had to interview Wynton Marsalis. I could make no sense out of what the guy said. He kept murmuring stuff and giggling and just plain acting like a jerk. This is a guy in his 40s. I did not know what his problem was.

I mean, if you do not want to talk to the press, don't talk to the press, OK? I would have been fine with that.

Classical music, I am telling you, it gets you spoiled. There are some princesses in the classical world but not like in jazz.

Jazzers can be real jerks.

The Brahms scholar speaks

The Internet, every day I find a new reason to love it. You can get in touch with all kinds of people you would never have been in touch with before.

There is that biography of Johannes Brahms by Jan Swafford that I talk about a lot. I just talked about it yesterday! Anyway, my brother George recently read it too. There is no shame in pointing out that this is the first book of that kind that George has ever read. Most people do not read big, fat biographies of composers, let's get that out there right now.

Anyway George and I are kind of preoccupied with this book and we are always joking around about it. We are choosy and so we have gotten this way with only three other books: Tom Wolfe's "I Am Charlotte Simmons"; Herman Wouk's "Marjorie Morningstar" and John Galsworthy's "The Forsyte Saga."

Now that George has read Jan Swafford's "Johannes Brahms" we talk about that. That is the book pictured up above. My husband, Howard, the book gets on his nerves. One of the millions of times I was talking about it he said, "That's the book with the cover where Brahms looks like Clint Eastwood."

Anyway, George and I quote from people in the book and discuss the various characters as if they are alive. It is a compliment to Jan Swafford that we feel they are! Perhaps some day people will feel that way about my book on Leonard Pennario.

Back to the Internet. What George did cracked me up. He went and emailed Jan Swafford and complimented him on his work.

George soared like an eagle and wrote:

Professor Swafford: Just wanted to say how much I enjoyed the Brahms book which I just completed.  My sister, classical reviewer for the Buffalo News, Mary Kunz Goldman, recommended the book to me and we discuss it frequently - even enjoying an occasional inside joke ("The Second Fritz") ... ....thanks again for your hard work....George

And Professor Swafford wrote back:

"Thanks for your note, and glad you both enjoyed it. One of these days there'll be a Beethoven bio from me -- but don't hold your breath. Jan Swafford."

Ha, ha! I love the Internet. And now we know, there will be a Beethoven bio one day from Jan Swafford.

You read it here!