The Sensible Clef

Memories of a recorder teacher...

2006-11-18T18:35:00.000-08:00

The experiences that most powerfully formed my musical taste and opinions were beyond my control. They came to me early and are as much a part of me as the memory of the floors, ceilings, and wainscoting of my childhood home.

My mother was an enthusiastic recorder player and student of early music. Early music was my first music, and it has stayed with me to this day. To firmly cement this repertoire into my consciousness my mother did more. Every Tuesday morning she pulled me along to her recorder lesson with Miss Augusta Bleys, an austere Dutch woman who lived in a dark multi-arched Richardson Romanesque in East Denver. The building itself was dark, but inside, in the room where Miss Bleys taught, I remember light, blonde wood, and piles of music. For me , it was a remarkable place, for I was convinced that the room itself was constructed out of the innumerable music scores that lay around the room. To my young eyes, the walls were made out of Schott editions; a gentle beige color that had the look of plaster. The ceiling was supported (how could it be?) by stacks of consort music, obscure and erudite collections from Budapest, Oxford and Amsterdam. A child's perspective is at once both skewed and insightful. To me, these columns of music were so immense that they touched the far away ceiling of that old Denver home. This could not be, but in another way, my vision touched on the truth. The collections of might not have supported the ceiling, but they certainly came to the aid to Miss Bleys herself. She was a frail creature, too weak , it seemed, to stand on her own. As delicate as a boxwood recorder, she crossed the room by leaning on her handy collections of Frescabaldi, Gervaise and Dr. Bull. With the help of these piles of music, her motions, like her fingers on the recorder, were deft and sure. Without them, I knew with a child's certainty, that Miss Bleys would collapse and her room, with her music, would turn to dust.

What brought Augusta Bleys to the provincial western city of my 1950’s childhood? A failed love affair, perhaps and she decided to stay on. But not only stay on, but to teach as well. For if If Miss Bleys didn't teach Van Eck divisions and Dowland in that provincial place, who would? Far away from the Van Gogh Museum and the charming canals of her native city, Miss Bleys became a missionary for St. Cecilia to the unconverted. She swept my mother into the fold, I, both helpless and fortunate, had no choice but to follow.

It was in that room held together with scores of consort music, that I first heard and took to my heart the sounds of the Renaissance. And now, almost half a century later, when I play or hear those clear sounds, I not only hear, but I also see. I see beyond the strettos and the points of imitations, I see all the way back to my early times, to Miss Bley's room.. And there she is: angular, with a wooden flute in one hand, drawing back the drapes of her studio to let in the morning light. And then, so clear is the music and the vision, that I can see the dust of that music-laden room, swirling from the quickness of her motions. I see it settle on the selves and columns of music., on the Frescabaldi and Cooperario. Miss Bleys is always there. She never leaves. She will never leave that place. Now she grows tall., so tall that she can reach the highest shelves that I thought were beyond reach. A place where I thought there was no music. But there is music there. It rests on the shelf saved for the Praetorious editions. In that room, how could there not be Praetorious? Miss Bleys touches the music and begins to bring it down. But now she stops.

She remains there for me; one hand holding the boxwood flute, the other with the music, bringing it down from the highest place.

A cellist's smile...

2004-12-09T18:12:00.000-08:00

Lately it is not an entire quartet that I remember after an evening of chamber music. It is a few measures here and there that are memorable and give reason to keep going. There is much to praise in the music of the great 18th and 19th century string quartets. The integrity of their structure. The richness and diversity of their harmonic language. But I have reached a point where musical incidents and details are what, for me, count the most. A simple approach perhaps...but it works for me. I will leave the structure and harmonic issues to musicologists and theorists. I'm just a simple viola player.

Last night the "incident" was about eight seconds of music towards the end of the first movement of Haydn's Opus 76 no. 1. The second subject of this movement is particularly tuneful. When it returns after the recapitulation is is accompanied in the cello by a drone. Charming enough. But when that second subject repeats itself and that rustic drone happens again, the drone itself is ornamented by the addition of a grace note at the begining of each measure. For me it is a completely inimitable moment; an ormamental touch delightful beyond measure. The cellist, who has played this music with me before must have remembered how fond I am of this grace-note ornamented drone. Because as she played this music, she briefly took her eyes off the page and gave me a smile.

A fine moment... Haydn, a drone, a scattering of grace note, and a cellist's smile.

Gus

The rich life of a free-lance viola player...

2004-10-10T07:47:00.000-07:00

The life of a free-lance violist in this city is unpredictable and occasionally exciting. Certainly the money or security of the work is nowhere close to that enjoyed by a full-time violist in a major symphony orchestra. The major Orchestra in this town (which is considered to be "second tier") , for example, pays its section string players around sixty thousand dollars a year. And that is the starting salary. When I play a free-lance job , I am lucky to come away with 200 dollars. That is on a good day. And this only happens once or twice a month. But the lack of financial reward suffered by the free-lance musician is more than made up for by the quirky experiences that often often come about in our insecure and ill-paid occupation.

The past two weeks offer three good examples of this. I played three jobs. And
all three were, for different reasons, a bit quirky.

Job #1: played in a "pick-up" orchestra that backed up a group of prominant pop musicians from Mexico. The concert was devoted to the music of Augistin Lara.

Job #2: played in the viola section of a suburban Symphony orchestra. The concert was devoted to 19th century Russian music.

Job #3 : played fiddle tunes during the cocktail hour that preceded a square dance sponsered by a local Episcopalian Church with my friend "Joe Fingers"...a splendid guitarist. We played a set of English Country Dances in a "country and western style" (to more fit in with the "square dance theme" of the evening.) I'm glad the English County Dance Society wasn't there to hear the performance. They would have taken care of us in short order; charging us with high crimes against musical style and, after the execution, lodging our sorry bones under the back porch of the venerable church in which we had lately commited our musical and stylistic crimes.

I'll reflect on these three jobs in the next few blogs.

Gus

Mr. Perlman's half-sized violin...

2004-10-02T13:46:00.000-07:00

Recently a friend sent me an interesting article about Chicago's Fine Arts Building. I have visited this venerable pile on Michigan Avenue many times; on the 11th floor is a music store that specializes in early music editions. Many happy hours have been spent in that shop browsing through shelf upon shelf of music from obscure Dutch, German and English publishers of 16th and 17th century music (always followed by a wonderful Thai meal at a place just around the corner.)

One anecdote from the article recounted the remarkable story of George Perlman, a noted (and long-lived) violin teacher who had, for seventy -four years, rented studio space in the Fine Arts Building. When he was 99, he applied to the building's owner for another five-year lease. The owner, perhaps as optimistic as Mr. Perlman, agreed to the request. And the violin teacher almost made it. He died four years later at the age of 103...teaching his last lesson two months before his death.

A wonderful story. But that is not the end of it.

Yesterday I talked to the mother of one of my public school students. I suggested to her that her daughter not bring her violin to school for lessons because it was an unusually fine instrument. It would be much safer for me to provide a school instrument. The mother told me that it was indeed a fine instrument. She herself had used it as a child in Chicago. The violin she told me, had been given to her "by her uncle George...a well-known Chicago Violin teacher.

"Uncle George" and "Chicago" jostled my grey cells a little:

"That wouldn't be George Perlman by any chance?" I asked.

"Yes. Uncle George. He died just a few years ago. He was 103."

So in my class this year is George Perlman's grand-niece. And, serendipitously, she is almost ready to start the Vivaldi A minor concerto. Why serendipitous? Because there is a well-known student concerto that teachers often assign to violin students before they start working on the Vivaldi to help them prepare for that famous concerto. Next week we will start working on this piece together.

The name of this music: Concertino In The Style Of Vivaldi

The composer: George Perlman.

Gus

Delmore Schwartz and Sewing Machines...

2004-09-25T06:10:00.000-07:00

I am an occasional seller of books. Mostly I buy and rarely sell. When I do part with a book , it is usually by means of the internet. And curiously enough, most of my selling is to people far away. Of the one hundred - fifty books offered for sale, I have sold about a third ...most to such exotic places as Malta, Sydney, Hong Kong and Hoboken. It's nice to know that my books rate in foriegn capitals, but the frustration is that I never get to meet my customers face to face.

So it was a pleasent surprise last weekend when a fellow a few miles away ordered one of my books . I immediately offered to hand deliver it. Here, at last, was a chance to meet one of my customers.

The book itself was an unusual one...Summer Knowledge... by the gifted and sad American poet, Delmore Schwartz. The customer mentioned that he is a Schwartz collecter. All the more reason to meet him. How many people in this world collect Delmore? I thought this highly unusal and even a bit peculiar...but who am I, an obsessive collector of S. J. Perelman , to criticize?

I showed up to the customer's apartment, a dingy place in the shadow of huge power lines and fifty feet away from the north- south highway. But inside his neat apartment the highway and power lines became as distant as Afganistan. His Schwart-iana was carefully arranged on the top shelp of a beautiful oak bookcase, and wonder of wonders, artfully scattered about the rooms of his small apartment were a bevy of antique sewing machines. Singers to be precise.

I never knew that old Singers from the Twnties, Thirties, and Forties could be so graceful. But grace was only part of it. According to my host, perfectly calibrated as well. "Look at this honey" he said reverently as he genly flicked a bit of dust of of a Model 128 Serial No. EA630687 model from 1937. "To this day, nothing straight-stiches better..." His voice lowered with emotion.

(To give you an idea of the beauty of these machines...http://www.dincum.com/imagelibraryindex.html )

All because I hand delivered Summer Knowledge, I had the chance to help a Delmore Schwartz man complete his collection. And I was able to admire some beautiful and graceful Singers.

Gus

Lytton Strachey is a real card...

2004-08-05T12:48:00.000-07:00

So why Strachey? To put it simply and perhaps crudely: he's a hoot. He is more than that, of course; he is a historian, a biographer, a literary observer, but beyond all that, he is damned funny. Go to the bookshelf and pull down Eminent Victorians, Portraits In Miniature, Books and Characters...and (how can we forget?) Elizabeth And Essex or Queen Victoria. Have yourself a good chuckle. Writing humor that lasts more than half a generation is difficult. The funny guys at the local comedy cafe just doesn't make the cut. Their material is too much dependent on the topical. I need someone who can make me laugh by describing absurdity that is dependent not on current politics, movies, or grocery strore frustrations , but humor dependent upon the absurdity of the human condition.

Certain writers can do that. S. J. Perelman is one. And Strachey is another. In The Life, Illness, And Death Of Dr. North Strachey comments upon the memoirs of Roger North, brother to John North who was Master Of Trinity College in the early 17th Century. A portion of Roger North's memoirs include a description of his brother's troubled life. As we read Strachey's brief summary of these troubles , we soon discover something reassuring. No matter how impressive were John North's intellectual and academic achievements, it is immediately evident that the Master of Trinity and Professor of Greek in The University of Cambridge was a kook.

This is happy news to those of us who will never be Masters of Trinity or Professor of Greek in The University Of Cambridge. At least we have our marbles. John North clearly did not.

Strachey sums up the whole absurd story:

In 1677, when he was thirty-two, his career reached its climax, and he was made Master of Trinity. The magnificent appointment proved to be his ruin. Faced with the governance of the great college over which the omniscient Barrow had lately ruled and which the presence of Newton still made illustrious, the Doctor's sense of responsibility, of duty, and of inadequacy became almost pathological. His days and his nights passed in one ceaseless round of devotion, instruction and administration, reading, writing, and abstemiousness. He had no longer any time for the young and the fair; no time for a single particle of enjoyment; no time even for breakfast. His rule was strict beyond all measure and precedent. With relentless severity he pursued the undergraduates through their exercises and punished them for their peccadilloes......And death was always before his eyes; for now a settled hypochondria was added to his other miseries. He had little doubt that he would perish of the stone...he displayed before his embarrassed friends the obvious symptoms of fatal disorder. "Gravel ! Red gravel !" he gasped. In reality his actual weakness lay in quite another direction. One day he caught cold, it grew worse, his throat was affected, his uvula swelled. The inflammation continued, and before long the unhappy doctor became convinced that his uvula would have to be cut off. All the physicians of the University were summoned, and they confessed that the case was grave....Their prescriptions were terrific and bizarre...But it was too late to intervene; the treatment was continued, while the Doctor struggled on with the duties of his office. Two scholars were to be publicly admonished for scandalous conduct; the fellows assembled; the youths stood trembling; the master appeared. Emaciated, ghastly, in his black gown, the extraordinary creature began a tirade of bitter and virulent reproof; when suddenly his left leg swerved beneath him, and he fell in a fit upon the ground. It was apoplexy.

Poor Dr. North. All the diplomas in the world couldn't save him from becoming a nutcase.

The title of Strachey's essay has a message. North's life, his illness, and his death, are all given equal footing. Dr. North struggled to reach to reach Parnassus, and the end result is that three centuries later, those remarkable achievements are obscured by the curious facts, both pitiful and somehow amusing, of his illness and death. So much for studying hard. Where does it get you?

Strachey again:

The past is almost entirely a blank. The indescribable complexities, the incalculable extravagances of a myriad consciousnesses have vanished forever. Only by sheer accident, when some particular drop from an ocean of empty water is slipped under the microscope -- only when some Roger North happens to write a foolish memoir, which happens to survive, and which we happen to open -- do we perceive for an amazed moment or two the universe of serried and violent sensations that lie concealed so perfectly in the transparency of oblivion.

So next time you think you are going to have a nervous breakdown or a stroke, take down Portraits In Miniature from the shelf and read The Life, Illness and Death of Dr. North. You will be reassured that you are not the only one to suffer from nerves or imminent apoplexy. And even if you are about to pop off, in a century or so, no one will remember or care about it anyway.

If that's not reassuring, I don't know what is.

Thanks Lytton.

Good-bye George...Hello Lytton...

2004-07-30T17:41:00.000-07:00

Thank God I'm off my George Bernard Shaw kick. It was fun, but after a while his music criticism, witty and insightful as it was, began to grate on me. Music criticism is, I believe, a mean profession. You are judging someone far braver than yourself from the safety of the plush velvet audience seat of the concert hall. A music critic can pan a performance and perhaps be describing accurately. But the performer can always say back to the critic in the manner of Winston Churchill "Yes, I performed badly. Tomorrow I will perform better and you will still be a music critic."

So -- Good-bye George...Hello Lytton...

Lytton Strachey that is. Last night I picked up Portraits in Miniature. Why this affection (literary affection that is !) for Lytton. I'll try to figure that out soon ...but now the rain has stopped...its time to put 16 miles on the bike. The Sad Story Of Dr. Colbatch and Muggleton will have to wait. The open road calls!

Haydn and peanut butter cookies...

2004-07-17T19:16:00.000-07:00

Played two string quartets last night. Haydn's opus 77 no. 2 (his last complete quartet) and Beethoven's opus 59 no. 1. Quartet playing has and continues to be wonderful recreation for me. In between movements of these venerable pieces we gossiped and laughed about things far removed from what you might think would be inspired by the music we were playing. We touched on politics, recipes, other musicians in town who delight or annoy us. It was as much a social recreation as a musical one. Perhaps more so. This is something I have noticed recently. As I begin my fourth decade of playing chamber music, my quartet friends, their views, their laughter, their idle chatter as we struggle through the repertoire is becoming as important to me as the repertoire itself.

After we had played, the hostess served us peanut cookies baked that afternoon by her twelve year old daughter. For some reason, the crumbly richness of those cookies is more vivid to me today than the music that came before. I'm not saying that opus 77 no. 2 and opus 59 no. 1 are not worthwhile. They are more than worthwhile. It is those quartets , after all, that brought us together last night.

But perhaps it's time that I begin to take peanut butter cookies a bit more seriously.

S.J. Perelman's "Dawn Ginsbergh's Revenge...."

2004-07-11T07:09:00.000-07:00

And I'm one of her victims. Perelman's first book is uncommon and expensive. Despite that I have two of them. This last one cost a small fortune. So my Perelman collection has every book he ever wrote except for the notoriously "difficult" (as collectors and dealers call books that are hard to find) Strictly From Hunger and The Dream Department.

A collecting mania is hard to explain, much less to defend. But I can say that my affection for Perelman goes back a long way and he has an honored place in my book collection. Westward Ha! I first read in High School. And to this day, it makes me laugh. Hirschfeld's art work only helps the situation. My dad was a big fan as well -- to such an extent that, on his death bed, he asked me to read choice selections from the book. Seven days away from leaving this life, when most mortals who have their wits about them are busy telling their beads or ruminating upon on sacred texts, he was convulsed with laughter as I read, among other passages from Westward Ha! the following description of one of Perelman's maritime adventures on board the Marine Flyer as it carried Pereman and Hirschfeld across the South China Sea:

Mr. Fuscher...was espoused to a lady who, to put it mildly, had been richly endowed. Every time she strode on deck in the pitifully brief halter and shorts she affected, eyes popped like champagne corks and strong men sobbed aloud. It did not seem possible that mere wisps of silk could confine such voluptuous charms; in fact, there were those who lived in the hope, that a truant gust of wind might create a sensational diversion. On one occasion, I lashed myself to the brink of nervous collapse reading the same sentence over and over in Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic desperately trying to ignore Mrs. Fuscher as she stood silhouetted against the sun in a diaphanous sports dress. I though it rather poor sportsmanship of Hirschfeld, incidently, to show her a sketch of his representing me as a wolf baying against the moon, when he himself was so patently on the prowl.

At the end of his life my dad had a small library of Judaica in his nursing home room. There was Maimonides and Buber. But there was also Perelman.

I and Thou is good. But for my dying father, Westward Ha! was better.

I suffer a hallucination...

2004-07-06T12:07:00.000-07:00

I am an amateur essayist. I'm also completely disorganized and tend to loose things. In an attempt to keep my essays in one place, I'll occasionally place one on this site. I wrote these one a few years ago after playing a wedding job in a place called Beaver Creek....

Usually I don't look forward to string quartet wedding jobs; the repertoire is, year after year, mostly the same (Pachelbel Canon, Entrance of the Queen of Sheba, Trumpet Voluntary, etc.) and the job I played last Saturday in Beaver Creek promised to be no different. You would think that the Queen of Sheba, poor girl, would get tired of it all. The same music, the same rural "Cream City Brick" church in the same placid little rural town -- and (how could it be)? the very same couple walking down the aisle. Was it possible that Todd and Heather were getting married yet again? Enough is enough you would think. The problem for me here was clearly that I was suffering from a case of WJHS: "Wedding Job Hallucination Syndrome." It had to happen sooner or later. But I had to keep reminding myself: there is some good news. According to experts this malaise can be fought or at least postponed. NO...I had never been in the township of Beaver Creek before. NO ...
This was the first time I had ever seen Heather and Todd. NO... This is the first time I had played the third violin part to Pachelbel's celebrated Canon.

But here is the strange thing. Despite this panic attack, I came away from that church and Beaver Creek thinking that the wedding job was really one of the most remarkable experience of my musical life. How could this be? Certainly the level of musicianship was solid, but that's not enough to make it seem like I had come face to face with St. Cecilia herself. Although I hadn't played with these particular people for quite some time, I remembered them to be all pleasant people and expressive musicians as well. It was as if we were all good friends who hadn't seen each other for a long time and here, in the middle of nowhere (or "East Jesus" as my dear parents used to say) we quite unexpectedly found ourselves, after many years of going our separate ways, together again.

So the musical part of the occasion was nice enough. But certainly not nice enough to make it as memorable as it was. What was going on? There had to be more to it -- something else I couldn't quite get. But then in measure 48 of "Entrance of the Queen Of Sheba," it happened. For it was precisely in that measure, during a convenient rest, that I looked up and saw her. The Queen of Sheba herself. And she wasn't your typical Queen either. This one was not Elizabeth Taylor with lots of cheap ornamental gold jewelry. This one was different: She looked like she was recently arrived from Ethiopia -- and, better still, she wasn't marching. She was dancing. There was joy in her every part as she slowly made her entrance from the back the church exactly three feet above the aisle. Elizabeth Taylor this was not. This was more Odetta than anything. Measure 48 and there was the Queen. Honey...what took you so long?

And if all this wasn't exciting enough, by about measure 62 I made another discovery. She was not the only one. Four others people in that church were dancing as well. It was us; the string quartet. We had come many miles from our homes to Beaver Creek so that we could boogie, in our stilted subrban style, with the Queen.

And we had come to Beaver Creek to dance with each other as well. For do not musicians, (I have come to think) and especially string players, when a certain consanguinity is achieved, become dancers? The retaking of bows in unison, the slight and subtle swaying in time to the tactus of the music, the eye contact shared that helps make a physical gestures happen at exactly the right moment so that the motion itself becomes significant and even radiant. And when we play music do not the fingerboards of our instruments change into dance floors? It is not only feet that can pick up and move. Fingers can do it too. And do. And in Beaver Creek no less. If it can happen there, can't it happen in Peoria as well?

There will someday come a time, I have often worried, that even the most
sublime string quartet will fail to move me. But now I have a different,
more reassuring knowledge. Because even if I know exactly what musically is going to come next in "Death and The Maiden" or Opus 76 #5 , and I don't look forward to it for the mundane reason that I have heard it so many times before, I will still be able to find joy in the dance of the quartet, in my own dance, in the dance of the moment. The music might not be new, but the dance always is.

Should we try to be singers when we play our sonatas and trios? Perhaps. It's nice to think of Chaliapin, or Buddy Holly or Alfred Deller or Melissa Manchester as we go about our work. And we can learn much from them. But there is always that frustrating understanding that no matter how close we come and how well we phrase, they always did it better than we ever could. The greatness of Heifetz was that he was Jascha and not Buddy. Buddy Heifetz just doesn't sound right.

But as dancers we always make it to the church on time. We can always come from Sheba, or from anywhere, and, exactly three feet above Heather's future mother-in-law, start to dance.

Bookstore news...

2004-06-24T17:49:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine recently sent the following sad news:

Milwaukee has lost a fine book shop with the closing of "The Constant Reader" on Irving Place. For over twenty years, David, the genial proprietor, bought his books carefully and sold them fairly. Other stores in town with ten times the amount of stock, seem to offer nothing. "The Constant Reader" had 15,000 books that seemed to unfailingly and magically, offer everything.

It was also a gathering place for the various eccentrics that give Milwaukee's eastside its special character. Ray, the octogenarian former boxing trainer who would every day lament to all who would listen how his sport had fallen on evil days; Joe, a writer of occasionally clever limericks, who would use the store as an impromptu stage to recite his latest work; they, and many others, were always welcomed at "The Constant Reader." David would listen without complaint and occasionally offer his own perspectives. One of his observations that has stayed with me: a good book is worth four dollars and a really good book is worth six dollars. David sold lots of good books.

It is rumored that the space occupied by "The Constant Reader" will soon be taken by a tattoo and piercing emporium.

I have visited Milwaukee many times. And I always made it a point to stop by "The Constant Reader." My favorite book By The Ionian Sea by George Gissing, I bought at that venerable shop.

Sad news indeed...but at least I know where to go for my next piercing.

From clef to chef...

2004-05-31T13:00:00.000-07:00

A Sensible Clef is not far from a sensible chef. So here is a recipe that I have been tinkering with over the past few weeks. Guaranteed to turn the most fearsome Philistine into a gentle viola player:

Cook up some brown rice. (Five parts water to two parts rice (so that the rice ends up quite soft.) Into the boiling water press 4 or 5 cloves of garlic and a tablespoon of curry powder. Chill the cooked rice for a few hours.

Into a cup of the cooked rice mix enough tahini to give the stuff a gooey consistency, added chopped scallions, chopped raw cashews, a dash of bread crumbs and a generous dash of hot smoked Spanish paprika. A dash of Marsala never hurts.

Form small patties and brown well in olive or safflower oil.

Serves enough to feed one Philistine or two viola players.

.

The Sensible Clef recommends...

2004-05-31T07:36:00.000-07:00

If you are interested in reading how life is perceived through the insightful lens of a mandolin player, I highly recommend:

http://mandolinda.blogspot.com/

It looks like this well-written blog will talk about mando-issues and offer an occassional restaurant review. Mandolinists often do have a different take on events...I highly recommend this blog. It's clearly not for Philistines. (See my previous post.)

Shaw and Philistines....

2004-05-31T07:31:00.000-07:00

I can't get away form the dammed Shaw book. The passage below made me laugh so hard that I almost fell off the sofa.

About Alfieri's Overture to "Saul" GBS writes:

It is a fair specimen of a modern concert overture, being provided with a program which instructs us as to the intention of the various passages. Thus the trombone solos, shich, we should mention, were played without any of the noisy vulgarity which our experience elsewhere has led us to associate with that instrument, are illustrative of the wrath of Saul; the harp indicates the soothing minstrelay of David; and when a trumpet and side drum leave the orchestra and perform vigorously in the lobby, we know that the Philistines are approaching, and that the end of the overture is at hand.

No wonder we have never heard of the composer Alfieri and his forgotten "Saul" What way is that to depict Philistines? Any self respecting Philistine would be insulted. A trumpet and side drum in the lobby? At least they were playing vigorously.

Shaw has it right. Most program music just doesn't make it. And my feeling is that to add a program to abstract music is even more annoying than listening to a trumet hand side drum pretend to be Philistines. Shaw again:

Excepting such brief suggestions as Beethoven prefixed to he movements of a very few of his works, or the fanciful titles which Schumann gave to his pianoforte pieces, detailed programs seem to be a complete mistake. They may impart a certain interest to a composition for those who are incapable of appreciating abstract music, but they do so at the expense of the dignity of an art whose true province is foreign to the illustration of the commonplace and material detail.

The sun just came out, a fox just wandered through the back garden. I'm going for a bike ride. I hope I don't run into any Philistines...

What will you read about here....

2004-05-29T06:17:00.000-07:00

What books I have been reading ...and buying. What viola music (hence "The Sensible Clef") I have been playing, and an occassional recounting of humorous or shocking experiences from my daily toils as a music teacher in the unarcadian groves of public school-dom. I expect only a few people to read this. If you are reading, you probably know who I am. Please help me (like the greatest composer of the 16th century) remain anonymous. This will give me a bit more freedom in describing my public school adventures. We wouldn't want my Principals to read this and, like those unfortunate ethnomusicologists reading George Bernard Shaw, (see previous post) fall down with a case of the apoplexy.

Siamese music...

2004-05-28T21:02:00.000-07:00

So what have I been reading lately? I'm almost embarrassed to admit to browsing through the music criticism of George Bernard Shaw. Opinionated and even bigoted stuff. But terribly funny. Take this for example...its enough to give an ethnomusicologist apoplexy:

The Court band of the King Of Siam, which plays certain compositions that have been handed down by aural tradition and have never, it is said, been committed to writing, plays occasionally at the Albert Hall. Their performance, though most of the visitors find it merely outlandish, is not wholly beyond the range of Western Sympathy. Some of the airs and instrumental effects are not unpleasant. The Siamese scale contains no leading note, and the attempts to play God Save The Queen and other European airs are rather trying in consequence, but they succeed better with Scotch airs such as Auld Lang Syne, which is very like their own Pegu Affliction. But a little of the Siamese music goes, it must be confessed, a very long way.

So much for Siamese music...

Why "The Sensible Clef"?

2004-05-28T20:04:00.000-07:00

Because middle C is on the middle line...

Gus