Donna Coleman

Spent a half hour yesterday interviewing Donna Coleman, a pianist from Ambler, Pa., who now lives in Australia. She is back for the holidays (it's summer vacation down under), and she'll be giving a couple of recitals in the area this month, one of them Jan. 18 in Flourtown. Program will consist of Bach, Chopin, some classic and modern rags, and the Cuban dances of Ignacio Cervantes, and Donna will be speaking on the similarities between them and the development of one to the other.

I was excited for the chance to speak with her because she has recorded the two piano sonatas of Charles Ives, as well as several of the shorter pieces. She sounded impressed on the phone when I told her I had about dozen recordings of the Concord, though not hers. (It's now on my wish list.) Unfortunately, she had so much to say in our time together, we never mentioned Ives at all.

The article will be out in about a week.

A Happy New Year to all seven or eight of you.

Happy birthday, Elliott Carter

Elliott Carter as he would appear on South Park.

Elliott Carter turned 102 today, and I just can't let the occasion pass. He's my favorite living composer, as anyone who has ever met me is aware, and he stands high among my favorite dead ones as well.

I'm guessing Mr. Carter celebrated his birthday the way he celebrates every new day of his life — by getting out of bed and writing music. He is still sharp, still vital, and while it is likely his greatest work is behind him, each new piece is still a welcome adventure. Every so often, one of them, such as the excellent Nine by Five for wind quintet, premiered just last February, will recapture the power of the music from Carter's peak years, the 1960s and '70s. One never knows, does one?

If I live to his age, I'll be happy if I can feed myself.

I celebrated the way I always do — with an in-home concert. Given the richness of Carter's output, selecting the program is always a challenge. I settled on a few favorites: the Oboe Concerto and the Second String Quartet, in performances recorded for me from BBC broadcasts by e-pal and fellow Carterphile Colin Green, and for the finale, the great Concerto for Orchestra (1969) in the rip-snorting reading by Pierre Boulez and the NY Philharmonic. (The recording is available only through the orchestra, in a six-CD box set of American music. The full set cost $90 and was worth every penny for those 21 minutes alone.)

For the past couple of months, I've been listening to Bach almost exclusively, and so I returned to Carter's music "with quite fresh ears for an old man," as Stravinsky wrote in a similar context. It was an invigorating experience. And the night is still young. I might return to the stereo before it's over.

Finally, I'd like to send Carter-Day greetings to the other bloggers and chatroom lurkers around the net who have wished the composer many happy returns of the day (and how many more of those can there be?): Doundou Tchil, Mark Berry, Steve Hicken, Bruce Hodges, Karl Henning, and Paul Yin, to name a few. You are all my friends in spirit.

Addendum: Here is a photo of Mr. Carter with Pierre Boulez (I'll leave it to you to guess which is which) taken Dec. 6 at an 85th-birthday concert for Boulez in NYC. Thanks to Bruce Hodges. When this was taken, Mr. Carter was five days shy of his 102d birthday.

Just hear those sleigh bells ring-a-ling ...

Say what you want about Messiah or the Christmas Oratorio. For me, the season doesn’t start until I hear LeRoy Anderson’s “Sleigh Ride.” And it has to be the original orchestral version, with the clip-clopping and the whip snapping and the neighing at the end — none this Johnny-Mathis-coffee-and-pumpkin-pie-by-the-fire bullshit. This year I was fortunate to hear it early — the day after Thanksgiving over a car radio. So now I’m in the holiday mood. It won’t last, so I’ll take this opportunity to wish everyone a happy (insert your holiday here).

Anderson (1908-75) was my favorite composer for a little while when I was a teenager. (Am I square or what?) I don’t listen to him much anymore, but I’ve always been grateful to him for teaching me how to listen to an orchestra at a time when no one I know was listening to orchestras. His music still occupies a little soft spot in my heart. It’s wonderful, light stuff, very catchy and tuneful — the equal, in its bouncy American way, of Johann Strauss the younger, imho.

I once had the pleasure of speaking to Anderson’s widow. I had to double check a title or something for an article, and I went to the LeRoy Anderson website and found a phone number to call for information. I called the number and left a message, and within an hour or so Mrs. Anderson herself called me back. I was stunned. We spoke for a long while, as I recall. She seemed genuinely happy anyone would take an interest in her husband’s music, and I was surprised to learn that the Andersons knew the Elliott Carters. Carter and Anderson were born the same year, both attended Harvard at the same time, and for a while they lived “right down the road” from one another, as Mrs. Anderson put it — the Carters in Waccabuc, New York, the Andersons just over the line in Connecticut.

Besides being classmates and composers, Carter and Anderson shared a talent for languages. Carter speaks French and Italian and reads German and Greek and Latin and heaven knows what else. Anderson, the son of Swedish immigrants, mastered all of the Scandinavian tongues.

Steve Martin is right

Not much to say about this, except that I appreciate the thought.

A local treasure dies

Yvonne Patterson, who had a long career as a dancer, died last week at the age of 100. She lived in Flourtown, the heart of Springfield Sun country, and I had the privilege of interviewing her on the occasion of what turned out to be her final birthday, when her friends at the Springfield Township High School swimming pool threw her a modest party.

Yvonne was a very big deal, a breathing bit of cultural history in a small suburb that has little use for culture. She danced for Balanchine beginning in the 1930s, and — most exciting as far as I was concerned — she took part in the 1937 premiere of Stravinsky's ballet Jeu de Cartes, which the composer conducted. (The program, presented at the Metropolitan Opera House, also included Fairy's Kiss and Apollo.) I was eager to hear her recollections of Stravinsky, but after seventy years, she had none to give. She remembered being introduced to him briefly at a rehearsal, and that he was short and not very impressive. Then she suddenly stopped herself.

"Oh, don't write that," she said. "If you write that I won't talk to you."

So I didn't write it.

Never visit a sausage factory

The link to my piece on David Hobbs is at right. The only thing I have to add is that I did interview David Spitko about the program as a whole, and none of it got into the article. After a couple of false starts about Haydn and Mozart and the problems that, historically, have faced composers of religious music, I decided Mr. Hobbs was the only real story here — a young, local composer with a brand new work going up against a pair of heavyweights.

Then again, the problems that, historically, have faced composers of religious music are interesting in themselves. The church wants the music to do no more or less than enforce a feeling of reverence, and a setting of the words that is too elaborate, or too dramatic, or even too beautiful, gets in the way. The conflict goes back to Palestrina and continues to this day. (For a full discussion, I refer you to the chapter "Church Music," in Charles Rosen's Classical Style.)

"It’s very typical for an organist or choir director to have to struggle with the congregation," David Spitko told me in the interview I didn't use.

I remember in 1999, when my mother died, I wanted the soprano we hired to sing Charles Ives's setting of the spiritual "In the Mornin'" at her funeral Mass. I thought it was appropriate, since it was all about Jesus, in addition to being lovely, but the pastor would not allow it. To this day, I don't know why. Maybe it was too black, or too Protestant. It's hard to figure out, though I'm sure there was a theological explanation that satisfied the pastor.

I am not religious at all, and except for the occasional organ recital, wedding, or funeral (and at my age, the funerals are more frequent than the weddings), I haven't set foot in a church for more than thirty years. So, for me, the music always matters more than the message.

Bach in Wyndmoor

Happy to report that Dennis Schmidt's recital October 31 at Grace Lutheran Church was well-attended. I got a thank-you in the program for the publicity I provided in the Springfield Sun and Ticket, but in truth, I doubt it helped. I think the people who filled the pews would have been there regardless. (I've been questioning the reach of my articles for a while and am thinking of giving them up. I have no way of measuring readership, of course, but to judge from the faces I see at the events I preview, it seems few people see them, and even fewer are swayed by them.)

The music was beautiful, on the whole. There were times when the rhythms seemed off, as though Dennis's hands were not quite in sync, but at other times, such as in the memorable G Minor Fugue, BWV 542, when the music roilled on with a seamless momentum. I had requested Wachet Auf, BWV 645, which was the second piece on the program, and there were tears in my eyes when it was over. (Dennis not only thanked me again when he introduced the piece, but he also wished me a happy birthday.)

After the recital, the audience was invited into the church gathering room for refreshment and "fellowship," which is apparently the Lutheran word for schmoozing. Someone contributed a pan of delightful pumpkin-walnut bars, and Renee hinted that at some point she might want to me call the church and track down the recipe.

Bach in Wyndmoor

How often do you get to hear an afternoon of Bach in a small suburban church, and for free? See my preview article at left. I was one of the sponsors: I contributed $10 and asked Dr. Schmidt to play "Wachet Auf," BWV 645, or whatever the number is. I'm excited about this one. It's going to be my birthday present to myself.

Yes, my birthday falls on Halloween, which was the best possible day for a kid. You got the presents, the cake, ice cream, the candy, and the dress-up, and, if you went to Catholic school, Nov. 1 was a holiday — All Saints Day — which gave you time to nurse the chocolate hangover.

Barber in Philadelphia

Lyric Fest and The Crossing will present an all-Barber program in Philadelphia this weekend. The program will be given twice, once in Chestnut Hill and again in Center City, and it will consist entirely of songs and choral music. I'll be going to the Chestnut Hill concert Saturday evening. This is exciting. Good choral concerts are rare, particularly when they're devoted to a single composer who I always felt has been somewhat underrated. Barber is known primarily for his Adagio for Strings, of course, and his piano and violin concertos are very fine, but his vocal music, some of his best work, seems to get overlooked. Or maybe I just haven't been looking in the right places.

See my preview article, linked over to the left.

Leonard Bernstein, 1917-1989

Leonard Bernstein and Michael Tilson Thomas in Danbury, Conn., 1974. I was there, too, though you can't see me in this picture.

Leonard Bernstein died twenty years ago today, Oct. 14. Bernstein's son Alexander wrote this tribute to commemorate the anniversary. The link was sent to me by Elliot Tomaeno of dot429.com, a website designed, in Elliot's words, "specifically designed to help lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender professionals connect with other LGBT professionals." Thanks, Elliot. Always glad to help.

I appreciated Bernstein more as a conductor than as a composer. (West Side Story is a great score, but oh, it's a bad movie.) I particularly value his recordings of Nielsen, which I still have on vinyl. For all of his public exposure, however, I saw his conduct only once, at the Danbury, Conn., State Fair Grounds in 1974, at a concert celebrating the Ives centenary. I was sixteen years old. Bernstein led the American Symphony Orchestra (I think), in Ives's Second Symphony. Unfortunately, he was not at his best that night. It was a pretty ragged performance, as I recall, and I don’t think it was the musicians' fault, since Michael Tilson Thomas conducted the second half of the program, and for him, they were spot on. Lenny seemed more interested in dancing round the podium than in actually leading the orchestra. At one point, he actually jumped into the air. The motion seemed particularly inappropriate, since nothing much seemed to be happening in the score at the moment. The spectacle left rather a sour taste in my mouth.

But everyone is entitled to an off night, I suppose, and Bernstein's recordings of Ives's music are quite fine. Elliott Carter also has expressed approval of Bernstein's recording of his (Carter's) Concerto for Orchestra, a score he (Bernstein) did not particularly like, or so I understand. A pity, since it's a great piece of music. Perhaps if he had gone back to it, rather than leaving it to Boulez, he might have developed a greater appreciation for it.

Today, the Danbury Fair Grounds are a shopping mall, like every other piece of open land in America.