Beethoven For Newbies: Your Bucket List

In honor of Beethoven’s birthday, here are some pieces I think everyone should hear and get to know. This list is highly subjective! It is music I personally love, big and small. And I am designing this list with newbies in mind. This is all music I cannot imagine anybody not loving.

So, classical music newbies out there, allow me to introduce you to your new obsession. For seasoned Beethoven fans, I would love your input. What pieces would you put on this list?

Also, what’s your favorite Beethoven portrait? The one at the top of the post is one of a collection of vintage Beethoven portraits I have been saving over the years. I will have to look up who painted it, I am ashamed to say. I did not realize I had been building up this giant collection. It has gotten kind of out of hand. We will have to explore my Beethoven portrait gallery another day.

For now, let’s get started with the music. On my Substack publication -- it's free to read -- I include videos with the selections. The videos are short and easy to love! Take a peek!

Here is what I would recommend.

The Allegretto from the Seventh Symphony. This the piece heard in the movie “The King’s Speech” which came out some years ago, about King George VI and how he lost his stutter. He makes his speech while this plays in the background. Give yourself the treat of listening to this without having to hear the speech over it. Incredible music, just so beautiful.

The third and fourth movements of the famous Fifth Symphony. You know the first movement, now listen to the last one, and then you can soar like an eagle and get to know the whole thing. The thrilling point in this music comes when the third movement bursts into the fourth movement, the finale. You have to hear both together to get the effect. My video features the conductor Herbert von Karajan who always delivered a lot of drama.

The Andante Cantabile from the “Archduke” Trio. That beautiful theme! Beethoven sometimes does not get enough credit for the sheer loveliness of his music. You do not have to be angry all the time and he was not.

The slow movement of the “Appassionata” sonata. I love playing the “Appassionata” myself. I studied it with Stephen Manes and we really worked it over and now I have this close relationship with it. I will have to play it myself at some point, make a video or something. However for now Daniel Barenboim will have to do.

Let’s lighten things up! Beethoven’s song “The Flea” shows his sense of humor. This song and I go way back. I loved it when I was a kid. The video I post on Substack, I never saw it before and I was delighted to find it. This is my favorite singer, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau. We corresponded briefly when I was a kid because I wrote him a letter and he was nice enough to write me back. He looks very young here, and on piano is the legendary British pianist Gerald Moore. Best of all, there are subtitles, so you can follow along with this hilarious song.

“Then all his siblings also / Became big shots at court.” The translation is good. The song ends up with us rejoicing that we are allowed to swat and kill fleas when they sting us. There is at least one recording where they bring in a chorus for that last line. I will have to look for it.

We could easily do a whole list of performers, vintage and contemporary, performing “The Flea.” I think one of these days I will do that.

Finally I suggest a song titled simply, in German, “I love you.” Cole Porter wrote a song simply called “I Love You” because it was such a challenge to take such a simple hackneyed phrase and write a song around it. Here is what Beethoven did with it. I could not find a video with an English translation but it’s a pretty straightforward love song. Just enjoy.

For whatever reason all these videos are turning up with Korean subtitles. This song must be big in Korea!

Haha… I tried just now to link to a video featuring a young Japanese soprano but my hand was slapped and I was told, “Playback on other websites has been disabled by the video owner.” Fine, take it to your grave. That is a phrase I got from my brother George.

There are other Beethoven pieces I want to include however they cannot be so easily edited into small portions. So let’s leave it here, at seven, and consider this a start, should anyone want a Part 2.

That last song, “I Love You,” is a good one to finish up with.

Beethoven, we love you!

 

 

Beethoven Playing For Mozart

 

I love this old picture. I remember seeing it when I was a kid and today I ran across it on the Internet.

It shows Beethoven playing for Mozart. You have to click on the picture to see it bigger to get the look on Mozart's face. That artist did a good job! Mozart looks alert and interested but not threatened. He looks kind of cocky, the way he was in real life.

Then all the ladies. Artists love to draw ladies with their pretty hair and dresses. Especially if the artist is a woman. Women love to draw women.

It is fun how there is a crowd present.

Underlying it all is the mystery of whether Beethoven did in fact meet Mozart, or if he did not. He was hoping to study with Mozart. However then his mother died and his plans were undone. And when he got around to pursuing those plans again, Mozart was gone.

There is a chance however that Beethoven did meet Mozart. You have to doubt it, however, because you would think Beethoven would have mentioned it to someone at some point if it had happened. Or Mozart might have mentioned it. Especially Beethoven, though, you would think it would come up.

I have written a lot about this I know, but I think about it a lot... Those two.

In a book about Mozart -- I will have to link to it -- the Englishman Paul Johnson goes into great detail about that. I like how I am not the only one thinking about it. Johnson said that Mozart and Beethoven would go into eternity together, both magnifying the other. He said it better than that. I will have to look it up.

You almost have to think of them together, to compare and contrast. And you can say whatever about Beethoven admiring Handel more, or Cherubini more, or whoever more than he admired Mozart. He did not.

There was no way he admired anyone more than he admired Mozart. You can hear it in his music. There would have been no Beethoven without Mozart. Well, he would have written music, but he would have been different.

So that question is settled. Only one remains...

Did they ever meet?

If they did, it would be like the picture.

Beethoven turns 250

 Today being Beethoven's 250th birthday, people are calling on me to make a statement.

 What do you say on such a momentous occasion?

Two hundred fifty years!!

Maybe what I will say as a statement is, I can name a few of the Beethoven creations that I love the best. I do love a lot of them. I have always had a kind of funny relationship with Beethoven. All my life I have loved Mozart -- Mozart is my top guy, but then I got more into piano, and I began playing Beethoven sonatas, and I could not stop. I just love them so much. And it brought me closer to Beethoven.

It is funny, thinking of Beethoven vs. Mozart. I read this beautiful book on Mozart several years ago by the British musicologist Paul Johnson. He spent some time dwelling on this topic, Mozart vs. Beethoven, which I liked about him. He said that they would go through history together, both magnifying the other.

That is true, I think!

They were so different. But I do not think you would have had Beethoven without Mozart. Imagine Beethoven going through life always up against this superman. I wrote about that once. It had to have made him who he was. Not Haydn, not Cherubini, not even Handel. Mozart. Imagine having to follow that act. Lucky you, Beethoven, to have been born when you were, on Dec. 16, 1770.

Things Beethoven wrote that I love:

The slow movement of the "Archduke" Trio.

The "Eroica Variations." They are better than the Diabelli variations, I think because they have a better theme to start with. The theme matters. I was lucky enough to learn to play these.

The Sonata in E, Op. 109. This was Leonard Pennario's favorite Beethoven sonata and it is mine too. That last movement! But the whole thing, really, is great. I love the first movement. There are moments that just get to me. There is this measure that sounds like jingling sleigh bells -- just haunting.

The "Appassionata" sonata, especially the slow movement. The second variation gets me. It sounds like a guitar accompaniment.

Of course the slow movements of the "Emperor" concerto and the Allegretto from the Seventh Symphony. My dad said how he loved that Allegretto when he was a kid. I did too, and you know what, it grows up with you. You never have to shove it under the bed in shame the way you would have to shove away some pop album or other.

Of course I love the finale of the Ninth Symphony. My friend Margaret at church, she and I have a joke about it. At moments of stress we will say, "Freude schoener Gotterfunken, Tochter aus Jerusalem." As I write this there is a note from Margaret in my email inbox with that in the subject line. But really, I love it, how can you not.

Back to my list. The slow movement of the last string quartet. I got to know the quartets pretty intimately while working for The Buffalo News and covering the Slee Beethoven Quartet Cycle. I got the scores and I studied them. And I love a lot of them. Some of them sound kind of studied and overengineered to me, to tell you the truth. But that must be me, not Beethoven. That last quartet is breathtaking. And the Razumovsky quartets with their Russian folk tunes, I love those. I love Russian music.

The song "The Flea." What, you don't know that? You should!

Lots of other piano sonatas. I should write a book, you know?

I think over the next week I will go out of my way to listen to Beethoven, celebrate his 250th.

He is looking good for his age!

Otto Klemperer and Beethoven's Ninth

The other day, I wrote about losing Howard's cousin -- the one, the only,the great Ron Moss. I went searching into the archives to see what I had written about him. One of the posts I found was called "A Present from Ron Moss," and talked about the time Moss had shoved a gift between the slats of the fence surrounding Howard's garage.

That present, eventually located in a clump of weeds, wound up being Beethoven's Ninth -- a box set of a performance conducted by Otto Klemperer, pictured above, and featuring mezzo soprano Christa Ludwig and the wonderful bass baritone Hans Hotter.

I was thinking, I have to find out where that box set is at, as we say here in Buffalo. Because it is great.

Ron Moss had taste!

Gramophone Magazine, in Britain, proclaimed it .... drum roll please ... the best performance of Beethoven's Ninth EVER! Read for yourself.

Gramophone talks about how the universal nature of Beethoven's Ninth emerges in the power that Klemperer, a German Jew, brings to it. Actually by the time he made that recording Klemperer was Roman Catholic. But still ...

Imagine that!!

Moss ...

... knew his Beethoven!

I have an affection for Otto Klemperer because of Leonard Pennario. Pennario was only 14 when he gave the first of what would become countless performances with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. And Otto Klemperer was the conductor. Klemperer liked him and was good to him and took him to heart. He knew great gifts when he saw them.

I love how Otto Klemperer was the father of Werner Klemperer who played Colonel Klink on "Hogan's Heroes." I did not watch that show much but the kids I babysat for did.

I also love the story Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau tells in his memoirs about Otto Klemperer. It is a long story but the simplified version is, Klemperer winds up imagining a conversation between himself and God. He has God asking, "Tell me, Doktor Klemperer ...."

I loved that!

I loved the idea of God addressing Klemperer with his formal titles!

You know that would be the case.

Anyway, Beethoven's Ninth and Otto Klemperer ... I must locate Moss' gift.

I must listen to it!

Los Angeles Philharmonic spotlights Pennario

It is about time the world joined me in waking up to the greatness of Leonard Pennario. It is happening.

The other day I rejoiced in France Musique's five-day exploration of the recently released Pennario RCA box set.

Today I got word that the Los Angeles Philharmonic is featuring Pennario in an upcoming exhibition!

This is great news. As I told the L.A. Phil staffer who reached out to me, Pennario was always proud of his association with that orchestra, ever since he made his debut there at 14, under the baton of the great Otto Klemperer.

The featured performance comes from the Los Angeles Philharmonic's archives and is of Beethoven's Triple Concerto. This makes me very happy because Pennario never made a record of this particular piece. He performed it only a handful of times -- three or maybe four, not more than that. Pennario was funny that way. It was totally normal for him to do a concerto only once or twice in his life, on demand. He had that capability.

I will present the rest of the details as they reach me. Either that or I will present them tomorrow when I have occasion to look them up in my overstuffed files. I was ready just now to start guessing who the two other soloists are in the concerto, but just so as not to confuse things, I will get the facts. This concert is on file somewhere in the other room and I will be able to tell you the who, the when, and the where, if not the how and the why.

This exhibition must be part of the orchestra's celebration of its 100-year-anniversary. They must be looking back on highlights.

What a lucky group of musicians to have Leonard Pennario living right in their back yard, and soloing with them on a regular basis. And to record with them, too, on multiple occasions. That fine record at the top of this post featured Pennario playing Rachmaninoff with the Los Angeles Philharmonic and conductor Erich Leinsdorf.

And there is this.

And many more.

How gracious of L.A. to remember L.P.

The name Leonard Pennario is being spoken!

Mozart's mysterious last year

I have been wanting to get my, ahem, Music Critic Web log going again. It has been what, a year?

This seems like a great time to do it.

There is a recent story in Britain's The Telegraph about Mozart and his last year. I saw it yesterday morning and put it aside to enjoy later that day, appropriately with tea. So I could take it slow and digest it.

I love reading about Mozart, anything Mozart. Just so you understand, being a Mozart nerd I awoke this morning and my first thought upon hearing it was August 4 was, this is Mozart's wedding anniversary. It is! He got married August 4, 1782.

About Mozart's last year, 1791, there is so much that will never be figured out. However this story is not going to put us any closer to figuring anything out, I will tell you that right now.

One thing right off the top, there is this portrait they say is of Mozart. I pasted it up above.

I know, Mozart was painted by a lot of incompetent artists, but even allowing for the artists' incompetence, that is not Mozart. I think it might be Beethoven. It does not look like Mozart at all. Mozart had blue eyes, for starters. And the fashions are all wrong too for Mozart's time. I think it is Beethoven. I am just saying.

That stupid play "Amadeus," we are going to spend the rest of our lives pointing out how so much of it is B.S., and the author does a good job of debunking it, even if he does not point out that the idea did not start with Peter Shaffer. However, there is this.

Mozart returned to Vienna after the premiere at the end of September. During the two months of his life, he was furiously productive, polishing off Die Zauberflöte, which proved an enormous hit – perhaps the biggest of his career – with a non-aristocratic audience in a large suburban theatre in Vienna. He also wrote the enchanting clarinet concerto and started work on a requiem, commissioned anonymously by a nobleman grieving for his wife.

Then it just goes on, la la la la la, as if all this is normal.

I am sorry, that business about the anonymous Requiem commission, that is not normal! It is not normal now, nor was it in 1791, for a stranger to appear at your door dressed all in gray, like someone out of a masquerade, and wordlessly hand you a commission for a Requiem Mass. Once again ...

Not. Normal.

Ever!!

Another thing, I am getting a little tired of people explaining to me patiently how under Joseph II, it was customary for people to be buried in unmarked mass graves. I have never read one other biography that ends with the person being buried that way. What other subject of Joseph II who was famous was buried that way? Name me one other person and maybe I will take this explanation more seriously. Maybe not. It depends who the person is.

Anyway, I have issues.

It feels good too be venting again!

How Beethoven liked his coffee

My friend Steven who is a classical music nerd par excellence alertly snapped a picture of a cafe sign in Southern California. That is it above. The coffee shop is Peet's in Cotati. Calif.

Who knew that about Beethoven, that he measured his coffee beans? Not many people, I will tell you that right now. And many may call this information a hill of beans but I say fie. Fix that number in your mind, 60. Anyone who knows how to wake people up as creatively as Beethoven did surely knew a thing or two about caffeine.

Bravo, Peet's! Peet's is a California chain and I am not sure they are all as musical as this particular branch. But you can become a Peetnik on their Web site.

Steven also admired this sign at Peet's promoting the joy of saxophone duets. He is a former saxophone player! But that is another story for another day. Perhaps tomorrow.

After I have measured out my 60 beans. Tomorrow I am going to test Beethoven's formula.

I will report!

Ode to joy

After hearing Beethoven's Ninth the other day I have been thinking about the "Ode to Joy."

I read how scholars think he was inspired by Mozart's K. 222, his "Misericordias Domini." Listen for it, you will hear it! And what is weird to me is, it sounds like Beethoven's orchestration. I have not sat down or studied the scores or anything. It just does.



 And you know what, I wonder if in turn Mozart were inspired by the ancient "Asperges" chant. The first notes are the same as the "Ode to Joy" which is how I was able to learn the melody.



Whatever the situation, as our Italian priest at St. Anthony's used to say, there is nothing new under the sun.

But there are great themes, handed down one master to another.

Joy!

Beethoven meets "Sex and the City"

 "Ever thine.

 "Ever mine.

 "Ever ours."

That letter to the Immortal Beloved does have a certain ring to it!

Beethoven in my purse

 I have been walking around with a movie in my purse. It has been there a week and today the library just sent me a notice it is overdue.

It is too bad I cannot get around to watching it! Because this movie looks really interesting.

It is Abel Gance's "Beethoven"!

Perhaps the title is "Un Grand Amour." It is one or the other.

To be honest I had never heard of Abel Gance and it is only this minute that I realize this is an old movie, from the 1930s. The movie jacket made it look modern and I was in a hurry as usual and just borrowed it without really looking at it. It did say Abel Gance was famous for a movie on Napoleon but still I did not think it was odd that I had not heard of this filmmaker. There are plenty of filmmakers I had not heard of.

The excerpt from above looks promising. And here is an excerpt from the movie I found just now on YouTube.



The comments on the site are full of arguments about the accuracy of the clip and debates about which organ they are filming and where. Oh well. Why should a Beethoven from the 1930s be less accurate than a Beethoven from now? In the 1930s they were closer to him time-wise. And closer to his era.

Has anyone out there in Blog-O-Land seen this film? I am going to renew it online from the library and try to carve out the time to see it.

Perhaps this will be my lucky week!

The truth about Beethoven

I have been thinking about Mozart ever since yesterday when I wrote about the "Alleluia" from "Exsultate Jubilate" and also since I answered an impassioned comment on this post on Mozart some time ago.

I was thinking about Mozart and Beethoven.

You know what kills me, how experts are always telling us that Beethoven worshiped Handel, but make no mention of Mozart. Or how -- they love this -- Beethoven said that he considered Cherubini the greatest composer of the age.

Yeah, well, whatever.

I will tell you whom Beethoven considered the greatest composer of the age, beyond a doubt.

Mozart.

"But Mary, how do you know?"

Did he write about it? Not that I know of.

Did he come to me in a dream and whisper it to me as I lay sleeping?

No.

But here is how I know.

Beethoven considered Mozart the greatest composer of his age because how could he not.

Beethoven was not stupid.

There was nobody who could half measure up to Mozart. Mozart's music must have haunted Beethoven every step of the way. It must have felt like chains on his ankles, this genius who had come before him. If he did not talk about it that could have been why. If you are a proud person, which Beethoven was, it is hard to talk about something that haunts you, that frightens you, that intimidates you and humbles you.

Imagine coming after Mozart. Someone who set the bar so incredibly high. And with no apparent effort. Someone who, your reason tells you, must come along only once in a million years. That piece my anonymous correspondent mentioned...



Or the 24th piano concerto, in C minor? We do have Beethoven's reaction to this piece on record. He said to a friend, "We will never be able to do anything like this."



Such a long shadow this little man cast. It can not have been easy for Beethoven.

But surely it was true.

'Used in Vienna'

Isn't it strange? Antonie Brentano, generally believed to have been Beethoven's Immortal Beloved, wrote to "Dear Abby" today from beyond the grave.

I read it this morning and all I could think of was Antonie. "Hugh" has to be Beethoven.

I am sure of it.

Here is the letter in case the link expires:

Dear Abby: I’m a 45-year-old married woman with four kids. I fell in love with a longtime friend, “Hugh,” two years ago. He’s single and has never been married.

I told him I want a relationship, but he says that since I’m married we can’t have one.  I told him I love him, but he’s not sure he feels as strong about it as I do. We have been spending a lot of time together and have started to get intimate.

I told Hugh I don’t want to just fool around—I want a commitment. He worries about my kids, and that if I leave their father they won’t understand.

My husband is very cold and distant. We don’t say much to each other anymore; we’re just two adults living in the same house raising our kids. We have gone to counseling, but it didn’t help. My husband says things are fine—but they’re not.

I’m angry because Hugh...

... is willing to fool around but not commit. He says this shouldn’t go on anymore and his heart isn’t in it. The fact that I’m married bothers him. I told him to wait and eventually my husband and I will divorce. I’m hurt by his decision to back out. I feel he wanted the intimacy but doesn’t want ME, and I feel used. How do I sort this out?

—Used in Vienna

OK, it was really "Used in Massachusetts." My imagination began running away with me.

The perils of being a music nerd!

Cold comfort

Buffalo got its first frost today. I saw it when I went out to get the papers.

Then when I went inside and opened the papers what did I read about was the Beethoven frost bed! That is it pictured above.

That is my life, a series of strange coincidences.

The frost bed is on display at Miami's Art Museum. What this one guy did was, he -- let me quote the Wall Street Journal.

"Inspired by Ludwig van Beethoven's death during a snowstorm in 1827, Florida-based artist Enrique Martinez Celays has created 'Schneebett' ('Snow-bed') -- a series of rooms, one of which, refrigerated, contains a bronze bed blanketed with a thick layer of frost.

"Outside 'Schneebett,' a video performance of one of Beethoven's late quartets is playing. Inside the initial corridor, a compression system and cooling tower buzz loudly. the sonic clash is intentional: 'Not only was Beethoven deaf toward the end of his life, but his head was ringing,' yet he composed until the end, says Mr. Martinez Celaya, who sculpts, paints, photographs and writes. The piece was first shown in 2004 in Berlin."

I like any sign that Beethoven is remembered or thought of -- any way, anytime, anywhere.

A Miami paper, or Web log, or something -- the reason I wonder is, it misspells "Nietzsche" -- interviews the artist here. I like the artist. He seems to like Beethoven.

I wonder if this installation made it into "Beethoven in America," this book I was just reading about. It tracks Beethoven's image in America. Of course, this work of art was in Berlin first.

I am looking at this book, which is by Michael Broyles.

"Most importantly, this book is addressed to anyone who wonders how this man reached the pinnacle of American cultural recognition and what it is exactly he represents," he writes.

It looks kind of interesting but it is not exactly addressed to me. I do not wonder about stuff like that, I have to say. I have never wondered how Beethoven reached the pinnacle of American cultural recognition and what it is exactly he represents.

I just listen to him.

The music master

Recently I have been impressed by Pope Benedict XVI and his knowledge about music. I had heard he was an accomplished pianist but I had not realized until recently how he lives and breathes music.

You can tell when someone lives and breathes music, not that you find this type too often, when the person brings music into the conversation for no reason at all.

The pope does this.

Above his a picture of him listening to music alertly.

About a year ago he competently discussed Beethoven's "Choral Fantasy" in comparison with Arvo Part's "Cecilie, virgine romana." Amazing that anyone even knows what the "Choral Fantasy" is, not to mention "Cecilie."



I found the pope's erudite comments on this great Web log, Ignatius Insight, where you read all kinds of stuff that never makes it into the mainstream media. The mainstream media have no interest in anyone's views on Beethoven's "Choral Fantasy," let alone Arvo Part.

Ha, ha! Looking at I.I. just now, I see this quote at the top: "But there is no excuse for being unaware of Aquinas." I guess I have some reading to do! I mean, I know St. Thomas Aquinas was a saint, and that he was a great thinker, but that is about it.

On the other hand I know about other stuff and you cannot know about everything, you know?

Unless you are Benedict XVI.

The I.I. Web log also discussed how on another occasion the pope got up on his pope-box (sorry, could not help that) and gave a wonderful speech about Mozart. He was in Italy for a performance of the Requiem and in his talk he knowledgeably discussed how the Italian composers of the time influenced Mozart. He also quoted Mozart's letters. I have read that the pope writes these speeches himself. He does not have anyone else writing them for him.

Amazing, this guy! And I applaud him also for taking on the sticky and problematic matter of reforming the music in the Catholic church which, face it, in the last few decades has pretty much descended into dreck. It is time someone showed leadership in this department.

Music is just so important.

The mark of the maestro

The other day I was going on about -- I know, as usual! -- the Allegretto from Beethoven's Seventh. I am sorry, I liked it was a teenager. I am afraid I am still a teenager.

Anyway, I found myself watching Herbert von Karajan conducting it on YouTube.

That is von Karajan up above.

There are moments when you see why a great conductor is a great conductor. I remember watching, also on YouTube, Leonard Bernstein conducting Mozart's "Ave, Verum Corpus." Here Bernstein was, not Catholic -- not even Christian -- and yet, for while he is conducting that music, he is. Because Mozart was, and that is what it takes to understand that music.

It is amazing. I want to say it is like watching a great actor but I think it is deeper than that. Bernstein brings out this music's reverence and mystical beauty as I have never seen anyone else do. He takes that moment at the beginning and gets into the zone. You see him mouthing the Latin along with the chorus. He was drawing the music out of everyone. You can see it.

That was, honest, the first time I "got" Bernstein. I looked at that and thought, that is a great conductor! That is what I am seeing.

The other night, watching Herbert von Karajan, I saw the same thing.

Watch what the maestro does at the end. He is guiding the music to a close, cuing the woodwinds, the hushed pizzicato on the violins. Then ... at the last chord. Look at that gesture.

It is a great bit of showmanship but it is genuine, too.

Amazing.

Kaiser Wilhelm

This morning I am listening to Wilhelm Backhaus playing Beethoven sonatas. Actually there is nothing special about this morning.

Pretty much every morning I listen to Wilhelm Backhaus playing Beethoven sonatas!

There is this CD that crossed my desk at work and somehow it became lodged in the CD player in my back room. Somehow for me it takes great organization and initiative to change a CD and so Wilhelm Backhaus has stayed. He has become family. On this disc he is playing four Beethoven sonatas including two that I love, the "Hunt" and the "Waldstein."

I get up early to work on my book on Leonard Pennario, which I am slowly but surely bringing into shape. And so here I am, in my pajamas, drinking my coffee and typing away, surrounded by huge binders full of newspaper clippings and letters, and my card files detailing where Pennario was from day to day, year to year. My neighborhood is noisy. When it gets to be, oh, 7:30 a.m., everyone starts waking up and shouting and screaming and blasting their car stereos. So that is when the Backhaus goes on.

Wilhelm Backhaus is my friend!

I love Beethoven and normally his music would be too distracting to work to. Pennario is also too distracting to work to, I find. I think back on the old man and I get weepy. But this Backhaus, I am used to this disc. I know all its twists and turns, and so I can work to it. The music is strong and robust and encouraging.

Backhaus is like Pennario, and this is high praise, in that he is unpretentious. These performances are live and sometimes old Wilhelm comes down -- hard -- on the wrong notes. Whole chords, he gets wrong! But it does not bother him one bit. He soldiers happiily on. I get such a kick out of him. I just grin hearing him play the "Hunt" Sonata. That galloping finale! Nothing stops him.

We should all be like that in life!

This morning for the first time I looked up Backhaus on Wikipedia. There is a somewhat hagiographic and annoying entry but there are a few facts in it. Wilhelm Backhaus was the first pianist to record a concerto.  He recorded the Grieg. On July 15, 1909. Yikes, that is today! Isn't it July 15? Well, in my life I am used to coincidence.

Speaking of coincidence, I just found that picture to post up above. And I know the man Backhaus made the autograph out to! He was Dr. J. Warren Perry. He was a Buffalonian. I met him. He just died recently. Isn't this strange? I just found that picture at random on the Internet. 

Here is a young picture of Backhaus with Evgeny Kissin hair.

Here is a cool interview with Backhaus discussing technique.

Here he is playing the finale of the "Tempest" Sonata.

Play it, Wilhelm!

Play it!

Fingers flying

Here is a treat for pianists. Stephen Hough, the British concert pianist, has written on his Web log what amounts to a free piano lesson on how to do trills.

Is this a marvelous age we live in or what? You hop onto the Internet and you never know what you will find.

I am trying to think of the trilling-est piece I ever played. I think it would have to be Beethoven's Sonata in E, Opus 109, which ends in showers of trills in the right and left hands with all kinds of other things going on too. Once I, ahem, played this sonata in recital and Howard said that when the trills all finally wound down, his heart could stop pounding because it meant the plane had landed safely. Ha, ha! Playing a sonata like this is like being at the controls of a jet. If you listen to the music you can actually feel the wheels touch ground.

Unfortunately my recital was not recorded for posterity so here is Daniel Barenboim playing it. What a sonata. It is intoxicating. The first theme, heartbreaking! The middle voices get to me. Then the beginning of the first variation always gets me. Barenboim gets to this at about 2:18. It is almost like a very slow waltz. I know I should not think about it like that but still.

Barenboim is the slowest pianist I have ever heard doing this! Also I had not realized his fingers were that stubby.

When you get to 4:10, 4:11 the music kind of hurts. I remember my teacher, Stephen Manes, talked about that. Sometimes music has to hurt a little bit and this is one of those times.

The third variation sounds like sleigh bells and there are things that given my overactive imagination I read into that. The variation that starts at 6:45 is one I love. It is so tender and so direct.

The fun starts about 10:40 when he states the theme simply, then doubles up the notes, then triples them. Beethoven likes this trick. Then it picks up .... you can think of a train, but I like to think of being on a plane, when the engines really start going and you are flattened against the back of your seat and you take off.

The trills get under way slowly at 11:00. At 11:16 they speed up and by about 11:30 they are going full blast. Wow, Barenboim! Look at those stubby fingers fly! As you gain altitude, the trills keep going in the left hand while the right has all this other exciting stuff going on. It builds and builds and then starts coming down. There can be some discussion about when exactly the wheels touch down but I would ... say ... right .... about ....

... 11:37.

That is one thrilling 30 seconds!

Did I say thrilling?

I meant trilling!