Impersonators

Sergei Prokofiev; Peter And The Wolf; Orchestre De L'Opera De Lyon; Kent Nagano, conducting; Patrick Stewart, narrating

Sergei Prokofiev wrote the music and narration to “Peter and the Wolf” in just four days in 1936. He had received a commission from Natalya Sats of the Central Children’s Theatre in Moscow. A very small and only casually interested audience attended its premier. Under those circumstances, how could he have foreseen the level of success his playful classic would receive?

When I was in high school, my friend Steve. N. and I purchased a tape called “The White House Rides Again” featuring the impersonations of Rich Little. We couldn’t get enough of it; funniest thing either of us had ever heard. Mr. Little did impressions of Presidents Reagan, Carter, Ford and Nixon, Johnny Carson and a host of others. We discovered later that this recording paid homage to comedian Vaughn Meader who produced a 1962 comedy album entitled “The First Family” that good-naturedly ribbed the JFK White House.

Rich Little was one of the first guests to take the stage with the Boston Pops under the baton of John Williams in the 1980's. In the latter part of the show, he charmed his audience with his imitations of Neil Diamond, Anthony Newley, Frank Sinatra and Kermit the Frog. But the first part of his appearance with the Boston Pops comprised of his narration of “Peter and the Wolf”.

I’m sure that you are aware that Mr. Prokofiev assigned different themes and specific instruments to each character in the story. In that very same spirit, Mr. Little lent the voices of various celebrities and politicians to each character in the story. Leading the charge as the narrator, Jimmy Stewart brought an element of class to the absurd cast of VIPs who had starring roles. The following list presents the Little – Prokofiev all-star “Peter and the Wolf” character-instrument-celebrity lineup:

Peter / string instruments / Johnny Carson

Bird / flute / Paul Lynde

Duck / oboe / Carol Channing

Cat / clarinet / Kirk Douglas

Grandfather / bassoon / President Ronald Reagan

Wolf / French horns / President Richard Nixon

How do you follow an act like that? Maybe by presenting the whole scenario as a news story. “Peter and the Wolf: A Special Report” features such famous NPR voices as Robert Siegel, Linda Wertheimer, Ann Taylor, and Steve Inskeep as they provide a clever contemporary spin on the Masterwork in the style of an “All Things Considered” episode. Maybe. Where’s the fun for the kids, though?

I prefer to hear my old buddy Captain Picard, Patrick Stewart, bringing authority, perceived wit and a voice honed by decades of live English theatre. Peter, in the voice of Mr. Stewart, has a little more bravery, a little more confidence, and a lot more adventure in his daring departure from the safety of his grandfather’s yard.

As I recall, Mr. Little, in his rendition, didn’t stray far from the script. When Jimmy Stewart reveals, however, that, in his haste, the wolf had swallowed the duck alive, President Nixon, as the wolf, declares, “That’s all I need in my stomach: Duck Tape!”

Credits: To Jimmy Stewart, for simultaneously being the model gentleman, actor, General, humanitarian, American and man. Thank you for Mr. Smith, Harvey and the poem about your dog “Beau”.

Hospitality

"Brand New Key"; Melanie Safka

My sisters and I, to this very day, swear that our neighbor D. had an extra sense of knowing when someone would pull into the driveway on their farm. Any time that we walked into their house, announced or otherwise, she would have the table set for exactly the number of people in her family and whatever number of people in the car that just drove up in their driveway. Roast beef warming on the back burner, mashed potatoes in the bowl, a stack of white bread slices a foot and a half high and a fresh stick of butter. And not to worry, there’s plenty of Kool-Aid. Fastest hospitality in the west, I reckon.

I rode my bicycle past your window last night

I roller-skated to your door at daylight

It almost seems like you’re avoiding me

I’m okay alone but you’ve got something I need

Well, I’ve got a brand new pair of roller-skates

You got a brand new key

I think that we should get together and

Try them on to see

I’ve been lookin’ around awhile

You’ve got something for me

Well, I’ve got a brand new pair of roller-skates

You got a brand new key.

Melanie Safka wrote this 1930’s style novelty song in about fifteen minutes one night in 1970 and included it on her album called “Gather Me”. “Brand New Key” reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in December 1971 and January 1972.

These are those old quad skates that fit over an ordinary shoe. You had to tighten them on with a screw or “key”. I remember this type of skate assisting Lucy in acquiring a parade of skinned and scraped knees in the Peanuts comic strip. I’ve never seen an angrier face than when Lucy was on the wrong side of everything, including skates.

I can’t single out any one reason why I’m captivated by this song. First of all, let’s be honest; the girl has soul running through her veins. Her pouty delivery shoots sparks out of my ears. The contest between the guitar, piano, electric piano and upright bass to see who can charm Ms. Safka the swiftest would be embarrassing if it wasn’t for the rock-solid groove that they throw down. I like how all the instruments stop at the end, except for the drums and what sounds like a high-pitched guiro. And for that matter, you don’t hear drums, really, until all the other instruments and singing drop out. That’s always a plus.

It’s an exotic song. I thought of it one day, went looking for it and found it on my friendly, neighborhood iTunes Store.

Credits: To the hospitality of the wife of the American farmer. Always prepared to put something on the table for the invited guest or the unexpected wanderer.

The outdoor concert

Bela Bartok; The Miraculous Mandarin; Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Pierre Boulez, conducting

Now and then, on any given summer Sunday, Mom would suggest that we pack a picnic after church, head to Sioux Falls and listen to an afternoon band concert at Sherman Park on the west edge of town near the Great Plains Zoo. We had a formula: Dad would drive us to the park, we kids would take a ride on the swings while Mom unpacked the picnic, we would eat the picnic, Dad would stretch out on a blanket on the grass to take a nap, my sisters and I would have a round at the playground while keeping an eye on the band concert site, we’d alert Mom and Dad when the concert was about to begin, we’d find a spot in the shade, the concert would start and Dad would fall into his second nap.

The very first concert of the Sioux Falls Municipal Band occurred on July 11, 1920 in McKennan Park and they say that several thousand people attended. A year earlier, in the city’s first election allowing women to vote, Sioux Falls citizens approved a proposal to support a city band. They keep a very busy schedule. In 2009, the SFMB performed 38 themed concerts from May 16 until August 2. It is one of the few municipal bands in the United States that is supported by tax dollars.

About the time my sister D. and I were in high school or in college, our own hometown of Brookings announced the formation of the Brookings Community Band. No auditions; anybody that wanted to play could take a seat in their particular section. About half way through the first rehearsal all players in each section of the new ensemble had made assessment the each other and reseated themselves accordingly. Middle school students sat next to retired collegiate math instructors, collegiate music majors played together with United States Postal Service employees. The audiences that summer heard marches, Broadway musical medlies, overtures, pop tune arrangements, jazz charts and maybe a children’s march. It was mid-western small town living at its finest.

St. Mary’s College of Maryland exists, of all places, in St. Mary’s City in southern Maryland. The four-year public, secular liberal arts college enrolls about two thousand students and shares much of its campus with Historic St. Mary’s City, the fourth site of colonization in British North America. On Friday evenings in June and July, the River Concert Series offers the best ticket in town and for miles around, except that nobody needs a ticket. This is an absolutely free event.

For eleven years, the Chesapeake Orchestra, led by Maestro S., has brought an inestimable wealth of classical music and pops performances to a captivated southern Maryland fan base whose numbers have snowballed into the thousands since its first season. The performance shell sits at the broad end of the college’s Townhouse Green overlooking the St. Mary’s River. Audience members often arrive one to two hours early to stake out a good spot on the grass and enjoy a picnic. An army of vendors serves to gastronomically arm the “picnic preparationally challenged”. Falafels, kabobs and smoothies abound. So do hotdogs.

Doesn’t this sound wonderful? We have, laid before us, the Sunday afternoon band concert on steroids. Splendid music with amazing musicians, astounding backdrop with a stunning sunset, mouth-watering pork barbeque sandwiches with extra sauce. Where do you go from here?

Here: My cap comes off when the audience stands on its feet following a stirring performance of some ugly, unharmonic, rhythmically jolting, formless, keyless, break-all-the-rules-if-you-can-find-‘em, brilliant 20^th or even 21^st century masterwork. Maestro S. doesn’t have the Chesapeake Orchestra subsist entirely on Leroy Anderson, Gilbert and Sullivan, John Philip Sousa and Enya. To the delight of audience member and orchestra musician alike, the Maestro doesn’t back away from the standard orchestral repertoire just because there are hamburgers.

I’ve played with the Chesapeake Orchestra many times. But the concert I remember is one where three of the four previous concerts had been rained out. The orchestra rehearses on Tuesday, Thursday and Friday afternoons with the concert in the evening. On this particular concert, we had rehearsed all week, tenaciously and doggedly, on Bela Bartok’s concert version of his ballet “The Miraculous Mandarin”. And the rains came at two o’clock in the afternoon on Friday. And Maestro S. said, “No. No. No, no, no, no, no, no. No. Not this time, no. We’ve got something special for the audience that we’re all a little proud of. Let’s go inside.” So, for the first time in its history, the Chesapeake Orchestra went into the gym, like a high school band, and set things up for an afternoon rehearsal and then a concert. And when we got to the Bartok, we played every single ugly, unharmonic, rhythmically jolting, formless, keyless, break-all-the-rules-if-you-can-find-‘em, yet brilliant measure of the 20^th Century masterpiece while sitting in wooden chairs in a featureless room with boomy acoustics. Our standing O was immediate.

I may be a little fickle. Concerts should be for everybody to enjoy. And I suppose everybody is free to enjoy them if they can. But it’s nice to play for an audience that enjoys the performance of a piece, even if it doesn’t necessarily enjoy the piece itself. When you hear music like this outside, though, you can also enjoy the birds, the clouds, the sky, the smell of food, the sunset, the view, the grass, the trees and the kids playing on the grassy knoll behind the performance shell. If you don’t like the music, life’s still pretty good.

Credits: To the Sioux Falls Municipal Band, for ninety years of music. Good for you. Here’s to ninety more.

Duos

Together Again; Tony Bennett and Bill Evans

The first album met with such success that Bill Evans and Tony Bennett couldn’t wait to get into the studio for round two. And if the quality isn’t what it was the first time around, then it’s because it’s better. Mr. Evans and Mr. Bennett graced “Together Again” with selections laced, perhaps, with a healthier dose of obscurity. Don't we get tired of the same old standards all the time?

The “two’s company, three’s a crowd” aspect of a piano-and-other duo has always appealed to me. Personnel conflicts iron out easier, fewer cogs receive fewer wrenches and the intimacy is, oh, so sweet. Bill and Tony fall into their respective duo roles with aptitude and ease.

Their last song together on this album is Cole Porter’s “Dream Dancing”. I see that this song honors my iPod with its presence five times. Each rendition is good and they each have their individual moments of greatness. Mr. Evans’ piano solo is powerful in its starkness yet sublime with its implied colors. The lyrics of this particular Porter gem catch the listener off guard with one of the most intense notions in all of the Great American Songbook: the conviction that one can be passionately in love while asleep:

When day is gone and night comes on

Until the dawn what do I do?

I clasp your hand and wander through slumber land

Dream dancing with you

We dance between a sky serene

And fields of green sparkling with dew

It’s joy sublime whenever I spend my time

Dream dancing with you

Dream dancing

Oh, what a lucky windfall

Touching you, clutching you

All the night through

So say you love me, dear

And let me make my career

Dream dancing with you

I’m caught in the middle of the logic systems of the pessimist and the optimist.

Pessimist: It’s too bad these two giants only made two albums together.

Optimist: Thank God these two giants made two albums together.

It’s somewhat akin to the great pessimist/optimist argument:

Pessimist: Things couldn’t possibly get any worse.

Optimist: Oh, yes, they could.

Credits: To Mr. Cole Porter, not only for brilliant words and brilliant music, but brilliant thoughts, as well. Thank you for “True Love” and “Dream Dancing”.

Children's songs? Yup!

No!; They Might Be Giants

Okay, this one will throw you for a loop. My friend E. wanted to find fun, quality, appropriate, yet unorthodox music for his son to listen to. If such a pursuit had Olympic sport status, my friend would have a gold medal. In 2002, the alternative rock band They Might Be Giants released a top-notch children’s album.

While doffing death and depression in order to adulate the attributes of imagination, taste buds and sleep, TMBG retains those stylistic elements that have satisfied their fan base for years. Eclecticism, humor and the psychedelic rule the day here and, by all accounts, children it. Like Looney Tunes and Merry Melodies, the content works innocently on multiple levels, making it the consummate family sing-a-long album.

I connect with the song called “John Lee Supertaster”. I swear I taste food and water at a stronger level than most people. In “Bed, Bed, Bed”, we have a chronicle of what some creative child had accomplished – all day; ate three meals, rode the bike, hung out with friends, watched TV, practiced the guitar, brushed the teeth and that’s just the stuff in the lyrics. The background noise includes a cow, a saxophone, a violin, a grandfather clock and ping-pong. Suffice to say that “Violin” is just weird, but one of the finest weirds I’ve ever heard.

The most curious track is “In The Middle, In The Middle, In The Middle”. Vic Mizzy composed this catchy novelty tune for the city of New York in the 1960’s as, believe it or not, an anti-jaywalking song. He also composed the TV themes for “Green Acres” and “The Addams Family” and the movie score for “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken”. With credentials like that, how couldn’t there be any fun singing this song?

This album promotes creative thinking. I listen to it every now and then to reminisce that time in life when possibilities are endless, when down doesn’t have to be south, purple is a flavor of a fruit and the moon hangs in the sky only a few miles away. Although, if I had listened to this album when I was young, I would have turned out even weirder. Yeah. Not a pretty thought, is it?

Credits: To cows. Why not?

Swans

Jean Sibelius: Symphonies No. 5 and 7; City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra; Simon Rattle, conducting

Do you like swans? I guess I do. I don’t see them very often. Finnish composer Jean Sibelius LOVED swans. Mr. Sibelius owned a house that he called “Ainola”, after his wife, Aino. The house sits on a lake in a forest about an hour’s drive outside of Helsinki. Many musicians and tourists visit this house as the Finnish government has preserved the house just as Mr. and Mrs. Sibelius left it. In one of the larger rooms hangs a painting of a flight of swans. In his diary of April 21, 1915, Mr. Sibelius noted that he had seen sixteen swans in flight and that it was “one of the greatest impressions of my life!”

The people of Finland so loved their favorite musical son in the year 1915 that they made his fiftieth birthday a national holiday. In honor of the occasion, and to thank the Finnish people, he composed his Symphony No. 5.

A number of musical innovations on the part of Mr. Sibelius hallmark this particular work and hardcore classical music buffs who acquaint themselves with the likes of forms, structures, key and motifs find change, newness and modernization in the strategy and technique of the Finnish composer in his symphony composition processes. Eh, let them have them. I want to share with you the third movement.

It opens with a flurry. Wings? I like to think so. It certainly heralds a foreshadowing of something portentous. And then, up from the grass, into the awesome cloud-clad blue, launches a majestic, liberating, life-affirming theme – a swan theme – fanfared by a flock of French horns. A sweeping call of triumph, in the form of a chorale, that shifts from section to section within the orchestral brass, is held aloft by a sense of elation, feat and conquest in the strings. For the rest of the movement, I can imagine the view from the perspective of the swans; from here on out, the theme and variations on the flurry we heard in the beginning of the movement provides soundtrack for the Finnish countryside as seen from the viewpoint of these resplendent creatures.

As if to affirm a bird association with this beautiful music, the selection between the Fifth and Seventh Symphonies of Sibelius is called “Scene with Cranes”. Lovely, lovely stuff.

I found these recordings at Tower Records in Picadilly Circus in London. I had read about them in a CD periodical and rejoiced when I found them. I recalled at the time that all of the swans in England belong to the Queen. Who owns the cranes?

Credits: To birds. We covet your capacity to escape the confines of the earth - to soar.

Nelson's first CD

My Shining Hour: A Harold Arlen Songbook; Weslia Whitfield

I, truly, had absolutely no idea when I left the house on August 14, 1998, that I would pull up in the driveway later in the day inside a gleaming white ’98 Dodge Durango. A friend knew that I’d been lookin’ and told me that he had seen one in Flandreau and that “she was a honey.” Well, it doesn’t hurt to look, does it? I jumped in the Buick and headed south to Flandreau Motors. And there she sat. Nelson.

It all happened so fast. I made a bid … then some other stuff happened … and, before I knew it, I drove off the lot. I swear, as I looked in the rear view mirror as I headed west toward I-29, I saw myself running from the dealership and out into the road yelling,

Wait! Come back here!! What happened?! Where’re you goin’? Did I miss something?! That’s not what we – what I drove here in! WAAAAAAAIIIITTT!!

I don’t know if a brand new vehicle had ever driven onto our farm before. Dad didn’t place himself into that league of American consumers that felt that they could afford a new car. In my more morose moments, I’ve quietly mused that, if my dad had survived the heart attack that killed him, he might have enjoyed the one brought on by the sight of me driving into the yard in this beautiful monstrosity.

The next morning, my friend Chad and I drove back down to Flandreau to pick up the old Buick. Just as I was going out the door, I remembered: Heyyyyyy!! I’ve got a CD player in my truck!! I ran back upstairs and grabbed the first CD that I could reach.

Sometimes I purchase a CD because I’m not acquainted with some or most of the songs enclosed therein. I have loved the music of Harold Arlen since discovering that he wrote the music for "The Wizard Of Oz". So I bought this CD in the interest of learning new Harold Arlen songs. Except, in this case, I had the added bonus of hearing the gorgeous voice of Weslia Whitfield.

I smiled when I heard her sing. I can hear her smile when she sings. The timbre of her voice is one like I’ve never come across. I liken my first encounter with her to one where someone has heard nothing but brass bands for his entire life – and then one day he hears an oboe for the first time.

This was the first CD that I listened to in my brand new Dodge Durango as I drove off the lot the SECOND time, heading west toward I-29 and into a brand new era.

Credits: To Flandreau Motors, for selling me my first brand new vehicle. She lasted ten years, fellas. She was a honey.

Great music. Mediocre words.

Sergei Rachmaninoff; Symphony No. 2; Russian National Orchestra; Mikhail Pletnev, conducting

My friend John doesn’t like the hymn “O God Beyond All Praising”. I don’t think the words trouble him. Michael Perry penned two respectable verses that glorify and exalt the everlasting God. John doesn’t like the fact that we sing the words to the stately theme from the middle section of “Jupiter” from Gustav Holst’s “The Planets." I have problems disagreeing with my friend John.

Original words deserve original tunes or original music. So many times, lyricists come running to the great music masters to “borrow” a melody for their schmaltzy, corny and, dare I say, mawkish efforts at sentimentalism with butter and syrup dripping over the top.

Perhaps some day people will forget the abominable lyrics that Freddie Martin wrote for Tchaikovsky’s great Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-Flat Minor.

Tonight we love while the moon

Beams down in dream light tonight

We touch the stars

Love is ours

Night winds that sigh

Embrace the sky….

Yechh. Yup. My snobby nose is in the air again.

“Til The End Of Time” plagues Chopin’s Polonaise in A-Flat Major. “All By Myself” and “Full Moon And Empty Arms” pester Rachmaninoff”s Piano Concerto No. 2 in C Minor. “I’m Always Chasing Rainbows” badgers Chopin’s Fantasie-Impromptu. And “Never Gonna Fall In Love Again” besets Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2 in E Minor.

I heard “Never Gonna Fall In Love Again” before I heard the great Symphony No. 2. Somebody had a hit with the song in the 1970’s or 1980’s but I don’t remember who it was. I heard Mel Torme allude to it in a medley of tunes on an album that he did with George Shearing.

If you, dear reader, were to ask me who my favorite composer was, and didn’t allow me the opportunity to say - Oh, I don’t like to pick favorites. They’re all good, aren’t they? – I would probably blurt out the name of Rachmaninoff. I have loved his music from note one. This symphony epitomizes the notion of the Romantic Era symphony, with its passionate melodies, dramatic tension, stormy conflict and serene vision. Remarkable, since he composed it early in the 1900’s, outside the traditionally acknowledged Romantic Era.

I wonder whether the composers listed above would have actually minded if their music had acquired words somewhere along the line. We live in a paranoid society, and are horrified if we find that someone is making a buck on the coattails of our own successes. Perhaps Chopin and Holtz were flattered that someone liked their music.

Credits: To British composer Gustav Holst. Thank you for “The Planets”.

Telephone songs, combines and lions

The Lion Sleeps Tonight; The Tokens

On a beautiful summer day in 1996, Mom, Dad and I came home from town to find a message on the answering machine. The first thing that we heard was my sister D. who said, “Okay. Go.” I will remember the next twenty seconds forever. My four-year-old niece M., all precocious and cute and everything, stepped up to the phone and enchanted all of us with the following:

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine.

You make me happy when skies are grey.

You’ll never know, dear, how much I love you.

Please, don’t take my sunshine away.

Now how do you forget something like that?

About five years later, I came home from a Marine Band rehearsal and checked my messages. One was a gig, one was Mom, and the last one was my nephew N.

Take me out to the ballgame. Take me out to the crowd.

Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack.

I don’t care if I never get back.

Oh, it’s root, root, root, for the home team.

If they don’t win it’s a shame.

For it’s ONE, TWO, THREE strikes, you’re out

At the OL’ BALL GAME!!!

I have to tell you, this one caught me by surprise. When he was two to three years old, he didn’t like “Mom” to sing in church, so he would put his hand in front of her mouth. I worried that we might have a musically mute member of the family. But you should hear him now with his headphones on, wailin’ away with Craig Moran about how he’s a …

… God-fearin’, hard-workin’, combine driver,

Hoggin’ up the road on my p-p-p-p-plower,

Chug-a-lug-a-luggin’ five miles an hourrrrrrrr

ON MY INTERNATIONAL HARVESTERRRRRRRRR!!

M. opted to extend her repertoire with songs from “The Lion King.”

It means no worries for the rest of your days.

It’s our problem-free philosophy: Hakuna Matada!

Hakuna Matada, Hakuna Matada, Hakuna, Matada…

And cute doesn’t belong in your vocabulary until you’ve seen and heard a five-year-old impersonate Timon and Pumba.

Timon: I can see what’s happening…

Pumba: What?!

Timon: And they don’t have a clue…

Pumba: Who?!

Timon: They’ll fall in love and, here’s the bottom line: Our trio’s down to two!

Pumba: Oh.

But the funniest comes at bedtime, when everyone in the small house is juuuuust falling asleep, when out of the silence we hear:

Awimoweh, Awimoweh, Awimoweh, Awimoweh

D.: M., go to sleep!

M.: Hee hee hee hee hee hee.

P. and D. lived down the road from us and they had one son and two daughters. C. and B., the two daughters, would frequently play their 45 rpm records for us when we would go over to their house for a visit. I don’t know how many records they had, but two of the songs in their collection locked themselves up within the confines of my biological iPod and they’re never going away. One was “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” as sung by The Tokens in 1961.

The other song? You’ll never guess. Check back next Saturday.

Credits: To the inventor of the answering machine. Thank you. I got to hear my niece and nephew sing their very first songs. Many, many times.

Alaska tactics

Sergei Prokofiev; Piano Concertos Nos. 2 And 4; Overture on Hebrew Themes; Israel Philharmonic Orchestra; Zubin Mehta, conducting; Yefim Bronfman, piano

My friend Curtis grew up in Skagway, AK. I went to Skagway during the summer of 1994 while aboard the Star Odyssey. Some friends and I played at the Red Onion Saloon. It sits on the Klondike Highway. This road connects Skagway and two other Alaskan communities with the lower forty-eight states. With a population of 862 people in the winter-time during the winter solstice when only a few hours of daylight grace the stark beauty of their environs, you can imagine the mind games that can plague one unaccustomed to such extremes.

Curtis told me once how the locals deal with someone who takes their situation a little too seriously. They simply take their index finger, doesn’t matter which one, and start poking the ailing malcontent in the shoulder, doesn’t matter which one, while repeating the phrase, “Poke the bear. Poke the bear. Poke the bear,” until the seriousness has evaporated and said malcontent is laughing.

This little finger-poke-shoulder-bear exercise induces the same result with me when I listen to the music of Sergei Prokofiev. Not all of the time, but a lot of the time. I don’t know what Mr. Prokofiev’s overall demeanor was like, but he packed his music with sarcasm and humor, creating structures of comical grotesquery and misshapen jesting. But weaving in and out of these caricatures are moments of breathtaking beauty. Kind of like decorating an old, rough-hewn, tree, devoid of leaf and life, with a string of sparkling Christmas tree lights.

Many, many miles divide the gap between Mr. Prokofiev’s first attempt at a piano concerto and his second. In at least two instances during his life, specifically his first symphony and his first piano concerto, he proved that he could “follow the rules” as a century of composers before him laid them down. After that, rules just got in the way.

The piano concerto tome contains some humdingers. I learned the third piano concerto of Sergei Rachmaninoff while attending college. Mr. Morris at CCM encouraged me to learn the third piano concerto of Sergei Prokofiev during my graduate school years. These two major works yield some of the most challenging passage work in the entire piano repertoire. I had no fear when I approached these pieces. My confidence level delivered the chutzpah necessary to conquer these two massive mountains of music.

When I stand before Mr. Prokofiev’s second piano concerto and look straight up in an effort to ascertain the scope of its immensity in terms of difficulty, musicianship and vital physical endurance to bring the behemoth to life, I quake. I have worked on sections of this piece in order to grasp its arduousness. On my best days, I walk away from the piano declaring, There’s no way. There’s just no way. Is this piece that difficult? Or has my confidence level diminished over the years?

Do you remember when you were young and you had no fear? When another mountain was just another mountain and we’d better get to climbing it before the compass of the effort to reach its summit will bog you down? When you could accomplish significant, extraordinary feats with immeasurable strength and boundless stamina because nobody dared tell you that you couldn’t?

Perhaps a sense of reality, actual or imagined, has corrupted my proclivity for flying-by-the-seat-of-your-pants, hanging-over-a-cliff musical adventure. Maybe I’ve reached a point where my talent for music does nothing but sag from here on in. Please. Somebody. Extend your index finger, doesn’t matter which one, and start poking me in the shoulder, doesn’t matter which one. “Poke the bear. Poke the bear. Poke the bear…”

Credits: To Sergei Prokofiev, for making me laugh, tremble, marvel, waver and triumph, all at the same time.

Mountain songs

Vincent d'Indy; Symphony on a French Mountain Air; Montreal Symphony Orchestra; Charles Dutoit, conducting; Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano

I chaperoned a chorus and band made up of young musicians on a tour through Europe during the summers 1991, 1993 and 1995. Each time, we flew from the Minneapolis – St. Paul International Airport to Gatwick International Airport in the United Kingdom. The majesty of London would fill the first few days, followed by a drive through France and the magic of Paris. After six days in cosmopolitan grandeur, the third stop on our excursion enchanted our young travelers with its highland pastures, mountain ranges and pure, fresh air.

The village of Morgins lies literally a quarter of a mile into French-speaking Switzerland from France. Five hundred people make their home there year-round in traditional Swiss chalets. The population of the village multiplies by a factor of ten during the winter time due to the spectacular skiing.

The forty-five minute bus ride from Lausanne up toward the quaint Alpen hamlet took us around impossible hair-pin turns, past misty waterfalls and Edelweiss-clad meadows to finally reach an unobstructed view of a frightfully craggy mountain range called “The Jaws of the Earth”. The small number of beautiful homes and chalets that dotted the wide swath of landscape gave rise to elbow room in abundance. As we coasted into town, we saw the giant tent in the center of town where the band and chorus would perform for the local audience.

The condos in which we stayed were humble, but clean and adequate. My roommates and I would keep the windows open through the night to fill ourselves with the cool mountain air that wafted down the slopes surrounding the little town. When I opened my eyes on that first morning, I heard bells. Not the drone-like sounds of American bells, but melodious tones that melted together into a colorful, resonant afghan that suspended effortlessly in the coolness of the morning. It must be Sunday, I thought. We should find a church. So I rushed to the window, hoping to find the steeple that brought this heavenly music, but instead found something else. Cows. In the road. With bells. Around their necks. Lucky, lucky cows.

Before the chorus and band gave their concert in the big tent, a local choral group presented a small program of French and Swiss folk songs. When the concert finished, a few of us went into the pub at the condo and found the local choral group, sitting at tables, quaffing brewskies and singing their way through a new folk song book. They invited us to join them. I couldn’t sing the French, but it was fun to “la-la-la” our way through some four-part traditional French music.

French composer Vincent d’Indy wrote his “Symphonie sur un chant montagnard francais” (“Symphony on a French Mountain Air”) in 1886 after hearing a local folk song in the city of Perier near the Cevennes Mountains in south central France. The piano features prominently in this work. But it is not a piano concerto. The piano never takes over to lead the charge as it would in a concerto. It’s not really a symphony in the traditional sense of the word. The movements in a symphony typically have a single element in common, like a key or a rhythmic figure. But the three major sections of this piece have a whole song in common. One could use the term “theme and variations” to better describe this work. The role of the piano is substantial and virtuosic, but it is so tightly and intricately nestled within the confines of the piece’s orchestration that to give it solo status would confound the listener. Yet the piece is brilliantly written. Mr. d’Indy gives us a musical travelogue through the Cevennes Mountains, bringing magnificence and spice to a tune fraught with beauty and simplicity.

On the night after the concert, again in the big tent, the Morgins community treated their American musical guests to an evening of cheese fondue and more folkloric music. They taught the kids traditional French Swiss dances and gave anyone who wanted it the opportunity to play an Alpenhorn.

It never fails. The band and chorus members leave the likes of London and Paris, wondering how the rest of the tour could be any fun at all. Then, on the way home, they reveal that their favorite part of their European experience occurred in Morgins. I’m with them on this one. I love French Switzerland. And with that, I bid you all fondue.

Credits: To the people of Morgins, for being genuinely eager to both receive the good will that is graced upon them, and to return it by sharing a bit of themselves in the tradition of culture exchange. Thank you.

Autobiographies

Reunion; Mel Torme and the Marty Paich Dek-Tette

I went through a four or five year period where I read a lot of biographies and autobiographies. The nightstand next to my bed had books by or about John Madden, Donald Trump, Queen Elizabeth II, Leonard Bernstein, Richard Tucker, President Woodrow Wilson, Saint Francis of Assisi and Sergei Prokofieff just to name a few.

It started, though, with an autobiography by Beverly Sills. “Beverly – An Autobiography” got published in 1987, only eleven years after her first autobiography: “Bubbles – A Self-Portrait By Beverly Sills”. At that time, I had only seen Ms. Sills on TV once; on the Muppet Show. But through all the humor and silliness, I knew that I was seeing a true class act. She was funny, down-to-earth, a good sport, perpetually effervescent and musically captivating.

Dad asked, “What are you reading?” An autobiography about Beverly Sills. “Ah! Bubbles.” I beg your pardon. “That’s her nickname.” How do you know that? And how do you know her? “Johnny Carson has had her on the Tonight Show for years. She’s cool.” I think that that’s the only time that I ever heard Dad use that word and not mean the local temperature.

Dad made it a point to know a little bit about a lot of things and, when he saw Ms. Sills on the Tonight Show, she made him aware of, well, her, the Metropolitan Opera, the New York City Opera, Rudolf Bing, Rossini, Donizetti and the term bel canto. The fact that Dad could talk about these things intelligently, and off the cuff, made me realize that Ms. Sills was the friendly lens through which millions of people, who might normally and innocently maintain an isolation from this higher art form, could initiate a warmer and fresher perspective of the often standoffish world of opera. Her sincerity and commitment to music spilled into her audience and penetrated the TV screen. I question whether such an unwitting, yet natural, PR person the likes of Beverly Sills can or will appear on the opera scene again in a long, long while.

The second autobiography I read came from the shelves of the university bookstore at the University of Cincinnati. “It Wasn’t All Velvet” by Mel Torme came out in October of 1988. Dad and I had watched Mel Torme in his various cameo appearances on “Night Court” in the 1980’s. That’s the only connection that I had with the man up to that time. So, I bought the book out of curiosity, even though I had never heard Mr. Torme really sing in earnest. On “Night Court” he would allude to his singing career but he seldom sang on the show. The day I finished reading the book, I drove out to Kenwood Town Center to purchase one of his CD’s, hoping that I could have at least two or three from which to choose. I was not prepared for the total quantum of Torme CD’s on-hand. There must have been thirty different CD’s

Mr. Torme, I recalled as I stood before the Torme bin, had referenced Marty Paich several times in his book. Mr. Paich had been the music director for “The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour”, “The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour” and “The Sonny and Cher Show”. In 1955, Mel Torme had asked Mr. Paich to put together a jazz ensemble similar to Gerry Mulligan’s “Tentette”: five brass (two trumpets, trombone, French horn and tuba), saxophone trio (alto, tenor and baritone sax), bass and drums. No piano. That part eludes me, but, whatever. But to distinguish Mr. Paich’s group of ten from Mr. Mulligan’s group of ten, Marty Paich called it the Marty Paich Dek-Tette. They put together an album called “Mel Torme And The Marty Paich Dek-Tette” and then made several more over the next decade.

In 1988, Mel, Marty and the boys had a reunion concert and put together one more album called “Reunion”. This time they didn’t pay attention to the numbers so much. Thirteen musicians play in this Dek-Tette. My friend A.D. and I claim that we have some fifty movies on our top ten lists. I’m not gonna count musicians in a band when the music sounds this good, this thrilling, this tight.

When I finished with Beverly Sills’ autobiography, I was sad for many days. I noticed that her career didn’t take off until she got married to Peter Greenough, whose family fortunes allowed for a comfortable lifestyle. She certainly had triumphs in her earlier years, but she constantly had to watch her wallet. After she got married, though, she could finally afford to have the career she wanted.

Credits: To the cast and writers of “Night Court”. Funny show. Thanks for having Torme on the show.

New job!

When I Look In Your Eyes; Diana Krall, piano and vocals

I came up with the idea of working on cruise ships all by myself. About three weeks before my oral examinations at CCM, I realized that, in two month’s time, my life’s work needed to begin. Problem was, I didn’t want to work. By chance, at the bookstore, I happened to peek inside a travel magazine to see an article on world cruises and their various itineraries. And there, big as life, right on the first page, a picture of a show band with a guy sitting at a piano leading the band and …

BING!!

… a light switched on and I knew what I wanted.

Somehow I acquired a cruise industry periodical that listed every single cruise ship that sailed the seven seas. They numbered seventy-seven. So I made an audition tape and copied it seventy-seven times, put together a resume and copied it seventy-seven times, and wrote a cover letter and copied it seventy-seven times. I bought seventy-seven stamps for seventy-seven envelopes.

The night before my trip to the post office to mail these appeals for employment, these announcements of availability, these beacons of musical engagement, my friend H. called me. Hello. “Hi, Erik. This is H. Didn’t you say that you were trying to get a job on a cruise ship?” Yeah. Do you have one for me? “No. But how have you been going about doing this?” Seventy-seven tapes, seventy-seven resumes, seventy-seven cover letters in seventy-seven envelopes with seventy-seven stamps going to seventy-seven ships. Why? “I saw an advertisement in the musician’s union paper tonight for cruise ship musicians. Instead of sending seventy-seven of everything, why don’t you send just one of everything?” I sent one of everything. And to this day, hand to God, I don’t know what I did with the other seventy-six tapes, resumes, cover letters, envelopes and – gulp - stamps.

In the mean time, I passed my oral examinations and graduated with a Masters of Music from CCM. I searched for an option to attending my graduation ceremony and found myself assisting at the South Dakota All-State Music Camp on the campus of SDSU as the staff accompanist. I enjoyed being home for ten days or so. I hadn’t seen Mom and Dad since Christmas.

On the Monday after music camp, in the middle of June of 1990, hours before my flight back to Cincinnati and no job, I got a call. Hello. “Yes, could I speak to Erik Apland?” This is he. What can I do for you? “We enjoyed your audition tape and could easily place you on a couple of cruise ships. Are you available?” It depends. Tell me about them. “Well, one of them begins in Venice, Italy, on Royal Cruise Line and pays $XXX.00 per week.” When does it start? “August 17. The other one begins in Alaska on Princess Cruise Line and pays $XXX.00 per week.” When does that one start? “Saturday.” Hmmmmmmm. Alaska. Europe. Alaska. Europe. Alaska. Europe. alaska. EUROPE. alaska. EUROPE. alaska… EUROPE. EUROPE. EUROPE. … Europe. I’ll take Europe. “Good. We’ll keep in contact with you.”

Awesome! Life's work was about to begin. So, here's the plan: I needed to go back to Cincinnati, close up the apartment and move my stuff back home. My poor old Mercury Monterey, however, decided that it didn’t want to go back to South Dakota. So I asked my friend Chad if he wanted to take an emergency vacation that involved driving to Cincinnati, OH, to help a buddy move home. I threw in tickets to a Cubs-Cardinals game in St. Louis, MO, on the way back and he was in. The Cubs won and it rained to beat the band when we drove through Omaha.

Before my August 17 departure, I needed three things: a passport, a camera and … wait for it … a radio/cassette-tape/CD ghetto blaster. I decided that it was finally time to purchase an appliance on which to play my now twelve plus collection of CD’s. It was a Sanyo, it was all black, and it was beautiful.

It started its life work in my stateroom on the Golden Odyssey in Venice, Italy, on the evening of August 18, 1990. And, to date, it has accompanied me to every ship and boat I've ever worked on. I still have it. In what I assume is its later years, it tends to be a snob; it doesn’t always like to finish playing the CD’s that it plays. Oh, well. It done good when I needed it to do good.

One of its first jobs was to play a CD of one of the review shows that I had to learn to play on my first cruise. The show featured the music of Irving Berlin. I thought I had heard just about every Berlin song. It turns out I had barely scratched the surface. The Berlin song that haunted me most from this review show has winsome words:

There may be trouble ahead

But while there’s moonlight and music

And love and romance

Let’s face the music and dance

Soon

We’ll be without the moon

Humming a diff’rent tune

And then

There may be teardrops to shed

So while there’s moonlight and music

And love and romance

Let’s face the music and dance

Dance

Let’s face the music and dance.

If you, dear reader, would like to be a little haunted, you should hear Diana Krall sing this song. You should hear Diana Krall sing any song. You should hear Diana Krall sing EVERY song.

Credits: To my old tired ghetto blaster. Thank you, old buddy.

The first one

Fireworks For Brass; Chicago Chamber Brass

The Brookings Chamber Music Society has sponsored a series of world class small ensemble and solo classical music performances for the community of Brookings, SD, for more than three decades. The organization originally served to provide a venue for the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra when it didn’t mind touring around the upper Midwest in the mid-1970’s. The association with the SPCO only lasted a few years. But it gave the people of Brookings, and its surrounding area, a taste of the quality of live classical music that lay many miles beyond the prairie purview. And they liked it.

So, the organization regrouped and set out to provide the community with an annual four- or five-concert series. Over the years, I sat in the audience to hear Leon Bates, Natalie Hinderas, Quink, Donna Roll, The Tallis Scholars and Eugenia Zuckerman.

One snowy evening in 1988, the Chicago Chamber Brass came to town and wowed their audience with not only their technical proficiency and musicianship but also their versatility of styles: Renaissance, Baroque, Classical, Romantic, 20^th Century and Dixieland. And, shallow person that I am, I dug the Dixieland selections more than all the others. So, when I passed through the lobby after the concert, I saw that they had CD’s for sale. Nothing new there, most of the talent that came through brought recordings. But this time, the performing group brought ONLY CD’s. This constituted a change of the times for me. Another era had passed. Apparently where the CCB performed, they no longer needed to set out audiocassette tapes and LP albums.

In an interesting mixture of reluctance and exhilaration, I doled out the nineteen dollars for the sake of hearing “That’s-A-Plenty” one more time. At the time, I couldn’t make sense out of it; I had no CD player. What was I doing? A college student doesn’t have the money to just go out and purchase a new stereo component. Indeed, the CD sat on my shelf for a long time before I had an opportunity to listen to it.

But this is where it started. The Chicago Chamber Brass made me face the new and scary. Some day I would have to make a purchase. And when I did, “That’s-A-Plenty” would sound awesome.

Credits: To the Brookings Chamber Music Society, for bring live classical music to a community who likes it but can’t go very far to hear it.

Praise song school

Casting Crowns; Casting Crowns

I embarked on a vacation from the Lutherans in May of 2004. The Wallace Memorial Presbyterian Church needed me. Until June 23, 2009, the members of Wallace congregated in the auditorium of a local high school while they constructed a brand new building across the street from the University of Maryland. You may infer from the previous sentence that the job description of their Church Musician didn’t require the skills of an organist. They needed a pianist.

The music format on a Sunday morning at Wallace usually calls for between two and four hymns and a pairing of two praise songs with me, at the piano, a guitar or two, perhaps an upright bass player and any number of singers. When I first started as Church Musician with this congregation, I had no history to speak of with praise songs. So I started attending an evening worship service in downtown Washington, D.C., with my friend B. He played drums with a praise band for a congregation comprised of young Christians who attended George Washington University, a few short blocks from the White House, and Georgetown University, a few long blocks from the White House. Over the course of many months of Sunday evenings, I began to acquaint myself, and develop the beginnings of a comfort level, with this new sacred music style.

One warm fall Sunday evening, after worship, one of the students talked to me about a Christian concert he had attended a few nights before that featured Casting Crowns. Casting Crowns? Who’s that? “You haven’t heard of them?” No, but I’m pretty new to the realm of contemporary Christian music. Where are they from? “They are a praise and worship band at a church in Atlanta, GA, and, despite being hot on the current contemporary Christians music scene, they are committed to their music ministry at their home church. They are there every Sunday.” Are they good? “Oh, baby.”

So I downloaded their only album at the time called - what else? - “Casting Crowns”. Their high-energy musical drive would generally do the trick for the younger Christian crowd. I DID enjoy it, by the way, though I’ve already talked at length on this blog about my fondness for everything acoustic; there’s not much that’s acoustic here. The words tugged at my ears.

Steven Curtis Chapman co-produced this album, having heard an earlier self-produced album by Casting Crowns. The songs that Mr. Chapman records for his own albums tend to be reactionary and thoughtful in nature. He evaluates events that he has experienced and reflects on how they impact his faith. Mark Hall, who leads the band and writes their songs, composes a harder-hitting message, convicting the listener, if successful, to walk a more righteous path. Not very many hymns or songs of praise accomplish this task with a high degree of success.

The message of Mr. Hall and his band definitely speak to a specific audience: young people, early in their Christian walk, needing examples by which to live their faith. That’s a fairly narrow demographic to engage.

What if his people prayed

And those who bare his name

Would humbly seek his face

And turn from their own ways?

What if the life that we pursue

Came from a hunger for the truth?

What if the family turned to Jesus

Stopped asking Oprah what to do?

Powerful words. They border on idealism. Or, maybe they’re neck deep in idealism. Did Christ work with idealism? I think that he did. The expectations that He set forth for us as Christians put the bar pretty high. So high that it’s unattainable. That makes it uber-idealism. Or super-idealism.

Anyway, these songs don’t seem to fall under the category of “praise song”. They would fail to induce the appropriate atmosphere for a worship setting. I don’t know if the songs accomplish the task that the composer intends. It appears to me that the likely fans of this band and their songs would have progressed beyond the messages that the songs supply. So let me say once again: I don’t know if the songs accomplish the task that the composer intends. But I love that they try.

Credits: To Casting Crowns, for reaching out to a young generation that has a hard time deciding what they like.