It was a delightful time spending an early evening with Bernard Rands last fall, when he was in town for a concert and recording with Network for New Music. After one of the recording sessions, I interviewed him for Network, and they’ve just released it as a podcast here. I won’t recount any of it, but take a listen to his fascinating discussion of the works on the also-just-released Network CD, Now Again.

In the 24-minute interview, Rands talks about each of the works on the recording: Prelude/…sans voix parmi les voix…, Scherzi, Walcott Songs, and “now again”—fragments from Sappho. He also gives some thoughts on teaching, on his composing voice, and on hard work.

Looks like I just recounted some of it.

Keep a lookout on the sidebar under Now is the Time, as this will show up on a broadcast before too long.

Saturday, September 4th, 2010, 5:00-6:00 p.m.

Louis Spohr (1784-1859). Overture to Jessonda (1822). Budapest Symphony Orchestra, Alfred Walter. Marco Polo 223122. Tr 6. 7:35

Henri Vieuxtemps (1820-1881). Fantasia appassionata, Op. 35 (1846-52). Misha Keylin, violin, Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Mogrelia. Naxos 570974. Tr 1. 17:58

Vieuxtemps. Ballade et Polonaise, Op. 38 (1860). Misha Keylin, violin, Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, Andrew Mogrelia. Naxos 570974. Tr 2. 15:16

Interview with violinist Misha Keylin

Henri Vieuxtemps stands in the center of that line of Classical and Romantic violinist composers. In fact, a chronological list of the 40 biggest violinist composers, from the beginning (Arcangelo Corelli, b.1653) to well into the 20th century (Amadeo Roldán, b.1900) also places Vieuxtemps right in the middle, at number 20. For a chart—yes, we made a chart!—look here.

The list is an instructive picture of the legacy of Vieuxtemps, since he serves as a nice fulcrum between two eternally opposed forces in classical music. He balances entertaining the audience with satisfying the academy, surface virtuosity with musical depth.

It’s not easily done. Nicolò Paganini wowed the much younger Vieuxtemps—and everyone else—with almost magical pyrotechnics, but most agree that beneath the sizzle of his music there’s not much steak. Joseph Joachim, on the other hand, wrote solid works not known for brilliance. Vieuxtemps seems perfectly balanced between the two.

Henri Vieuxtemps, 14

What explains it? A clue may come from two Ludwigs, Spohr and Beethoven. At 13, Vieuxtemps met Spohr (then, as now, usually known by the French form of his name, Louis). Not only a virtuoso violinist, Spohr was a gifted composer who wrote in every genre. He saw depth as well as talent in the young prodigy and aided his career. Vieuxtemps was in Vienna with Spohr and other colleagues of Beethoven, who had died there seven years earlier. Someone showed the young man the titanic Beethoven concerto, and after only two weeks of practice the now-14-year-old Vieuxtemps fired a cannon shot over Vienna by performing it. His future was assured, and so too, incidentally, was the future of the Beethoven concerto. It had been almost forgotten since its ragged 1806 premiere, but Vieuxtemps put it back into the consciousness of the musical world. Its place would be cemented into the repertoire ten years later by the even younger (12-year-old!) Joachim.

The love of Vieuxtemps for Beethoven’s music continued, and he often played and taught the old master’s chamber music. Perhaps Beethoven’s influence explains the integration of orchestra and soloist that is a hallmark of the Vieuxtemps style.

We’re fortunate that Misha Keylin has made a special project of recording so much of this literature. Violinists may know the Fifth concerto; Keylin has recorded all seven. In addition to his gorgeous playing, we get to hear two quite different instruments on this program. Keylin performs the Fantasia appassionata on his own 1831 Gagliano, rich and burnished. But for the Ballade et Polonaise he turns to the 1715 “Baron Knoop” Stradivarius, loaned especially for this recording. The instrument is a wonder, all silver fire. Though the violins inhabit distinct sound-worlds, Keylin’s poetic soul glows throughout.

In the studio he’ll share with us why he’s attracted to Vieuxtemps, who sums up so much of what defines the violinist composer. In the process, we may find ourselves likewise drawn to Vieuxtemps, this man in the middle of all that brilliance.

This is the truth. I wasn’t looking around for my CD (I mean, I do that sometimes, but not this time), I was looking for an Ethel Smyth recording, really I was, on my web resource of first resort, ArkivMusic, which I’m glad I have bookmarked because I’m always misspelling it as ArkivMusik, shouldn’t it be ArkivMusik, if you’re going to go to all that trouble of having the k and the iv? Well, on the way to Smyth (and I always go through Arkiv’s fun narrowing-by-letter-then-letters string instead of typing in the search box, whether I know the spelling or not, and after all I always want to put an e after Smyth), who is a fine composer, when I got to Sm I thought I’d take a detour to see if a Smith Vespers was in the house. Last time I had checked—a year ago?— it wasn’t.

And then there it was. Hoo-wee, went my heart.

Even though I have the Gramophone quote here, it seems so much more real in ArkivMusik, I mean ArkivMusic. Seeing it there, the album cover, the audio samples, my name spelled right, the buttons that everyone else has, it seems like now it’ll never be lost. It’s been on Amazon and everywhere else since the release, so I’m being silly, but seeing it on my favorite CD resource was a little thrill, I’ll admit.

I found Dame Ethel, too. Love that ArkivMusic.

Then I thought, “Wouldn’t it be neat to have one of those timeline charts?,” and tried to make one in Excel. Well, you can’t, not really. OK, I can’t. I discovered that they’re called Gantt charts (who knew?) and that Excel doesn’t do Gantt. But it will give you hints on some workarounds, so I worked around and came up with one.

It took an embarrassingly long time to make, and is unuseable for insertion into my normal description of the show, but after all that work, I had to let people see it. So here it is. Click on it for a version you can actually read. I know there are more names that could be added. But not many, and they wouldn’t upset the thesis of my original hasty remark. Anyway, these are the biggest names I could find, but even so, some are known only to the most learned of cognoscenti (among whom I do not count myself).

Saturday, August 14th, 2010, 5:00-6:00 p.m. (The second Saturday this month!)

Henry Cowell (1897-1965). Concerto Piccolo (1942). Stefan Litwin, piano, Saarbrücken Radio Symphony Orchestra, Michael Stern. Col Legno WWE 20064. Tr 16-18. 13:07

Cowell. Irish Suite (1925-29). 1. The Banshee, 2. The Leprechaun, 3. The Fairy Bells. Cheryl Seltzer, string piano, Continuum, Joel Sachs. Naxos 559192. Tr 19-21. 16:39

Cowell. Ongaku for Orchestra (1957). The Louisville Orchestra, Robert S. Whitney. First Edition FECD-0003. Tr 2-3. 14:06

The name of Henry Cowell may be unfamiliar to many classical music listeners, but Cowell is one of the biggest influences on modern American music, inspiring composers as disparate as John Cage, George Gershwin, Burt Bacharach, and generations down to this day. His own music isn’t heard that often, but on this month’s Discoveries we’ll listen to three fascinating pieces out of his gargantuan and stylistically surprising catalog. We’ll also talk to musicologist Gary Galván, who will share some of the facets of Cowell’s life and music that made him the important figure that he is.

Henry Cowell was the author of an indispensable textbook for modern composers, New Musical Resources. He was the biographer of Charles Ives, the publisher of a new music journal, a formidable pianist, the inventor of playing techniques, the designer of instruments, and the composer of almost 1,000 works.

He never went to school as a child. His mother, a former schoolteacher, saw to his education, and among the musical talents appearing at an early age was virtuosity on the piano. As a teenager he experimented with different ways to play the instrument, and Cowell became the first composer to write pieces based on a fist-and-forearm tone-cluster technique. When he concertized in Europe, exhibiting this radical music before astonished audiences, Béla Bartók asked him if he could use these methods in his own music.

The Concerto Piccolo (small concerto) for piano is a later work but incorporates these youthful forays into sound. While they certainly grab our attention, they are not as jarring as we might anticipate. Rather, Cowell builds up textures that are both lyrical and powerful, and accompanies the piano with an often simple orchestral voice.

Cowell’s other non-traditional use of the piano was to play inside of it. In his Irish Suite the pianist strums and hits the strings, sometimes silently depressing the keys to accentuate certain notes. Cowell called this a “string piano,” but it’s the same instrument. He composed this for solo piano and then arranged it for piano with orchestra, which is the version we’ll hear.

Keenly interested in music from around the world, Cowell toured Asia in the late ‘50s with his wife Sidney, an expert in the burgeoning field of ethnomusicology. Out of this came Ongaku for Orchestra, based on the sounds of Japanese court music. Because of many works like this, and because he loved to use indigenous instruments from non-Western cultures, we might say that Cowell invented what is now called world music.

Even the folk movement can thank Henry Cowell. He introduced the two composers Charles Seeger and Ruth Crawford to each other; they married, and produced that American music icon, Pete Seeger.

The music on this program is just a brief look at the dynamo of influence Cowell was. Perhaps the always-observant John Cage said it best. Cage knew a thing or two about turning the musical world on its ear, but he called Henry Cowell the “open sesame for new music in America.”

A Grand Celebration
The Philadelphia Orchestra live with the Wanamaker Organ
The Historic Grand Court Concert for Macy’s 150th Anniversary
Peter Richard Conte, organist, Rossen Milanov, conductor
Marcel Dupré Cortege and Litany, Joseph Jongen Sinfonia Concertante, Edward Elgar Pomp and Circumstance No. 1
Gothic G-49270

You’re careful—Indiana-Jones-careful—not to touch anything. You tip-toe over wires and ducts and around wooden stairways and you see them everywhere. The pipes. Pipes thick as elms that rise two storeys, pipes small as pencils, tin pipes, wood pipes, round and square pipes, growing, it seems, out of the fractals of corners, advancing on you… but the astonishing realization is that there are people here who know exactly where every pipe is.

This is the Wanamaker Organ. It has patio-sized bellows that could crush a lawn tractor. It is the largest functional musical instrument on the planet. The entire Grand Court of the store (now Macy’s), surrounded by condominiums of ranks and choirs and chests and louvers, is really the instrument, and it is for this instrument, with the Philadelphia Orchestra, that Joseph Jongen wrote his Sinfonia Concertante. The deaths of the composer’s father and the store owner postponed, and then cancelled, the scheduled 1928 premiere. The music has been heard around the world, but not until 2008 did it finally erupt in this place, as if it had been waiting all this time. The CD of this live performance is worth the wait.

Facing all this power, you might expect to be pummelled, but the surprise is how lightly Peter Richard Conte makes this dance. He and Rossen Milanov coordinate these two behemoths—this great orchestra and organ—with precision. They delight in the illumined edges of sound, where harmonies brush by each other and decays ruffle the silence. You can almost feel the space. Just don’t touch anything.

One thing surprised me that I hadn’t noticed before. In the concert and at the recording sessions the following week this occurred to me: these 22 singers can get loud. Not wild, wobbly, shouty loud, but serious wheelhouse power, controlled. When Donald calls for it, and just when you think they can’t possibly give any more, they slip into a fifth gear and leave you shaking your head and smiling. This happened a few times, in my piece and others. It may seem like a silly observation—that they can sing really loud—but when you hear it live, silly it’s not.

Yes, yes, they can sing soft, too!

In the July 19 Philadelphia Inquirer, David Patrick Stearns wrote:

Frank Havroy’s Psalm, David Shapiro’s The Years From You to Me, and Kile Smith’s Where Flames a Word (all Celan-based pieces heard Saturday) were mercurial in manner and form, and they shared a harmonic sense in which innovation was born of intense expressive necessity. At times, the fusion of words and music was staggering.

Shapiro’s fine piece (which was a premiere) was full of dreamy motivic echoes. Smith’s peaked emotionally with a soprano-section outburst on the words, “I understand, I do…” suggesting a profound union of souls. Performances were particularly savvy with a clarity of diction that revealed the singular progression of each piece, thanks to conductor Donald Nally.

The recording sessions went very well. The CD, of all Paul Celan-based works, mostly from last year’s Month of Moderns, will be released on Navona. The Crossing will turn heads with this.

The very next week, we’ll be recording this and the other Celan Project commissions, for a release on Navona Records. The NEA has funded this with a matching grant, so if you’d like to contribute toward the match, there’s more information here. Just heard their MOM II concert of Kamran Ince, Francis Pott, Lansing McLoskey, James MacMillan, and Gabriel Jackson, and they’re astounding as ever. Looking forward to Saturday night, which includes their Levine Project commission of a new Paul Fowler work.

The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

There’s a piece here, I thought. “The better angels of our nature” became the focus and title, and I composed a chant-like beginning to an ethereal work. Trouble started, though, when I started hearing chords under this chant-snippet, two chords, actually, the tonic in root position followed by the tonic in first position,

an unremarkable progession, but heard to great effect in Puccini’s La Bohème*

all the way to the piano coda of Clapton’s “Layla,”**

with, I confess, #2 sticking in my head the most. So, this was a chant no longer, but a tune with accompaniment. The angels slowly ascended to another (perhaps future) piece, and as I worked out the tune, it became less angelic-sounding, less ethereal, and broader, more determined.

The angels ushered in other spirits, though, the spirits of Gettysburg and Independence Day, whose anniversaries were barely a week after the 26 June 2010 premiere. It may be making too much of it, but I feel that this is a peculiarly American work, inspired by Lincoln, echoing a British guitarist immersed in Southern rock, and an Italian opera on a French subject, written for the Midwest-born president of an originally Pennsylvania German college.

Bassoonist Jeffrey Centafont accompanied by John French performed this with great sensitivity, and I was almost overwhelmed by the warmth of the reception by those assembled for President Strassburger’s honor. I’ve already transposed this for performances on soprano saxophone, and believe that any number of instruments might play this successfully.

* To tell you the truth, I don’t actually know what that second Puccini chord is. Sometimes it sounds like a tonic major 7th (with that tonic E delayed all the way to the third beat), and sometimes like a simple mediant (with that melodic E just a pedal holdover). It depends, as with much chordal analysis, on your point of view, I suppose, which is why I bother with chordal analysis, I suppose, very seldom.

** In the lead sheet that 2nd bar is a Cmaj7, but I always hear that with E in the bass, don’t you? And actually, I read that the coda was written by drummer Jim Gordon.

Saturday, July 3rd, 2010, 5:00-6:00 p.m.

Ferde Grofé (1892-1972). Café Society (1938). Philadelphia Sinfonia, Gary White. Live. 27:26

Ferde Grofé. Mississippi Suite (1926). Boston Pops Orchestra, Keith Lockhart. RCA 68786. Tr 3-6. 13:38

It’s a work by one of the significant names in American music, but it hasn’t been heard for 70 years, until now. We know Ferde Grofé as the composer of the well known Grand Canyon Suite and as the original orchestrator of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue for Paul Whiteman’s band, but Café Society is a ballet from the height of his career that fell into oblivion. Gary White, conductor of the Philadelphia Sinfonia, the youth orchestra that recently played this at Philadelphia’s Kimmel Center, will share with us the full story behind this fanciful evocation of Prohibition-era nightlife.

Commissioned by Catherine Littlefield for her ballet company, Café Society depicts the swanky nightclubs of the time. Certain aspects of American culture we now take for granted actually first sprang forth in the 1930s: rich folks mingling with entertainers, gawkers slipping tenners to doormen to rub shoulders with the celebrities, paparazzi snapping in from the edges, and gossip columnists enticing the rest of us to read all about it in the morning paper.

Grofé satirizes it all in Café Society. He was in the vanguard of a controversial movement—the mixing of jazz and classical music—and his longevity doing it (first with Whiteman, then on his own) attests to his success. He and Littlefield both worked in musical theater and knew exactly what they wanted from this piece: a fun entertainment. It includes a cab whistle, a boxing match (with count out), a romance, and a periodically-almost-falling-over drunk. Grofé conducted the 1938 premiere in Chicago, but a 1942 concert performance by the Pennsylvania W.P.A. Symphony Orchestra in Philadelphia (one of the 33 federal or “civic” orchestras around the country) yielded the materials housed in the Fleisher Collection.

The composer’s son, Ferde Grofé Jr., thrilled to have this music performed again, granted Gary White complete access to the original sketches at the Library of Congress. The conductor painstakingly compared those to the Fleisher materials and a piano reduction in the possession of dance historian Sharon Skeel. He cleared up a number of confusing passages and errors, Fleisher reprinted a new set, and the May 2010 performance was a rousing success. In the audience were a dancer from the very same Littlefield Company and a niece of Catherine Littlefield.

The Mississippi Suite, Grofé’s first major orchestral work, shows the composer’s fondness for what he called “the American musical spirit,” something he returned to again and again. The four movements—Father of Waters, Huckleberry Finn, Old Creole Days, Mardi Gras—are a travelogue, very like what he accomplished in suites for the Hudson River, Niagara, Hollywood, the 1964 New York World’s Fair, and, of course, the Grand Canyon. About his most famous work he wrote, “Always we must realize that there is much more to hear. Our land is rich in music, and if you listen you can hear it right now. This is our music you hear, surging forth, singing up to every one of us.” That is the significance of Ferde Grofé.