Struwwelpeter for Soprano, Baritone, and Piano

Herbert Hughes' (1882-1937) setting for soprano, baritone, and piano of an English translation of five selections from Heinrich Hoffmann's Struwwelpeter is now in the Petrucci Library.

Spuni Cuni fait

I was totally amused by this letter from Mozart to his cousin Bäsle, and like many other people I pondered the meaning of "Spuni Cuni fait." I found an answer in a Mozart Forum discussion that is no longer on line, but it's fortunate that I remember the gist of it:

"Spuni" means "spun," "Cuni" is like "Cony," which means rabbit, and "fait," is the past tense of the French verb "faire." Therefore Spuni Cuni fait (with capitalized nouns) would mean something that was spun from rabbit hair, like the shawl that Mozart's cousin Maria Anna Thekla Mozart (i.e. cousin Bäsle) is wearing in this drawing she made of herself here:

It could actually be the Spuni Cuni fait!

You can read more of the Bäsle letters (in German with a racy Mozart drawing on a facsimile included) here.

The Nearness of Elly and Leo Wright

When I was adrift in Vienna in 1981, Elly and Leo "adopted" me. Though you would never think it from her English diction, Elly is from Vienna, and Leo came to Vienna after a big career in Europe and a stroke. When I knew Leo, he could only play with one hand. After I left Vienna, Leo continued to get his playing back. How wonderful it is to hear the "fullness" of Leo, and the beauty of Elly.

Remembering Leo Wright

Celebrate A Musical Fourth of July with a Four-Year-Old!

We don't happen to have an in-house four-year-old anymore, so I'm happy that this Cassidy's parents were kind enough to share this video of her impromptu (and heartfelt) set of recitations and songs appropriate for the day.

What Money Can't Buy

I really enjoyed reading Michael Sandel's What Money Can't Buy (I got a Kindle copy right after hearing the interview I just linked to). Even though Sandel doesn't expound on ideas concerning music and art, reading it caused me to (as usual) expound on ideas I have had for a while concerning money and art and music.

The walls of our house are covered with priceless art. The bulk of it was made by members of my family. I would never consider trading any of it for shiny shells or currency of any kind. Money can't buy what went into these pieces of art, partly because they are not for sale, and partly because they weren't created to sell. What kind of a price could a person put on a needlepoint dodo-bird that my grandmother stitched on top of a drawing her brother made on a needlepoint canvas? And would my grandmother's other needlepoint pieces claim as high a price if I were to show them to an art dealer? Of course not. My great uncle put a few minutes into his drawing, and my grandmother probably put a few months into the needlepoint. Go figure.

We keep art made by our children on our walls because we love them as pieces of art. Our family gallery is exclusive, and its content is truly priceless.

Even if I had tons of money and could afford to buy the best instruments in the world, rent the most expensive halls, hire the best musicians money could buy to play with me, and, through the sheer power of money, convince people to come to my concerts and praise my playing, I would still play pretty much the same way I play as a member of the un-moneyed class. Money can't buy me the things that I would like to improve in my playing. Money can't buy me a better voice. Money can't make me taller. Money could, I suppose, make me look younger, but it couldn't actually make me be younger. It can't make me smarter. It can't improve my memory. I suppose if I had lots of money I could "buy" the friendship of people who also have money, but I prefer to have friends with talent and brains who like me for who I am and not for what I have.

If I were to secretly buy a recording company, have that company hire great musicians to record music I write, and organize the best promotional campaign that money could buy, I bet people would take me more seriously as a composer, particularly if I could give the appearance (when I made one) that my wealth had been generated by my success as a composer. If it were to come out that I actually owned my recording company, and all my success came from inherited money or investments rather than from talent, I bet people would stop taking me seriously. Therefore, I'm much better off letting the music I write be taken for what it is by a relatively small number of people.

We live in a musical world of illusions, at least in the classical field. One illusion is that talent generates success, and that success must therefore be the result of talent. Another is that success as a performing musician or as a composing musician generates money and fame. I think that most un-moneyed musicians (at least in non commercial fields) operate at a subsistance level. And the DIY movement (publishing yourself, arranging your own travel, paying your own expenses, and doing your own publicity through social networking) means that you spend more time on your "career" and less time on your music. I couldn't imagine dealing with the business aspect of creating a company to publish my music: the record keeping, the space and material needed for production, the business expenses, the accounting, and the copyright stuff, not to mention the feelings of disappointment I might have when pieces don't sell, when nobody seems to want to buy the fruits of my labors. I think it's much healthier for me to make the music I write available for free for people who want to play it. I guess that makes it priceless: something money can't buy.

Bowing Terminology

It always struck me as odd that music published during the first decade of the 20th century by Carl Fischer and many other publishers would have printed explanations of the up-bow and down-bow signs in their music. I always imagined that anybody playing anything beyond beginning violin music would know these things. Maybe the publishers weren't counting on the symbols always being viable in the future.

The upper left-hand corner of the first page of the Schubert Sonatas that the above picture comes from gives some nice translations that reveal just how colorless the words "up-bow" and "down-bow" actually are. Many of my beginning students get boggled by this terminology, because when making a down-bow stroke on the lowest string, your hand moves upwards.

The German words are confusing for the same reasons.

But look at the French words: Tirez, which translates as to draw or pull, which is what it feels like we are doing when we start a bow stroke at the frog and end at the tip (and on every string). Likewise Poussez means to push, which is what it really feels like we are doing when we begin towards the tip and end at the frog. Best of all, these French terms are verbs, implying that those signs signify some kind of action or motion.

N.B. The copy that I found in the Petrucci Library (and used for the above picture) was published by Carl Fischer in New York in 1906. My paper copy, which was one used by my father when he was a child, and perhaps even used by his father--who knows--was published in New York by G. Schirmer in 1908 (using the same plates, by the way). It doesn't have the German or French translations. Only the English "translations" of the symbols.

Different Ways of Experiencing the World

I was shocked at how little Daniel Tammet and I have in common regarding our perceptions of the world. I wonder if he would be equally clueless concerning the way my mind works, if I were to try to explain it.



I was talking with a friend the other day about pitch. She claims not to have perfect pitch, but she can tell where any note is on her instrument, and insists that as long as you can name a note, you can commit that note to memory and always be able to tell what it is. She was surprised when I told her that no matter how hard I try (and I have tried, believe me: my three brothers all have perfect pitch), I haven't been able to develop pitch recognition. I often imagine pieces in my mind in the right key, but if I were asked to name that particular key (and if I didn't already know the name of the key), I wouldn't be able to do it with any kind of certainty.

My father once assured me that even though I don't have perfect pitch, I do have other things.

Passages, Phrases, and Gestures

While listening to Dianne Dwyer Modestini discuss the process of restoring a painting made by Leonardo da Vinci on an eposide of The Story, I smiled to myself when I heard her use the term "passage" to refer to specific areas in the painting known as the Salvator Mundi. She also likened the process of restoration (which, in the case of this painting took years) to being an editor.

In music we often refer to motives as "gestures," and, when I work with advanced students, I can make analogies to punctuation. I love the idea of considering "passages" in paintings (which are actually things that do not move) and "passages" on music, which are things that do move, but paint the equivalent to disappearing line drawings in time and aural space.

Health Care for Composers in Days Gone By

In celebration of the Supreme Court's ruling that the Affordable Care Act is indeed constitutional, John Clare of ClassicallyHip made an amusing post with a "top ten" list of composers who, if they were alive today, would have benefited from having affordable health care.

I could name a few more composers who would have benefited, like Schubert and Mozart. It is indeed a wonder that anyone made it through to adulthood when you think of the way medicine worked before the advent of germ theory. It's a wonder that anyone made it through childhood! Wolfgang and his sister Nannerl had five older siblings who died in infancy.

Charles Hazelwood's Paraorchestra

I find this fascinating, and thought I'd share it here.

If I were in New York this evening . . .

. . . I'd go to this Manhattan Chamber Orchestra concert of music by Seymour Barab, Richard Auldon Clark, Eric Ewazen, and Michael Schelle.

It's not just because two of the people who wrote the music that's being played (and sung) are friends of mine, but my two friends happen to be fantastic composers. I do know that the program will include Seymour Barab's Songs of Perfect Propriety, settings of texts by Dorothy Parker.

If you go to the concert, please use the comments section to let me (and other Musical Assumptions readers) know what you thought. We just can't trust the regular press to make it to (and write about) all the worthwhile concerts going on in a big city like New York.

UPDATE! Allan Kozinn from the New York Times WAS there!

Here's his review.

This Method Book is For the Birds!

Literally!



[The Bird Fancyer's Delight, or Choice Observations And Directions Concerning the Teaching of all sorts of Singing Birds after the Flagelet and Flute [recorder] when rightly made as to Size and tone, with Lessons properly Compos'd within the Compass and faculty of each Bird, viz. for the Canary-Bird, Linnet, Bull-Finch, Wood-Lark, Black-Bird, Throustill [thrush], Nightingale and Starling. The whole fairly Engraven and Carefully Corrected]




[’Tis still in memory, the old manner of Playing on the Flute, which was by the way of Dots, a memorial of which remains in the Gamut for that Instrument to this time, but it being so impracticable and never to be attain’d to at sight, that the use of the Instrument was almost lost, till introduced by Gamut rules, which has not only brought it much in vogue, but the Performers on it are as ready at sight as on any other Instrument, ’tis not doubted but the like Improvement will be made on the Flaggelet by this Method, which Instrument is not only delightful, but also profitable, particularly to Bird Fanciers, it having been often known that Birds after being taught by the Flagellet has been sold for great value, all Lessons or Airs that are made for the Flute may now be play’d on the Flagellet, which must of Consequence be very grateful to all Lovers of the Instrument, the improvement of which is owning to the Ingenious Mr. Hill, who has made several Incomparable Peices [sic] for the Flagellet, and is an excellent performer on it, and to encourage the Lovers of it, he is willing to instruct in this new Method, any that is desirous to learn.]

Here is a link John Walsh's 1715 book that offer's the ingenious Mr. Hill's method.

It actually turns out that if you follow the pun (which I always do), and consider that the word "flageolette" (or "little flag" for the diamond shape that replaces the note-head in fingered harmonics), these little tunes make great fingered harmonic exercises for violinists and violists.

Music Market Ramble

A couple of years ago I wrote a note to an ensemble that recorded some rather rare music by a little-known composer I happen to like a great deal (and anyone reading this blog could probably guess the identity of that composer). I wrote my message to the ensemble through the rather large company that made their CD, which was the only way I could reach the musicians who played this music. My message included a statement about the quality of this composer, and suggested that the members of the ensemble might consider scanning the manuscripts they played from into the Petrucci Library so that other people could study it and play this music. I mentioned how difficult it is to interest publishers in music by little-known composers, no matter how good their music happens to be.

(Nearly three years have passed since that e-mail message, and these pieces are still not available for other musicians to play.)

The recording company executive told me that he passed my message onto a person who would forward it to the ensemble, and included the phrase "This music deserves definitely more recognition; we hope that many customers encourage us to advance soon."

What strikes me as terribly sad about that statement is the simple fact that the furthering (and preserving) of worthwhile musical endeavors is so often driven by consumer demand. It is one thing when the consumer in question is a music ensemble, and that ensemble is looking for interesting and unusual music to play. Most musicians are happy to pay for nice editions of music they want to play. The "economy" in that kind of situation is one that would, under the best of circumstances, move forward. In the case of newly-discovered music by people who have been dead for a while, a publisher makes money (or makes back an initial investment of time and engraving skill) by selling the music, and musicians can make money by playing the music in concerts (and the same people can play the same piece of music for many different audiences). Perhaps there is also money involved in paying people who staff and promote the various ensembles and concert venues. There is also a little money involved when academic musicians include musical analysis in the books and articles they write, and money involved when applied teachers use published music to teach. Most of all, the music itself can be played many different ways by many different people, and a lot of people can get a lot of pleasure from playing and listening to it. At any rate, the egg-white economic theory is at play: money (or anything) is worth more when it remains in circulation.

It is another thing when the consumer in question is a person buying a recording. A person may love the music on the recording, and it may be extremely meaningful for his or her life, but there is no way a record company can measure how many times someone plays a recording. S/he only buys it once, and the only thing that can be measured is how many recordings are sold. Many recording companies require a certain amount of investment on the part of the people playing on the recording, and the production of a recording does involve some economic movement, but once the music is on a disc and the disc is in a box, that is the end of the line. A record company can make the investment to promote a recording, but the resulting numbers really reflect more on how well the recording is marketed than how worthwhile the music on the CD happens to be.

The idea of a wonderful piece of music ending its life as a single out-of-print recording is terribly sad.

Anton Ferdinand Titz in the Petrucci Library

I have spent the past two days in a heightened state of musical-archaeological bliss. A very kind person scanned the manuscript of an otherwise unknown (not even mentioned in Grove) Duo for Violin and Cello by Anton Ferdinand Titz into the Petrucci Library. I'm not sure if the piece has ever been played before (even in Titz's lifetime) because the parts were filled with errors that would have made it unplayable from the manuscript. What a treat it was to correct them, and what a thrill it is to hear this wonderful whimsical piece.

Look at the cover page. Titz lettered it himself. Look at the backwards capital F!



You can hear a synthesized audio file here. Here's a link to the PDF file.

Previous Titz-related posts:

Doesn't This Make You Curious?
The Dedicatee of Haydn's Opus 33 Quartets

Mozart's "Dissonance" Quartet and Beethoven's Quartet Opus 59, No. 3

Here's a nice way to see (and hear) how Beethoven used Mozart's "Dissonance" Quartet, K. 465, as a model for his Opus 59 No. 3 Quartet. I love the domestic settings of these two videos. This is, in my mind, the kind of setting where chamber music should be played, and I really like the way both of these quartets (the Italian Quartetto Lyra for the Mozart and the American Jupiter Quartet for the Beethoven) play these first movements.





You can go back and forth between the two windows, which is a real luxury. You can also follow the score for the Mozart and the score for the Beethoven, and compare them.

I kind of like running them simultaneously and tuning in and out of one or the other. And it is even fun to listen to them playing at the same time.