September, 2020

47 Posts
archive-post-image
Max Frisch and Einar Englund: The Great Wall of China
Only months after the horrendous atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Swiss playwright and novelist Max Frisch (1911-91) penned his theatrical play “The Chinese Wall.” It is in equal parts tragedy, comedy, history and satire that address the possibility
Read more
archive-post-image
On My Music Desk……
Claude Debussy – La cathédrale engloutie (The Sunken Cathedral)
Atmospheric, mysterious and dramatic, this quintessential example of “musical impressionism” is captivating to play and to hear. In less than 6 minutes of music, Debussy tells a remarkable story and creates a vivid aural, and visual, portrayal of the mythical
Read more
archive-post-image
Anton Webern
“Music is natural law as related to the sense of hearing” Throughout his short life—having been accidentally shot by an American soldier in 1945—the music of Anton Webern (1883-1945) was almost totally unknown. With the end of WWII, however, the
Read more
archive-post-image
My Beethoven by Nicolette
My first encounter with Beethoven was through the Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music aural tests back when I was a little kid. One part of the test was to clap the rhythm of a short excerpt and
Read more
archive-post-image
4 Hands 4 More Piano Fun
Repertoire for Two Piano Players Performance by two piano players simultaneously sharing a single piano requires not only a level of intimacy unique to chamber music, it also presents its own set of technical challenges. Despite a number of notable
Read more
archive-post-image
Not the Bach You Think: Bittner’s Shimmy on Bach’s Name
Composers love mysteries, particularly when they can hide something in plain sight in their music. Starting with Johann Sebastian himself, hiding words and letters became a thing to do. When you convert the scale into letters and use German, you
Read more
archive-post-image
The Music of Poetry
Joseph von Eichendorff: “In der Fremde”
Joseph von Eichendorff’s poetry addresses a number of basic concepts, including the passing of time and nostalgia. Time for Eichendorff “is not just a natural phenomenon but each day and each of our nights have a metaphysical dimension.” The morning,
Read more
archive-post-image
The Tide of Practice
Practicing is the musician’s day-to-day work and when done well it is undertaken with the focus and concentration of an elite athlete to achieve the necessary technical and artistic facility to perform complex repertoire. As a child, learning the piano
Read more