A Dvorak family album

I have found this great Dvorak Web site. It is all in Czech but still.

The site is full of photographs of the Dvorak family. Above is a picture of Dvorak's daughter Otilie and her husband, the composer Josef Suk. For the record that is one romance I am kind of sick of hearing about, how Dvorak's daughter married Josef Suk. They have been talking about it practically nonstop on our classical music station since I was 17. But I do love Suk's String Serenade. And I do not remember ever seeing this picture of them.

You sort of have to deduce who is who in this site because, as I said, it is all in Czech. But you can make pretty educated guesses.

"skladatelovy dcery Anna, Otylka a Magda," reads the caption for this picture. Clearly that translates to: "Back then kids behaved."


This appears to be Otilie with her son, the next Josef Suk.


Otilie's son Josef Suk, the baby in that picture, is the father of the violinist Josef Suk. Other than that, I wonder what he did with his life. Did music skip a generation?

I love this picture of the Dvorak family relaxing.


And here is a sweet picture of the old man.


Another sweet picture.


To complete the nostalgic picture, here is "Songs My Mother Taught Me."

The old man, he could sure write.

My friend Philippe

I got to talk on the phone the other day with Philippe Quint. He is the violinist who got a lot of unwanted publicity about a year ago because a cab pulled away from the curb, taking with it the Stradivarius violin Quint had on loan from Buffalo couple Clement and Karen Arrison.

There is a story I am working on related to all this, which is going to run Sunday and I will go ahead and link to it then, should anyone want to check it out. Which I would suggest. It is a goodie and I worked hard on it!

For now there is one thing neat about Quint that I want to report.

I got in touch with Philippe, which he cued me that I could call him, by email. "I interviewed you a couple of years ago," I wrote. "I don't expect you to remember."

But he did remember! He wrote me back:

Not only I remember the wonderful you conducted a few years ago I also want to thank you for your article back when the taxi fiasco happened. I think it was called " musicians in the fast lane". It was the only real sincere article of support coming to musician's defense while the rest of the publications were looking for some sensational new material and details that were arguably hurting me and the chances of violin's return.

So this is a thank you for your kindness!!

Wow, I had almost forgotten I had written about that incident on The Buffalo News' Artsbeat blog! Here it is, complete with creepy comment from anonymous reader who clearly did not appreciate the story as much as Philippe Quint did. For some reason almost all the comments I get on that blog are nasty! It has gotten to the point where I dread reading them and sometimes I do not.

On the other hand it amazes me and gladdens me that Philippe Quint saw it, and that it gave him some comfort at a stressed-out time in his life.

I have to say it again ... I love the Internet age.

Here is a neat glimpse of Quint and William Wolfram, a pianist I like a lot, recording music by the great Miklos Rozsa. I have been reading a lot of Rozsa's letters working on my book on Leonard Pennario. It has gotten so I am familiar with his handwriting and his stationery! He feels like a friend.

What a beautiful sonata!

I would guess that Quint is playing the famous Strad.

Penguins and princesses

My blog buddy Pierre-Arnaud Dablemont, the French concert pianist, has an interesting post today about the endless struggle these days "to make classical music cool."

Let us pause for a moment while I savor these words: "my blog buddy Pierre-Arnaud Dablemont, the French concert pianist."

I love the Internet.

I love my life!

Where was I? Pierre-Arnaud's blog. I should say "Web log." It is more elegant and that is what I have been doing in the last few days.

Pierre-Arnaud says that musicians love to see people dressed like penguins. And he is a pianist so you can take it from him! Read what he has to say here.

The dress, be it the artist or the public, is a way to communicate. Both communicate their mutual respect to each other through the sartorial code. When one knows how easy it is to slip into a dress or a suit, it would be a shame not to do so.

That is so French!

He would have loved Muza Rubackyte, the Lithuanian pianist at the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra over the weekend. That gown she wore!! It was like something out of "Eugene Onegin." I was not reviewing the concert for the paper that night and I am glad I was not, because I would have had to mention that gown. And then you always get emails: "Why are you mentioning what the pianist wore? If the pianist were a man would you have been mentioning how he dressed?" Blah, blah, blah!

The thing is, I was looking at Miss Rubackyte thinking, she looks more beautiful than any soloist I have ever seen on stage at Kleinhans Music Hall! And there is something to admire in that.

I was hoping to find a photo of Miss Rubackyte in her gown but I could not. But that is a picture of her up above.

We do a lot of kidding around on this blog. Really, this is not all about looks and clothes. It is about maintaining the tradition of music, and whether you believe it is worth maintaining.

I am always hearing from my editors and everyone about this business about attracting younger audiences. And I realize I always begin feeling defensive. Rightly or wrongly, I detect an element of blame: You people are behind, you don't like change (that is a favorite), etc. etc.

And as I wrote a few days ago I have nothing against concerts that mix things up a little. But I do not want them to become the norm.

I do not want to lose what I have!

I have a theory as to why the audience for classical music is not bigger. Well, it is not my theory exactly. It is Noam Chomsky's.

Once I went to hear Noam Chomsky speak and I am no big fan of Noam Chomsky but I admire his intellect. And one thing he said stuck in my mind: that only a tiny percentage of people, like 1 percent, think about anything.

He said: "The other 99 percent either watch TV or do nothing at all."

I think if there is a problem that has to be addressed, it is that.

It's not us!

Monday morning low-hanging fruit

On Mondays I am sometimes going to let myself blog about stuff that is easy and not much work. Ahem.

Warhorses are warhorses for a reason. That is what I was thinking yesterday listening to the slow movement of Mozart's 21st piano concerto.

I have heard this piece millions of times, of course. It is totally lazy listening on my part, listening to it yet again. I should not be listening to it again. I should be listening to something new, blah blah blah. But I could not help it.

I think I could listen to this piece 300 times in a row and I would not get sick of it. I could be in a jail cell and they could play it at me 24/7 stupidly thinking it was going to torture me and I would love it.

There are so many wonderful things about this piece that never grow old. The calm, accepting bass line. And that moment near the end when the piano hits that high F and then drops into those final trills. I cannot listen to this piece in the car because I just have to close my eyes at that point.

Here is our friend Dinu Lipatti playing the piece. He does not give that high F the assertive, declarative feeling I like but that is a matter of taste. I have my deeply personal feelings about that high F and I am sure Dinu Lipatti had his.

Here is Alicia de Larrocha. That is a picture of Alicia de Larrocha above sitting in a bar. I just found it on Google. Isn't the Internet wonderful?

Darn, I love Alicia de Larrocha but this performance sounds a little anemic to me. I do not know what it is. When you love pieces you are fussy about them, is all I can think. Either that or the fact that it is Monday morning.

But what a balance Mozart strikes in this piece! It is so beautiful but at the same time so sorrowing, somehow. Like life!


Back to the 21st Piano Concerto. I never saw that Swedish movie, "Elvira Madigan," it got the nickname from and I do not know anyone who has. Well, wait, I think my mother has. I think she told me that. Other than that, does anyone know anyone who has seen that movie? But the concerto is stuck with that nickname forever.

I am kind of glad I never saw it.

Music like this should stand on its own.

The last QRS piano roll

Howard shot this video of our friend Michael T. Jones recording what will probably prove to be the last piano roll ever made at QRS Piano Rolls. QRS is practically down the street from us here in Buffalo. We toured the place in its last days along with Buffalo lounge legend Jackie Jocko. The place was crammed with ancient equipment. Fascinating.

It's partly because we took that tour that we doubt QRS' assertions that piano roll production will continue in Seneca, Pa. How in the world are they going to move that equipment? Even if they were motivated, it would be expensive, if not impossible. Plus, QRS has worked ahead and stockpiled three years' worth of inventory. They had been planning a five-year inventory, which shows they have been looking ahead to this move for a long time.

So we think yes, this is probably the last piano roll every made.

It's a good one, though! Michael T. Jones is a heck of a pianist. He goes by Michael T. Jones, by the way, because there was another great Buffalo jazz pianist here first named Mike Jones.

Great pianists grow on trees here in Buffalo!

I thought I would post this today because a blog called the Collaborative Piano Blog was reporting that the piano roll had been released. It seems like a good time to revisit this bit of Buffalo history.

Play it, Mike.

Too hot to Handel

Today is all about Handel! That is the hand dealt me today.

I know, that means we won't have a sexy picture the way we had yesterday. But we will still have some good listening. That is for sure. And we do have a pretty good picture today, admit it. It is of Handel without his wig!

The first thing that happened today Handel-wise was my friend Larry emailed me with this story about Handel. Larry is my Internet friend who posts all those exciting Leonard Pennario performances on You Tube. He got onto Pennario because he was researching the recordings of the conductor and composer Rene Leibowitz, and he happened on the magnificent recordings of Liszt's Piano Concertos No. 1 and 2 that Leibowitz and Pennario made together. Now we are a You Tube team, Larry and I.

Larry found this story about Handel that suggests that Handel was a glutton who died of lead poisoning.

Didn't they say the same thing about Beethoven? I know lead poisoning was supposed to have had something to do with his death. Last time I checked, anyway. These things change.

I wrote back to Larry saying that the sour humorless comments on the story cracked me up, and that if we ran this story in Buffalo everyone would be weighing in identifying with Handel and cracking jokes about wings and beer. Even with the sour comments, though, it makes for an interesting read. Poor Handel. Who can blame him for liking his food? Imagine living in the inhospitable early 18th century, with horse do in the streets and sewage everywhere and probably fear of getting your head chopped off for God knows what. You would have to take your pleasure where you found it. That is for sure.

Oh wait. We worry these days about getting our heads chopped off too! Or sawed off, anyway. Well, still.

The other Handel happening was the video that was sent to my Leonard Pennario blog by my erudite and generous friend Ward. It is of the "Hallelujah Chorus."

This makes for fine listening but you cannot cheat, you have to watch it at the same time. Access it here. I was wondering at first if it was from Buffalo's St. Paul's Cathedral because that is where Ward is from but Ward said darkly that no, he had the suspicion it was cribbed from Boston's Gay Men's Chorus.

Wherever it comes from, it is a hoot. The best part is how you can hear the people laughing as they are filming it.

Hallelujah!

Maurice Jarre and mood music

Ever since reading earlier that Maurice Jarre had died I have had the music to "Dr. Zhivago" on my brain. So we may as well get that out of the way and play it.

When I was in California with Leonard Pennario going to movies with him all the time we used to talk about movie music and he did not like Maurice Jarre. I am not sure why. I will have to look in my notes. But I like Maurice Jarre and his music.

"Dr. Zhivago" owes a lot of its magic specifically to Maurice Jarre's score. I remember vividly the first time I saw that movie, when I was 16 and my sister and I sat through it two and a half times. That scene where the little boy looks up from his mother's casket into the tree branches. The brooding Russian chants. The marvelous dances. I can hear the themes in my head.

I know this, that "Dr. Zhivago" would not be "Dr. Zhivago" without the music.

Just like "Spellbound" would not be "Spellbound" without the music by Miklos Rozsa.

And "Wuthering Heights" would not be "Wuthering Heights" without the music by Alfred Newman. Leonard and I agreed on that anyway. That music! That is why I can never watch a remake. Just the 1939 version for me, thank you very much.

There are movies like that. Without the music, they would be not nearly as good.

They are the best movies.