Whichblog

Say Joshua Bell decides to play his fiddle in a busy Washington, D.C. Metro station during the morning rush. How much dough would he rake in? See for yourself.

Artist Sol Lewitt died today at the age of 78. I first encountered Lewitt's work in Randy Coleman's Trends in Contemporary Music. (It was the most thought-provoking and engaging class I have ever been involved in, and it came at exactly the right time in my education. I would thank Mr. Coleman if I thought he would remember me.)

I still carry around a copy of Lewitt's Sentences on Conceptual Art:

1) Conceptual Artists are mystics rather than rationalists. They leap to conclusions that logic cannot reach.
5) Irrational thoughts should be followed absolutely and logically.
10) Ideas alone can be works of art; they are in a chain of development that may eventually find some form. All ideas need not be made physical.
20) Successful art changes our understanding of the conventions by altering our perceptions.
24) Perception is subjective.
25) The artist may not necessarily understand his own art. His perception is neither better nor worse than that of others.
26) An artist may perceive the art of others better than his own.
32) Banal ideas cannot be rescued by beautiful execution.
33) It is difficult to bungle a good idea.

April is Take a Friend to Orchestra Month. It seems the contributor articles - which should make for some interesting reading - haven't been posted yet.

I recently started a new blog dedicated to the woodwind quintet. Feel free to submit links to your group's page, articles, music, or anything else you think may be of interest.

It has been some time since I have closely followed the world of classical recordings, but I can't help getting wrapped up in the Joyce Hatto hoax. Who doesn't love a little controversy? Have a look for yourself. My favorite line - "We have yet to investigate a Hatto recording that has not proved to be a hoax."

Scroll down for a bio of the phantom conductor René Köhler.

From Alex Ross - "Jessica Duchen links to an internet discussion where one piano expert is quoted as saying that Minoru Nojima's Liszt playing is 'too clinical' and expressing a preference for Hatto — not aware that he's discussing the same performance!"

from Gramophone in 2006:

Celebrating Hatto's mastery and musicianship

Recorded between 1990 and 2004, these performances are reissued in brilliantly refurbished and clarified sound, forming part of a 100-CD discography. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that no other pianist, male or female, would even have considered such a comprehensive undertaking.

Doubting Thomases, of which there are apparently many, may well wonder how Joyce Hatto achieved such unalloyed mastery and musicianship when tragically beset with ill-health. But others will surely celebrate an awe-inspiring triumph of mind over matter, of the indomitable nature of the human spirit.

Even in the most daunting repertoire, her poise in the face of one pianistic storm after another is a source of astonishment. Her warmth, affection, ease and humanity strike you at every turn, her scale and command without a hint of superficial or hard-nosed virtuosity. Here, Liszt's occasional histrionics and theatricality are tempered with the most aristocratic quality.

In Preludio, the dazzling curtain-raiser, Hatto yields nothing to any other pianist in fearless authority, while the notorious difficulties of Feux follets are resolved with a surpassing fluency and vivacity. She is no less gloriously responsive to La ricordanza's heady romanticism (for Busoni, 'like a packet of yellowed love letters') and Etudes Nos 10-12 are natural triumphs of an unswerving vision and poetry, concluding performances that form a rare tribute to their symphonic weight and breadth, the quasi-orchestral might of Liszt's outsize opus.

The same attributes apply to Hatto's Chopin-Godowsky. And whether you consider Godowsky's elaborations delectable or outrageous - or both - you will only hear pure music from this pianist. Listen to her in Ignis fatuus (No 4) where, as Hatto herself ruefully puts it, Godowsky adds a few extra hours to your practice, or in the 'touch of paprika' she notes in the coda of No 7; in No 27 where Godowsky turns innocence into experience and sophistication with a vengeance, or in No 8 in what Hatto calls 'a riot of bravura ingenuity' ' you can only listen and wonder. Amazingly, she has all the time in the world to make her points in the turbulence of No 20 and what gentle sparkle, what unforced brilliance in 'Badinage', where Godowsky so mischievously gives you two Etudes for the price of one.

Joyce Hatto may well be 'the greatest pianist no one has heard of'; her work demands a book rather than just a review.

and Gramophone in 2007.

Get your Mozart fix - the Neue Mozart-Ausgabe is now online.

Seems some members of the Seattle Symphony don't play well with others.
Of course that's nothing compared to ol' Gesualdo.

Nos duo turha sumus

After a serious and ill-timed computer crash things are (basically) back to normal. While all my Whichpond files appear to have been recovered they were unreachable to me for a time, so I apologize to anyone who experiences a delay in an order they placed within the last two weeks. Music has started to ship again.

Out in the world beyond my computer - Sound files of new New York Philharmonic oboist Liang Wang have been posted on the NPR website. Upon hearing the clips a member of a double reed listserv replied

Great control, light vibrato - but listen to the Marcello excerpt at 2:57 in and tell me that isn't a mistiming in the run going upwards...

Is this how we listen to music now? Determined to find a mistake, to prove the performer is human? I can't see any enjoyment, enlightenment or even entertainment coming from such a process, yet plenty of people do it, like reading a novel and digging for a misspelled word or misplaced comma while remaining oblivious to the message. What chance does a musician such as myself stand under such scrutiny? Does anyone stand a chance?

Attributed to Gandhi and found in various wordings - "Whatever you do may seem insignificant to you, but it is most important that you do it."

Three months since my last entry. Yeah, sounds about right for me. A lot has changed in three months, or maybe it hasn't, I'm still trying to figure that out...I'll get back to you in a week or two.

For those who have asked where the new publications are, I hope to start releasing music at my usual pace by the end of August. My work time has been spent getting used to a new town and catching up on orders from the last few weeks. My Whichpond time has been spent doing minor updates to the website, including adding a few works to my bio page. And my other time...mostly waiting, but that appears to be coming to an end.

"In this a journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. I feel better now, having said this, although only those who have experienced it will understand it." - John Steinbeck

Some time ago I was browsing through a music message board and found this in a user's public profile:

Marital Status: Married
Gender: Male
Occupation: retired professor, professional musician/composer
Hobbies: Im 510 175 lbs. Classical music, jazz, hiking, biking, cuddling, kissing. I enjoy chatting with PMs. I love to take day trips and meet new women friends. Feel free to contact me

What an unfortunate (and humorous) mix of business and pleasure. There is a tinge of sadness though. Is that the best he can do? Come on, Mr. Composer! You're supposed to be creative. Where's the passion? Where's the sensuality? How do you expect to make new lady friends that way? Luckily for you, there's something you can try even if creativity and passion have taken a vacation. Just do what you always do; steal something from a better composer. Like this bit from Mozart to his wife:

Arrange your dear sweet nest very daintily, for my little fellow deserves it indeed...now the knave burns only more fiercely and can hardly be restrained.
(reprinted from Mozart's Women by Jane Glover)

Or, if you're looking for something more subtle, try this bit from Leos Janácek to Kamila Stösslová :

I say to myself 'don't think about it. She doesn't want what you so long for. Why do you torment yourself, plague yourself with it? Only dreams remain for you!' But sometimes dreams come true. Will you help them come true?
So sleep well. I'll imagine that you're sleeping next to me. - In that case you certainly wouldn't sleep!
...I'd never grow weary living with you. And how did I live before I knew you? I didn't live at all. I was dying.
(reprinted from Intimate Letters translated by John Tyrrell)

For Spring, and gardens both literal and metaphorical...

from Votaire's Candide:

...Pangloss disait quelquefois à Candide: Tous les événements sont enchaînés dans le meilleur des mondes possibles; car enfin si vous n'aviez pas été chassé d'un beau château à grands coups de pied dans le derrière pour l'amour de mademoiselle Cunégonde, si vous n'aviez pas été mis à l'inquisition, si vous n'aviez pas couru l'Amérique à pied, si vous n'aviez pas donné un bon coup d'épée au baron, si vous n'aviez pas perdu tous vos moutons du bon pays d'Eldorado, vous ne mangeriez pas ici des cédrats confits et des pistaches. Cela est bien dit, répondit Candide, mais il faut cultiver notre jardin.

and some reading material on Leonard Bernstein's Candide.

A shameless plug for the commercial half of my site - to benefit the Send Dave back to Grad School Fund I'm offering the complete Whichpond Music woodwind quintet library at 50% off the regular price. So pass the word along to anyone whose life is missing a big stack of quintet music.

And in other news, Mozart wasn't as poor as we thought.