Elephants don't forget

Scheherazade; Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, composer; Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra; Kirill Kondrashin, conducting

Hey. Do you want to see something funny? Watch this TV advertisement for Rolos, the chocolate-covered caramel candy.

Isn’t that funny? I’ve always loved that commercial. The name of the piece played by the violin when the boy pulls the candy away from the baby elephant eluded me for years. But when I bought my copy of “Scheherazade” (pronounced sha-HAIR-uh-ZOD, not SCARES-ee-AH-dee) by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakoff, I recognized the violin solo immediately.

The music, in the hands of Mr. Rimsky-Korsakoff, possesses rich and dazzling orchestrations and gets its stylistic features from the East. Historically, Rimsky-Korsakoff wanted the hearer to relate the music with tales from “The Arabian Nights”. In the end, however, he wanted the music to be enjoyed on its own merits, and not merely a page by page depiction of a musical picture book.

This is some of the most beautiful and exotic music I’ve ever heard. It gets played frequently on my iPod.

Credits: To The Hershey Company, for making Rolos since 1969. Do you love anyone enough to give them your last Rolo?

This is the eighth of my final forty-five CD's.

Piano Man

Billy Joel ~ Greatest Hits Volume I and Volume II; Billy Joel, piano and vocal

I remember the day, back in high school, when our band director, Mr. D., pointed out the hip and funny little lick that Billy Joel plays on the piano during the song “My Life”. It occurs right before back-up singers Peter Cetera and Donnie Dacus, from the band Chicago, sing “Keep it to yourself, it’s my life”. The fact that Mr. D. listened to music like this told me that, maybe, it was okay for me to listen to this stuff, too. That there was value to be found in … some … of that music that, in my mind, I had to stoop to listen to.

As I’ve indicated several times, I’m not a rocker, I’m not a roller. I like my music to come at me from the perspective of harmony, melody and some rhythmic elements to keep it all organized. Anything beyond that is just for gimmick purposes.

But I took to the song “My Life”, learned it by listening to it, and found that I liked it. The same thing happened with “Just The Way You Are”. And then again with “New York State of Mind”.

I guess this constitutes being a fan, I decided. I’d never been a fan of something before. What do you do when you’re a fan of somebody, I asked my friend Mark. “Greatest hits album.” They make those? He rolled his eyes at me.

The fact that all of Billy Joel’s songs are different from each other indicated genius to me. I had always associated the marriage of genius to music as something that happened only in classical music: Bach, Mozart and that bunch. It has taken me a while to recognize the genius of Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys, Paul McCartney and John Lennon from The Beatles, and Donald Fagen from Steely Dan.

People always want to hear Billy Joel play his first hit “Piano Man”. He has always claimed that it’s not that great of a song. It repeats the same eight bars over and over again, with a little interlude here and there. The verses use the same chords as the chorus. But in a way, that’s what makes it genius. A person who plays in a bar like the one in the song wouldn’t want to learn anything more elaborate than “Piano Man”. Art imitates life.

Credits: To the band Chicago. Great tunes, guys. It took me a long time to understand the title “Twenty-five or Six to Four”. But I got it. No need to write back. Thanks.

This is the seventh of my final forty-five CD's.

Late to the concert

Symphony No. 3 "Organ"; Camille Saint-Saens, composer; Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra; Herbert von Karajan, conducting; Pierre Cochereau, organ

In a previous entry, I told you about a concert I attended at Royal Albert Hall in London. The work featured on the second half of the concert was none other than the great “Carmina Burana” by Carl Orff. A group of us had rushed from dinner to try to make it to the concert on time. However, we arrived five minutes late. The British like their concerts to start on time. If you come late, you’ll just have to wait to be seated.

We had chosen seats up and behind the orchestra, but couldn’t get to them until the first half of the piece had finished. After we sat down, the second movement began with busy passage work in the strings, starting first at the Allegro Moderato tempo marking, then working up to the Presto speed limit. It was all very exciting up to the point at which …

The Great C Major Chord of the Maestoso, announced by the one-hundred forty-seven rank pipe organ that stood four feet to our IMMEDIATE right, cooked our insides and bruised our ribs, with one girl announcing the next morning that she might have gotten pregnant. It was under those circumstances that we (kind of) heard Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana” on the second half of the concert.

Credits: To the Royal Albert Hall organ. Oh, baby.

This is the sixth of my final forty-five CD's.

A Queen and a Princess

Song For Athene; Sir John Tavener, composer; The Choir of King's College, Cambridge; Stephen Cleobury, conducting

In late August of 1997, the Delta Queen steamboat headed her stern up the Kanawha River in West Virginia for the first time. She had been invited to preside over the annual paddlewheeler festival in the capital city of Charleston over the Labor Day weekend. So, to prepare for the event, the company had sent out special brochures to trumpet the esteemed event, and the crew had spruced up the old girl to show her at her finest.

Then the news came a few weeks before the Delta Queen’s grand arrival. The brand, spankin’ new Winfield Lock and Dam, thirty-one miles upriver from the mouth of the Kanawha River at Point Pleasant, wouldn’t be finished in time for the Labor Day weekend. We had no way of getting the boat all the way up river. I was disappointed. It’s always fun when a boat or a ship makes a first stop in a city. But, our hosts in Charleston promised us that the lock would be finished in time for the event the following year.

In the mean time, the lovely Delta Queen remained tied up in Point Pleasant for a couple of days. It was here, in the quiet of an early evening, that we heard about the passing of Diana, Princess of Wales. Just a few weeks before, I had taken leave to grieve with my family upon the death of my Uncle M. To have this happen so quickly on the heals of the other only served to rekindle my awareness of the preciousness of human life.

I immediately recognized the category in which the Princess would now be seen. She would remain forever timeless, bathed in the beauty of youth. It’s a popular club. President John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, John Kennedy, Jr., James Dean, Princess Grace Kelly, Buddy Holly, Michael Jackson, Natalie Wood, Marilyn Monroe, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and many others. People who are bigger than life itself, who speak encyclopedia volumes by merely stepping out of a car, or smiling at the right camera, or, and this is my favorite, by speaking intelligently.

I recall two instances during the course of the Princess’ funeral. The image of the Princes, Charles, William and Harry, and Charles, the Ninth Earl Spencer, brother to the Princess, following the funeral procession to the Abbey will never go away. But it was while her coffin was carried out of the Abbey on the shoulders of eight Welsh Guards that I heard something musical with which I could mark and remember this hour and this day.

“Song for Athene”, by British composer John Tavener, seemingly sent the Princess to Heaven on the wings of seven “Alleluias”, the sixth of which finds a climax when “weeping at the grave creates the song: Allelulia”. A drone continues throughout the four-minute work.

The following year, the Delta Queen made her triumphal arrival and reigned over the Labor Day weekend festivities. It was a much happier occasion. I don’t recall any deaths or funerals.

Credits: To the Winfield Lock and Dam. You were late but you are beautiful.

This is my normal Saturday individual track posting.

A new piece of old music

Symphony No. 5; Fantasia on a Themeby Thomas Tallis; Serenade To Music; Atlanta Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Chorus; Robert Spano, conducting

A few years ago, I encountered one of those instances where I heard a piece of absolutely gorgeous music that I’m pretty sure I had never heard before. So I started telling all my friends about it … and received a uniform reply each time: “You’ve never heard that before? Where’ve you been? Didn’t you say you went to college?”

Film director Mel Gibson included “Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis” in his 2004 motion picture “The Passion of the Christ”. I saw the movie, but I don’t remember hearing this heartfelt work.

English Renaissance composer Thomas Tallis contributed nine songs to the Psalter of 1567 for the first Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker. While editing the English Hymnal of 1906, Ralph VaughanWilliams included the Thomas Tallis melody of Psalm 2. The words go like this:

“Why fum’th in fight the Gentiles spite, in fury raging stout?

Why tak’th in hand the people fond, vain things to bring about?

The Kings arise, the Lords devise, in counsels met thereto,

Against the Lord with false accord, against His Christ they go.”

So taken was Mr. Vaughan Williams with Mr. Tallis’ melody that he wrote this inspired, marvelous work for string orchestra.

As much as it plays the dickens with my pride, I hope that I find scores (!) of other masterpieces that somehow fell by the wayside over the course of my young years.

Credits: To Thomas Tallis, for writing brilliant melodies. And for using the word “fum’th”.

This is the fum'th ... I mean fifth ... of my final forty-five CD's.

Talks of chamber music

Ernest Chausson ~ Concerto for Piano, Violin and String Quartet; Maurice Ravel ~ Trio for Piano, Violin and Cello; Takacs Quartet; Steven Isserlis, cello; Jean-Yves Thibaudet, piano; Joshua Bell, violin

For several years, I have played with an ensemble that provides music for the holiday season at the Baltimore Country Club located in, oddly enough, Baltimore, Maryland. We play for about three hours over the course of five to six evenings during the annual Christmas Feast that they offer to their members. I marvel at the décor every year – with a giant fireplace, wreaths in all of the Christmas light laden windows, holly and berries surrounding the carving tables and a simply humongous tree, strewn with thousands of lights, and a star on its top almost brushing the twenty-foot ceiling of their old-fashioned lodge.

During our break one evening, when we played together in 1999, my friend K. got to talking about chamber music repertoire that he loved but had never afforded himself the opportunity to perform. “You know, I’ve always wanted to play the Concerto for Piano, Violin and String Quartet by Ernest Chausson.” You know that piece? “Oh, yeah. It’s one of my favorites. So, you know about it, too?” Yes, sir. A few years back I found a recording of the Piano Trio of Maurice Ravel and it included the Chausson. I knew that I would enjoy the Ravel, but the Chausson totally took me by surprise. I would really like to play it. “Then let’s play it.” Okay.

K. played violin in “The President’s Own” United States Marine Chamber Orchestra. He came to me a few months after our Baltimore Country Club gig to tell me that he had put together the quartet and violinist for the piece. And for me to get to practicin’, ‘cause he was going to get it programmed in the fall for the USMB chamber music series.

We actually didn’t play it until the spring of 2001. The performance took place in the Coolidge Auditorium at the Library of Congress. In addition to the Chausson concerto, my friend D. and I played Samuel Barber’s Sonata for Piano and Cello – also a big piece. After our turn on the stage, I asked D. if she would turn pages for me on the Chausson, which she readily agreed to do. She did a smashing job, but afterward, she said that she was more nervous turning pages than during our performance of the Barber Sonata.

Mom and my sister K. flew in for the recital. We went out afterward to Old Ebbitt Grill just around the corner from the White House.

I have my sights, now, on the Ravel Piano Trio. I haven’t found people willing to play it. I may have to bring it up when I see K. at the Baltimore Country Club.

Credits: To Old Ebbitt Grill, for serving fine food to Washingtonians since 1856. Don’t miss the Sixteenth Annual Oyster Riot on November 19 and 20. Tickets go on sale on September 7.

This is the fourth of my final forty-five CD's.

Macaroni and Cheese

The Time-Life Treasury of Christmas

I love macaroni and cheese. I always have. I’m a bit of a mac-n-cheese snob, as a matter of fact. My mom made Creamettes Macaroni and put in cubes of Land-O-Lakes American cheese. And it spoiled me. I can hang with my niece and nephew when they want to have Kraft Mac-N-Cheese, dinner-in-a-box lunch with their Uncle Roni. But some day, when they’re open to change, I’m going to make some of the real thing for them. It’s going to be a great day.

Schroeder, from “Peanuts”, once made the claim to Lucy that Beethoven’s favorite dish was macaroni and cheese. That touched my soul. Here was a man whose spirit and essence soared in the rafters of “high art” in music, but a simple comfort food brought him immense joy.

Anton Ego, the food critic from Walt Disney’s animated motion picture “Ratatouille”, proclaims this great truth towards the end of the feature:

“In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little, yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is probably more meaningful than our criticism designating it so … “

You, dear reader, have seen the height of my horse when it comes to my taste in Christmas music – Opera star Thomas Hampson, the King’s College Choir in Cambridge, the Turtle Island String Quartet, the choir of Westminster Abbey, and so forth. I will declare here, with a little humility, or maybe even a little humiliation, that my nose high in the air gets scratches itself on the ceiling a little more than often.

I don’t imply that the performances found on the “Time Life Treasury of Christmas” constitute “the average piece of junk”. But it’s a little closer to earth than others. And the innocence of days gone by, with sincerity to burn, shines through bright and clear. It's my Christmas comfort food. You can't go wrong with Julie Andrews, Perry Como, Percy Faith, Burl Ives, Dolly Parton and a little B-B-B-B-Bing Crosby. With maybe not just a little cheese on top.

Credits: To the Creamettes company, for their pasta products. Them’s good eatin’.

Only four more months until Christmas!

This is the third of my final forty-five CD's.

Cold birds

Cantus Arcticus (1972); String Quartet No. 4 (1975); Symphony No. 5 (1988); Sirius String Quartet; Leipzig Radio Symphony Orchestra; Max Pommer, conducting

I’ll be completely frank with you on this one – right from the very start. I bought this CD because of the great cover. And before anybody says, “Huh?”, hear me out. Believe, me. The image to the right doesn’t do the actual cover justice. Imagine, if you will, transparent tissue paper. Sturdy transparent tissue paper, as a matter of fact. The folks who designed the CD stapled a white section of aforementioned tissue paper at the crease of the cover of the inner sleeve.

If there was even a millimeter of space between the tissue paper and the actual cover (with the photograph) of the CD sleeve, the man walking away in the photograph looked like he was either walking in a fog thick as oyster stew or walking in a blinding snow storm. I loved the effect. I love oyster stew. And, as it turns out, I love, love, love this CD.

Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara wrote “Cantus Arcticus”, Op. 61 as a concerto for birds and orchestra. A tape recording, that partners with the score of Rautavaara’s composition, plays birdsong that Mr. Rautavaara recorded near the Arctic Circle and on the bogs of Liminka in northern Finland in 1972. The performance of the score functions in the manner of a soundtrack, making the birds sounds “extra-musical”. The composer gives the masterful piece of music form by dividing it up like so:

I. The Bog

II. Melancholy

III. Swans Migrating

The name “Cantus Arcticus” is a nod to a compositional technique called Cantus Firmus, where a portion of a generally recognized melody, usually a Gregorian chant, provided the melody in a four part vocal composition. One of the voices would sing the Cantus Firmus and the other voices would have newly composed music to sing around it. In this case, the birds take on the role of providing the Cantus Firmus and the orchestra takes on the role of accompaniment.

I lent this CD to Mr. C., the conductor of the SDSU Civic Symphony some time in the 1990's, he liked it, and programmed it immediately. He asked me to play the celeste part on the concert.

I lucked out on this one. I had never heard of the composer, nor the composition. This is gold. Seek it out. My Aunt J. loves this CD.

Credits: To Artic birds, for seeming to be willing, yet more realistically unwitting, soloists. But, hey, you’re big, big stars! You get more airplay than I do.

This is the second of my final forty-five CD's.

Nine years old

Quiet After The Storm; Dianne Reeves, vocal

I admired First Lady Hillary Clinton’s adage that “It takes a village to raise a child.” She’s right, of course. I think, however, that Mrs. Clinton presented the image of a small child surrounded by a teacher, a nurse, a doctor, a librarian, a fireman, a milkman, a grocer, a coach, a sanitation person, a construction worker, a cook, a gas station attendant, a taylor, a brother, a sister, a grandmother, a grandfather, a Mommy and a Daddy.

My vision of Mrs. Clinton’s “village” aphorism comes from a more organic perspective. In our little town of Bruce, during my adolescent years, if my behavior belied the proper upbringing my parents provided, virtually nobody in our “village” would hesitate to alert me to the inappropriate nature of my actions. At the same time, they wouldn’t shirk from the opportunity to have a little playtime with our town’s children.

My Aunt Gladys would always get down on the floor to play with us nieces, nephews, grandnieces and grandnephews whenever we asked her to come play with us. She listened to us – and quickly deciphered the essence and character of the game in play. She was one of us. She was in.

In the song “Nine”, track eight on Dianne Reeves’ album “Quiet After The Storm”, the fine jazz singer brings the playful demeanor and disposition of a nine-year-old to a lively and bustling 7/4 meter, a highly difficult feat to pull off. Yet with the innocence and exuberance of a young one who just does without thinking of how or why, Ms Reeves traipses about within this rocking and funky groove like a natural … runnin’ … jumpin’ … skippin’ … and laughin’ …

I remember nine

As if it were yesterday

I can hear my friends outside of my window

Say, “Can you come out and play?”

Anna brought a bag of her mama’s cooking spoons

So we could dig a hole, to try to reach China

And get there by early noon.

_____

Our imaginations soared on golden wings

Across a sky filled with dreams

Any child could wear a paper crown

And be a king or queen …

… At nine …

_____

I remember days of playing without a care

Then coming home with sniffles and clothes hanging off me

With leaves in my hair

Everybody’s child belonged to the neighborhood

You could tell your troubles to old Aunt Savannah

Cause she always understood

_____

Running endless through a field

Of emerald green beneath a broad open sky

I will treasure all my days when

I was innocent and free …

… At nine …

When D. and I were very young, we decided all by ourselves that we would ride the trike and pull the wagon to the neighbor’s house a half of a mile to the east to have a few hours’ play time with our pal R. After we arrived, anxious for the adventures to begin, Mrs. H. quickly and suddenly put us, the trike and the wagon into the station wagon to drive us home. We had behaved, apparently, in an inappropriate manner.

Credits: To E. H., our neighbor to the east for bring us home. Thanks.

This, dear reader, is the first of my final forty-five CD's. I've saved the best for last and I'm on the home stretch!

A grim quartet

Quatuor pour la fin du Temps; Olivier Messiaen, composer; Joshua Bell, violin; Steven Isserlis, cello; Olli Mustonen, piano; Michael Collins, clarinet

I remember how a news crew from KELO TV in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, once took their cameras, on April 15, to ask the ultimate question to hundreds of people standing in line at the local post office: Why did you wait until today to file your taxes? The news crew received many answers – excuses, mostly. One answer, though, stood out from all of the others: “Oh, I had my taxes done weeks ago. I waited until today so that I could make new friends while I was standing in line.”

The scene was truly pathetic when a new clarinet friend of mine at CCM at the University of Cincinnati asked me, “Hey, Erik. Would you like to play Olivier Messiaen’s ‘Quartet For The End Of Time’ with me and two other people?” Would I?!? It’s only my favorite piece in the whole world!! So beautiful! “Okay,” she said, “You’ve never heard this piece have you?” Um, … no. “Well, then, why did you respond the way you did?” I was afraid you might ask somebody else … and I could use some new friends. Pathetic.

By agreeing to play such a piece without taking the time to investigate its magnitude of difficulty first, I found myself with a bowlful of stiffer cookie dough than I anticipated. The piano part was about as strenuous and complex as anything I had ever tackled. But I got to work on it right away and, pretty soon, fellow piano students who had heard me practicing it in the practice rooms came to me to ask, “How did you find people to play this with you?” I just shrug my shoulders, smiled and said, They came to me.

Olivier Messaien was captured by the German army during World War II and placed in a prisoner of war camp. En route to the prisoner of war camp, M. Messaien met three other professional musicians – a clarinetist, a violinist and a cellist. For these new friends, he wrote a trio which eventually developed into the monumental eight movement work called “Quatuor pour la fin du temps” for piano, clarinet, violin and cello. It was first performed for about four hundred fellow prisoners and prison guards on January 15, 1941. The composer once recalled, “Never was I listened to with such rapt attention and comprehension.”

M. Messaien, a devout Catholic for his entire life, couldn’t see a positive end of World War II. He was convinced that the apocalypse had come and was haunted and inspired by the passage of scripture from the tenth chapter of the Book of Revelation:

And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire … and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth … And the angel which I saw stand upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his hand to heaven, and sware by him that liveth for ever and ever … that there should be time no longer: But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he shall begin to sound, the mystery of God should be finished …

Using musical, numerical and theological symbolism, Oliver Messiaen composed a masterpiece of elegance, excitement and optimism.

On a whim, in the summer of 1994, my friends D. and G. convinced me to join them on a visit to Dakau. In many ways it was right to do so. But I wasn’t prepared for it. I don’t know how one prepares for it, but I keep thinking I could have properly tensed and steeled myself for the onslaught of emotions that I encountered. I haven’t recovered. So, I ask you this: Do you recover? and Should you recover?

Credits: To my friend J. for asking me to play the "Quartet For The End Of Time". You guys were great "new" friends.

Music of Scripture

I Will Greatly Rejoice In The Lord; Knut Nystedt, composer

When the nine-hundred ninety-six voices of the 1980 South Dakota All-State Chorus made their first moments of music in Huron, South Dakota, they did so while singing “I Will Greatly Rejoice” composed by the Norwegian composer Knut Nystedt. The music has stuck in my head these thirty years. Mr. Nystedt gets his text from the book of Isaiah, chapter sixty-one, verses ten and eleven:

I will greatly rejoice in the Lord,

For my soul shall exalt in my God;

For He has clothed me in the garments of salvation,

He has covered me in the robes of righteousness,

As a bridegroom decks himself with a garland,

And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

For as the Earth brings forth its shoots,

And as a garden causes what is sown in it to spring up,

So the Lord GOD will cause righteousness and praise

To spring up before all the nations.

I don’t specifically remember hearing this passage of scripture during my young years in church, although I would imagine it was read in my hearing at some point, for it’s very beautiful. Ever since my All-State Chorus experience in 1980, whenever I hear this portion of scripture, in or out of church, … I hear music … in my head. The sentiment expressed by the prophet Isaiah will forever remain couched in melody and harmony. While the music swirls and echoes, the words hang in the air, bringing glory to God and peace to my soul.

Credits: To the other nine-hundred ninety-five voices of the 1980 South Dakota All-State Chorus. Thank you.

Lunch in New York

The Sounds of Acadia; The National Park Series; Randy Petersen, composer

I was never more proud, during my “cruise ship” years, than in October of 1994 when my Mom and Dad came aboard the Star Odyssey in New York City for a cruise up the Northeastern seaboard. Neither Mom nor Dad had been any further east than Ohio and they decided that a trip to the Big Apple presented the opportunity to visit family who had made the trek to South Dakota soooooooo many times.

On the weekend before the cruise, they spent some time with Mom’s sister and family in New Jersey. They had a good visit, took an expedition to Atlantic City, went to their church on Sunday morning and had an all around good time. They had made plans to buy tickets for the bus on Monday morning to go to NYC and then meet a cousin of my Dad’s, P. and her husband T., for lunch at The Top of the Sixes restaurant.

On Monday morning, they found out that the bus to NYC was FULL! No room. So Uncle D. #2 (Uncle D. #1 lives in Minnesota) said, “Quick. Get in the car. You’ll have to take the train.

Meanwhile, in the days before cell phones, South Dakota boy in the big city is waiting at the Port Authority Bus Terminal when he hears over the massive public address system, “Courtesy call for Erik Apland on the red phone.” Nothing chills the bones on a warm October morning like an invitation to a red phone in a massive bus terminal in Manhattan. “Erik, this is Uncle D. (#2), your parents are coming to Pennsylvania Station on the train in twenty minutes.” Okay. “Goodbye.” Wait… What train? Which track? Arriving from where? … Hello?

I arrived at Pennsylvania Station twenty-five minutes later and couldn’t make sense of the schedule. Mom and Dad had received strict instructions from me to go to the ship at the Port Authority if they didn’t see me when they arrived in New York. When I didn’t see them at the train station, I assumed that they went to the ship, so I headed back to the Star Odyssey. It was a looooong wait. But, finally, at around two o’clock in the afternoon, Mom and Dad tramped across the gangway, luggage in tow, and onto their floating home for the next seven days.

In the same way that many Americans sustain misperceptions of South Dakotans, or even Midwesterners, so do countless Americans carry a faulty image of the average New Yorker, presuming rudeness and boisterousness, and a reliance on enormous volumes of sound and obnoxiousness in order to obtain attention. “This is the way I do business, buddy, and if you don’t like it, there are other places in this town that can help you out.”

Typically, the restaurant for our lunch date with Dad’s cousin closed down at three o’clock, after the lunch rush. At two forty-five, the elevators opened at The Top of the Sixes with Mom, Dad and me inside … and P. and T. standing on the other side of the doors waiting to board the elevator to go down. After bearing witness to our warm embraces and passionate pleas to forgive our tardiness, a waiter standing nearby said, “Don’t leave yet,” and stepped into the kitchen. He re-emerged a few moments later to say, with a gracious smile, “You’ve waited a long time for lunch. Come sit down and we’ll get you some menus.” Mom and Dad, for years, recalled that moment as a highlight of the trip.

After reboarding the ship, Mom and Dad had dinner, danced to the music of my band, enjoyed the cabaret show, then watched our eleven o’clock departure from The City That Never Sleeps, sailing only a few hundred yards away from the Statue of Liberty. The next six days had us visiting Bar Harbor, Maine, Halifax, Nova Scotia, with a side trip to Peggy’s Cove, an excursion through the Saint Lawrence Seaway, Quebec City, Quebec and a disembarkation in Montreal, Quebec.

While in Bar Harbor, we each had a lobster sandwich, then boarded a mini bus that took us up Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park. At the summit, we observed the lovely pink granite of Mount Desert Island and the tall spruce and pine trees that receive our nation’s first morning kiss from the sun.

Credits: To our New York waiter, for prompting us to cast off our preconceived notions of a New Yorker stereotype. We saw and see our American New York brothers and sisters with new eyes.

Big Pianist on Campus

George Gershwin - Piano Concerto in F; Aaron Copland - El Salon Mexico ~ Piano Blues No. 3; Samuel Barber - Ballade; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; Vladimir Ashkenazy, conducting; Peter Jablonski, piano

During my sophomore year at SDSU, a guest artist came to our fair university, stayed for a week and made an impact on me which lasted for many years. Master pianist Leon Bates had a last minute cancellation which cleared up his schedule for a five day period prior to scheduled performances with the SDSU Civic Symphony and on the Brookings Chamber Music Society Series. I had never met an actual concert pianist before this. The way that he rehearsed, the manner in which he interacted with other musicians, the joy he expressed in what he did for a living each and every day confirmed all of my suspicions. I wanted to do what he did.

During the week, he did a lot of practicing. For a few days he holed himself up in Dr. P.’s office, making a huge racket down at that end of the hall. The cancellation of his previous engagement couldn’t have come at a better time, he told us, as he needed the extra rehearsal time for his performance repertoire on a concert a few weeks later.

On Saturday night, he shared a recital with the Emerson Quartet. Mr. Bates performed Beethoven’s Sonata No. 23 in F Minor, Op. 57, - the so-called “Appassionata”. I think the quartet played a Haydn quartet. Then, together, Leon Bates and the Emerson Quartet performed Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E-Flat Major, Op. 44. Absolutely astounding performances.

On Sunday afternoon, the SDSU Civic Symphony performed an all-Gershwin program, opening with George Gershwin’s Cuban Overture. Mr. Bates then took to the stage to play the everlasting “Rhapsody in Blue”. After intermission, he returned to the piano for a spirited trek through Mr. Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F. Again, he knocked me out.

Leon Bates had become, at the time, somewhat of an authority on George Gershwin’s piano works. Whenever he made his debut with an orchestra, if it worked to include it within the orchestra’s concert season, he would program Gershwin’s Piano Concerto in F. Two of my friends in college traveled to New York City to see him make his first appearance with the New York Philharmonic and heard him play that piece.

Earlier in the week, Mr. Bates graciously offered me some of his time to give me a piano lesson. I had prepared Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor for a piano competition, and with me at the bigger Mason & Hamlin and him at the smaller Steinway in Dr. P.’s office, he sight-read the second piano part without a struggle and played louder than I did. There’s a reason.

Leon Bates is a bodybuilder. He's absolutely huge. He told us that it clears his mind and gets him out of the practice room to do something other than music. Whenever he sits down at a piano, it looks like it’s going to lose.

During his week at SDSU, he went to the gym to work out and received an unexpected ... well, I guess you say ... audience. Other weight-lifters came over to him for tips and advise. In fact, some of the weight-training instructors and football coaches invited him over to the arena to speak with some of the athletes and students in a forum. Naturally, he told them all about the concerts on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon.

Most of the football players and weight-trainers came to the concert on Sunday afternoon. Let me say, I have seen better attended concerts. But I have never seen a “bigger” audience.

Credits: To Leon Bates, for his work on stage, in the classroom and with children. I like that you drive a pickup.

The ASO

Tangazo; Astor Piazzolla, composer; Orchestre Symphonique de Montreal; Charles Dutoit, conducting; Daniel Binelli, Bandoneon; Eduardo Isaac, Guitar

Mom had a stratagem that she would use on my sisters and me when we came to her with, “Mom, can we get this?” She would say, “Not today. But if you’re still thinking about it three days from now, we can talk about it.” It saved her lots of spending money because – well – what six- to eleven-year old has that kind of focus?

Last February, I played celeste with the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra. I had a part on Bela Bartok’s “The Miraculous Mandarin”, Richard Strauss’ “Dance of the Seven Veils” from his opera “Salome” and Maurice Ravel’s “Bolero”. Playing the celeste is odd, because, for all of the tinkly, twinkly, Mr. Rogers neighborhood, music box sounds that emit from the instrument, the action at its keyboard takes three to four times the strength required to play even the stiffest Steinway. I didn’t have a part on Cesar Franck’s “Pyche” and I didn’t have a part on Astor Piazzolla’s “Tangazo”.

The conductor opened the concert with the Franck. Just as well, it was the most boring piece on the program. The second half of the program started with Mr. Piazzolla’s “Tangazo”. After intermission of each of the performances, I found a place behind the curtain where it was dark, where I could sit in a chair, close my eyes and lose myself in the culture of Argentina and in the magical and spicy, musical playground of Astor Piazzolla. With his unorthodox use of the shrieking violins and the soaring French horn solos, Mr. Piazzolla had me at “Hola”.

Six months later, I was still thinking about it. Had to have it. Bought it with a Christmas gift certificate on iTunes. It’s marvelous!

Credits: To the Annapolis Symphony Orchestra. Thanks for letting me play with you.

South Dakota, my home

The Spirit of South Dakota; The National Park Series; Randy Petersen, composer

CBS News used to have a feature called “Eye On America”. The local CBS affiliate in South Dakota, KELO in Sioux Falls, did their own take on the large media conglomerate’s nightly five-minute commentary that they called “Eye On KELO-land”. I was featured once on “Eye On KELO-land” after my acceptance into “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band”. As I recall, they did a really nice job.

Some time in the mid-1990’s, I watched an “Eye On KELO-land” segment that took place in Ree Heights, South Dakota. I don’t remember the subject of the larger story, but I do recall that they focused for a while on business at the local grain elevator. Now and then, transactions necessitated the use of a FAX machine. When such occurrences required them to plug the machine in, they had to sweep the town with the message, “Don’t use your phones for the next twenty minutes.” The telephone lines in this town, and in most small towns in the rural upper Midwest, were, as I used to say, steeped in antiquity. The phone lines weren’t designed to do anything more than carry the sound of the human voice. Subsequently, it took them ten minutes to receive each page during a FAX transmission. If somebody, anywhere in town, talked on the phone during this time, the FAX process would take longer.

I don’t know if the problem has been solved. I doubt it. The real solution, it seems to me in my limited far-sightedness abilities, would require the laying down of hundreds of thousands of miles of fiber-optic cable in order to provide Americans that live in low population density areas with an efficient method of using communication devices. And, by the time they’re done with this expensive process, who knows if this will still be the way that we electronically and digitally interact? Perhaps we will have learned to read minds!

What I remember most from the news piece, however, is that the South Dakotans who had to do business this way didn’t do any complaining. They acknowledged the inefficient way of accomplishing something fantastic; the notion of receiving a copy of something from over a thousand miles away in mere minutes – wow!! The end result was impeccable. But they had to jump through a bunch of hoops to do it.

The perception of the average South Dakotan as a Neanderthal unwilling to part with his string and coffee can telephone, bear skin and bat-shaped hunting club doesn’t hold water. South Dakotans don’t live where they live in order to stay away from progress and technology. The problem lies in the ability, or lack thereof, for progress and technology to come to them. Americans in South Dakota, North Dakota or any other state that suffers from an undeserved backwoods, clodhopper reputation are, in all actuality, just as willing to shake hands with their American brothers and sisters in Florida and New Mexico as Americans in any other part of the country, whether in the form of an actual easy and friendly handshake or a warm, affectionate e-mail.

Then why would anyone want to live there?

Anybody who asks that question has never put themselves in the sights of that type of query. We all have our needs and priorities. Some people have to live where it’s affordable. Some have to live where they can get work. Some people have to live where they work. Some people need to be surrounded by people. Some people need to live where it’s beautiful. And, if that’s the case, well, as they say, beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. So some need to live near mountains. Some need to live near the ocean. Some need only a twenty-foot by thirty-foot back yard. But some people need a five thousand square foot back yard.

Credits: To the people of South Dakota. You have a nice home.

Great Jazz

How Long Has This Been Going On?; Joe Pass, guitar; Louie Bellson, drums; Ray Brown, bass; Oscar Peterson, piano; Sarah Vaughan, vocal

Friend, I’m going to make it a light day and do little more than mention one of my favorite jazz CD’s. I don’t believe I have anything more than this one album that features Sarah Vaughan. And what a back up band! It doesn’t get any better than this.

Credits: To my friend Alan Dale, for his friendships with jazz musicians, from low on the talent totem pole (me) to the very highest (Louie Bellson). I love making music with you, pal.

Church music in its environs

English Choral Music; Choir of St. John's College, Cambridge; Christopher Robinson, conducting

At the beginning of the new semester following the Christmas break of 1987, Dr. C. met his SDSU Concert Choir with his typical array of diversity in choral literature. A virtual smorgasbord of heterogeneity. No two pieces alike, all of them coming from a different time period, with a different language and in a different style. I like to quote the king from a Bugs Bunny cartoon where his majesty has just heard the menu for his lunch. The king responds with: “Everyday the same thing … variety.”

Dr. C. handed us the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis from composer Herbert Howells’ Collegiate Regale. He explained to us that the EvenSong service of the English Anglican church incorporates these two texts into their liturgy. Composers who set the texts to music typically set them as a pair. And with both texts concluding with the Lesser Doxology or the Gloria Patri:

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost.

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

Composers will typically use the same music for the final portion of each text.

I had never heard Herbert Howells’ music before and it took a long time to get used to his manner of moving around in the field of harmony. Since it was English Church music, Mr. Howells wrote it, as you can imagine, with organ accompaniment. I had to get used to this, as well.

“Do you like it?” Dr. C. asked me after rehearsal one day. I don’t know, I said. I can’t tell yet. “Trust me. You will.”

We sang our concert in February at the annual South Dakota Music Inservice Convention with the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis included on the program. “Did you like it?” Dr. C. asked after the performance. I don’t know. “Trust me. You will.”

About a month later, the SDSU Concert Choir took a tour through Iowa, with a stop at a church with an immense sanctuary in Des Moines on a Sunday morning. We were to be the choir for their worship service. And since the church had a grand pipe organ, Dr. C. included our Herbert Howells pieces in the liturgy mix. As we approached our portion of the service, I wondered, How would this sound? Would the congregation like it? Would I like it? Would God like it?

The organ began and the sopranos came in ... and ...

I finally got it. The church’s cavernous interior allowed for marvelous acoustics, melding choir sounds with organ sounds and carrying one chord over into another for just a moment to create a heavenly sound that was impossible to create in our concert environments. The soaring soprano sounds reverberating over the cacophony of passage work in the organ accompaniment found a place in my ear and never left. THIS was the place for this music to happen.

“Did you like it?”, Dr. C. confidently asked me after the service. Yeah.

Credits: To Herbert Howells, for composing music suitable for the exaltation glorification of God. God seems a lot taller when your music is performed.

Marathon Man

Singin' in the Rain; Jamie Cullum

I couldn’t understand my friend Sam during my college days. He went for a run every day. Voluntarily. This abstraction stood outside my field of understanding. The only practical use I ever had for running involved a charging bull or a particularly smoochy aunt. Sam must have sustained a deep-seated fear for either or both of these two, admittedly, remote situations to feel the need to train for such an occasion.

Why do you run? “I like to run,” Sam said. The question I asked and the answer he supplied didn’t add up to anything that made the least bit of sense. The only inspiration I could think of to run was that it would feel so good to stop. “Funny,” said Sam. “That’s the inspiration I use to listen to Joan Jett.”

On the last Sunday morning of October in 2001, I had a job at the Market Inn, a restaurant that offered a champagne brunch on Sundays just a few blocks southwest of the Capitol in Washington, DC. On the way to the job, the man on the radio reminded me that the annual Marine Corps Marathon had just started and that some road closures might interfere with local traffic. Oh, no!! The marathon route wound its way around the Capitol building, dangerously close to the Market Inn.

I arrived twenty minutes late to the job. My friend M. stood at the door waiting for me. “That’s okay,” he said. “It happens every year. I should have reminded you about it. Don’t worry about it.”

On my way back to the Durango after the job, I had this evil, diabolical, mischievous, pernicious, inimical, nagging thought: Wouldn’t it be funny if I ran the Marine Corps Marathon one year from now? I laughed, I think audibly, at the notion and moved on to other thoughts. But the idea returned a few hours later. Usually when I laughed hard enough at a silly idea it went away and never came back. But this ridiculous scheme simply wouldn’t go away. Of all the farcical ideas I ever had, why did this one have to be so heavy-duty? It sat there – smoldering – glaring its beady little eyes at me – defying me – frustrating me – daring me – and mocking me.

Six months later, I found myself standing in the “running” section in the sports aisle at Barnes and Noble. What am I doing? I thought to myself. Don’t you remember how much you hate running? But I kept looking. Looking. Looking. Both for a training book and a way out.

“The Non-Runner’s Marathon Trainer” by David Whitsett, Forrest Dolgener and Tanjala Kole fell into my hands. Guaranteed to condition you to run a 26.2 marathon by training only four days a week and no runs over eighteen miles. Part of me said, Well, this is perfect. As long as you’re going to be ambitious, you might as well do it with the least amount of effort. The other part of me said, Rats. Rats, rats, rats, rats, rats. Rats.

On the first Monday in July of 2002, I ran one mile. I hated it. The next day, I ran two miles. I hated it. On Thursday, I ran one mile. I hated it. On Saturday, I ran three miles. I hated it.

On the next Monday, I ran two miles. I hated it. On Tuesday, I rant four miles. I hated it. On Thursday, I ran two miles. I hated it. And on Saturday, I ran five miles. I hated it. Over the next several weeks, I maintained this sensible training plan and remained consistent with my outlook.

On the second Sunday in September, my training plan called for a sixteen-mile run. During the entire week leading up to my Sunday run, the misery mounted by the hour. Black Saturday came and went and I think I even whimpered as I went to bed that night.

On Sunday morning, I stepped out from under the eaves. It was raining. The temperature was fifty-six degrees. Hmmmmmmmm. What will this be like? I started out. Things went fine for a while. And just when things should have gone downhill … they didn’t. I was soaked to the bone. I was winded. But I wasn’t tired. I saw other runners out on the path with me. As I looked up at them, I noticed … they were smiling. Not just a few people here and there. Everybody that was running … was smiling. People who weren’t running … they were scowling. But everybody on my team, the running team, was on the inside. We knew the punch line to a joke we didn’t need to hear. We were wet. We were cool. We were smiling. And we weren’t tired.

When I reached mile sixteen, I realized that I had forgotten to take a breather during my entire run. I had gotten so caught up in not being miserable that I forgot to stop. And, to tell the truth, I felt like I could have gone further. But, BOY, was I glad I didn’t have to.

Credits: To Sam, for adhering to a principle that I can’t understand. But thank you for adhering to it. You inspire me.

Just add water

Tchaikovsky ~ Piano Concerto No. 1; Prokofiev ~ Piano Concerto No. 3; Royal Philharmonic Orchestra; Charles Dutoit, conducting; Berliner Philharmoniker; Claudio Abbado; Martha Argerich, piano

Shortly after graduating from CCM, a friend of mine, W., who had graduated from SDSU a year or so earlier, called me at my parent’s farm when he knew that I was around. “Hey, Erik, let me know when you travel up my way. It would be nice to see you.” Well, I might be up in a few weeks. “Well, then, call me up around that time and I’ll give you directions on how to get here.” Perfect.

When I pulled up into the yard at a beautiful farm out on the northeast plains of South Dakota, W. came out of the house to meet me. “I might have tricked you. I hope you don’t think so. But if you do, I’m sorry.” How did you trick me? “This isn’t my house. This is my Grandma’s house.” So? “I want her to tell you about the house.” Okay. “And something else.” What? “I want you to play her piano for her.” Well. Okay. What do I get out of it? “Cake.” What kind of cake? “Who cares? It’s Grandma cake. What grandma has ever made bad cake?” True. Although, I suspect that this is happening because you want cake. “Busted.”

“My husband and I built this house out of a kit from Montgomery Wards,” W.’s Grandma said as she put a tray of cake down on a red checkerboard tablecloth. “A big truck brought all of the supplies, pre-fabbed, and we put it all together in about four days.” Four days? “Yup. Four days. We had the basement all dug and finished before the big truck came. The rest of it was just … following the directions.” Have you ever had any problems with it? “No. There’s maintenance, just like any home, but we’ve – I’ve never had to replace anything. And it’s been here for fifty-five years. Blizzards, hailstorms and heat.” Wow. That’s all I could say was wow. I had heard of these Montgomery Ward homes before but I’d never been in one. It was very handsome.

The Piano Concerto No. 3 in C Major by Sergei Prokoffief is a knuckle-buster. It requires massive loads of performance technique on everyone’s part, but mostly the piano soloist. Mr. Prokoffief took ten years to write this piece, borrowing melodies and rhythmic schemes from other projects that he had sitting on the table. Despite the buffet-like compositional style, everything binds together brilliantly. Most musicologists consider this piece one of the most important compositions of the twentieth century.

When pianists play the Beethoven, Brahms, Chopin, and Liszt concertos, they must bring part of themselves to bear in the music and match their musical integrity, as best they can, with the probity of the composer. With this Prokoffief concerto … not as much. Certainly, a pianist who has reached this level of performance will bring musicianship to the work place with them. But, with few exceptions, all Mr. Prokoffief requires of the pianist who plays his third concerto is … that they follow the directions.

This may sound silly, but ,with the Prokoffief Third Piano Concerto, essentially all of the music is already written into the music. The pianist needn’t invest much time on interpretation; just play the notes and trust the composer to take care of everything else. No further consideration necessary.

This piece is perfect for the last minute requirements of Heidi Schoonover, played by Amy Irving in the movie “The Competition”. When it’s time for Heidi to play her piano concerto, a Mozart concerto, one of the notes on the piano (the D above middle C, as I recall) hasn’t been voiced properly and it “sticks out” from the others; in other words, the D sounds louder. After only a few seconds of her entrance in the piece, she stops playing, breaks down, and runs off stage.

The conductor follows her off the stage and quickly says, “This is a problem that can be fixed. These things happen.” Heidi, like a true diva, declares, “I know longer feel like playing Mozart tonight. I want to play the Prokoffief Third.” After the harrowing experience of folding, freezing in front of an audience and a panel of judges, she blows them out of the water with something brilliant in which she doesn’t have to think.

I played the Piano Concerto No. 3 by Prokoffief when I was at CCM with a second piano playing the orchestral part. I even made it into the finals in the 1989 Concerto Competition at the Concervatory playing this piece. I didn’t win.

Credits: To Grandma’s everywhere, for their cake-baking abilities.

Emotional depth

Piano Concerto No. 5 "Emperor"; Piano Sonata No. 23 "Appassionata"; Wiener Philharmoniker; Sir Simon Rattle, conducting; Alfred Brendel, piano

While hanging out with a fellow graduate piano student during my CCM days, I audibly cast out the fleeting thought that I would like to work on the Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-Flat Major by Johannes Brahms. My friend offered to me what his piano teacher had said about this majestic work: “If you are under twenty-five years of age when you take on the great B-Flat concerto by Brahms, you should learn it as best as you can – then put it away for ten to fifteen years. No pianist under the age of thirty has gathered enough of the riches of life to understand, much less plumb the depths of, the emotion, fervency, sentience of feeling and zest for all things savory and piquant that Mr. Brahms requires to adequately carry out this masterwork.” Okay. Well, maybe tomorrow then. I’ll just make sure I live a little bit of life this evening and let it drip it on my fingers in the morning.

Despite the sarcasm, though, even at the tender age of twenty-three, I knew that my friend’s piano teacher spouted truth. It sits in the same chair as that old “Life begins at forty” adage. One can’t credibly extol what one hasn’t seen. If you want to sing about love, then you have to have fallen in love; otherwise you’re just an unmarried marriage counselor.

Subsequently, I have “saved” the exploration of some compositions by some composers for later in life. Gustav Mahler, for instance, composed not so much on a higher emotional plane than other composers but more in a variant musical language that I have yet to completely understand. It’s complex and sophisticated … and complicated. I can hear that Mr. Mahler’s beautiful Ninth Symphony is emotionally charged, but I haven’t figured out what he’s saying. Hopefully, age will bring this wisdom.

I have also "saved for later" much of the work of Ludwig van Beethoven. Mr. Beethoven was the original “tortured soul”. In addition to romantic entanglements and his lack of success in acquiring a wife, he had health issues, he had money problems, he had dysfunctional family matters … and always, always, always, the need to obsess, tirelessly, endlessly,over passages of music, large and small, until they said exactly what he wanted them to say.

There’s a reason that musicologists proclaim Mr. Beethoven to be the harbinger of the Romantic Period in music. Composers like Mozart and Haydn, who wrote during that time leading up to the fruition of Mr. Beethoven’s compositional talent, injected more and more expression into their music. Beethoven had nowhere else to go but full, frontal, emotional assault on his listeners; with this one handicap. While the voices of Heaven flowed from the pens of Herr Mozart and Herr Haydn like oil from a ruptured well, Beethoven created, then smashed, then resurrected, then hacked, then attached, then sanded, then welded, then spliced, then gathered, hewed, mended, lopped, fastened, chopped, patched, slashed, fused, severed, stitched, lacerated, renovated, carved – and, finally, polished, buffed and shined what he knew to be absolutely, unreservedly, categorically, unequivocally and thoroughly – right. To change one note would have made it wrong.

A man or woman who chooses to take on the emotional battering of the hard-earned musical genius of heavy-weight champion Ludwig van Beethoven is serious, indeed. Pianist Paul Dietrich, played by Richard Dreyfuss in the 1980 movie “The Competition”, has reached his thirties and stands at the edge of a cliff. The cut-off age for virtually all piano competitions is thirty-five. He has come to the last one; the final door. He can do no other than to come to the table armed to the teeth with a technical and emotional mastery and understanding of Ludwig van Beethoven’s grand and stately Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-Flat Major – the “Emperor” concerto. So committed is he to his task, that he declines a job offer from a friend as a music teacher, saying, “If you need to have something to fall back on, well, then, that is exactly what you do – fall back.”

If you haven’t won the accolades of competition judges by the time you reach Mr. Dietrich’s age, should you continue in the music profession as a performer? Be careful with your response, reader. You’re standing perilously close to my cliff.

Credits: To Lee Remick, who, as Gretta Vandemann, tells Paul Dietrich, “It costs extra to carve ‘schmuck’ on a tombstone, but you would be worth the expense.” Ha!