Yes, we have no more banana muffins!

I was able to snap a portrait before Michael ate the last one! These muffins kind of have the texture of scones. They're not too sweet, and are really satisfying.



Dry Ingredients:

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 cup all purpose white flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg (or a couple of turns with a grinder)

Wet Ingredients:

3 ripe bananas
1/4 cup canola oil
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons molasses
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 cup soy milk

Mix the dry ingredients together. Mix the wet ingredients (with the sugar) well, until everything becomes a very slightly lumpy liquid. You can use a hand mixer or a blender for this (I used an immersion blender with a whisk attachment).

Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, and mix until just incorporated. If the mixture feels a little dry, add a tiny bit more soy milk.

Spoon into 12 muffin cups (the batter will be a little doughy). Bake in a 350 degree preheated oven for 30-35 minutes, until the tops are a little bit brown.

Son of a violist--err--make that two

This is what happens when two violists get together and raise a child.



Lucas Amory's choice of his top ten composers is, like Tommasini's, somewhat piano-centric (except for the Tchaikovsky violin concerto), and like Tommasini he shows a certain bias towards composers who were born after 1685, but the kid is a pianist after all.

The message here? Lucas listens to his parents (violists Misha Amory and Hsin-Yun Huang), and takes himself seriously as a young person who likes music.

I like the fact that he probably wrote the letter in black ink without signing it, and his parents probably suggested it would be a good idea to sign the letter, so he reached for the nearest pen, which happened to be turquoise.

"Freekeh" Nutrition Labeling

Puns did abound in our Freekeh shopping experience, but imagine my surprise when I looked at the package, particularly the line on the copy that reads, "You will love the taste and benefit from its nutritional values."

Now look at the reported "nutritional values!"



Freekeh actually does have quite a bit of nutritional value, and has an interesting history. I'm excited to try cooking with it.

UPDATE: When I opened up the package of Freekeh, it smelled like smokey burnt grain. I rinsed it a few times, as suggested on the package, picked out some of the charred bits, and then I cooked it like rice. It didn't smell very good while it was cooking. It reminded of the way pasta or grain smells when it gets stuck on the burner while food is cooking. After cooking the Freekah, I rinsed the cooked grain through a strainer, and it smelled like the way burnt wood smells after you douse it with water. The texture was kind of chewy, which didn't bother me, but I couldn't get past the taste that I have seen described as "smokey." "Smokey" sums it up well.

Mozart's Vitamin Deficiency

One would think that with all the music he wrote in the key of D major, he wouldn't have the vitamin deficiency that William Grant and Stefan Pilz believe might have caused his early death.

Read about it here!

There were probably an awful lot of people who didn't get outside much during the winter of 1791, so I don't give too much weight to this argument. But it is something to ponder.

Interview with Myself

I: What inspired you to do a self interview for your blog?

E: I was inspired by my friend Marjorie Kransberg-Talvi’s interview about performing the Beethoven Violin Concerto that she put on her blog. I have been practicing the Beethoven Violin Concerto during the past week or so, and I thought it might be a nice starting point for a discussion.

I: Are you working on it for a particular performance?

E: Oh no! I’m working on it partly because I want to become stronger playing in the violin’s high register, and that piece requires real strength up in the higher ledger lines of the treble clef. I’m actually playing two concerts this fall of music by 20th-century British composers who love to write in that register. As a violist who plays the violin for fun, it’s a real challenge to find comfort in the flute register.

I: Didn’t you used to play the flute?

E: It’s a very different experience playing up high in the flute register from playing up high on the violin. It’s almost like they are opposite experiences. It requires real strength to get a good sound in the violin’s high register, while the flute’s high register just requires a bit of force and a lot of support. It’s almost impossible to play a true pianissimo above high G on the flute, while there are a whole range of dynamics below mezzo forte in the register surrounding high G on the violin. Dynamic levels above mezzo forte in that register, with my fiddle, are still something I hope to be able to reach.

I: You seem to add tools for musical expression every ten years or so. You started playing the violin at 7, stopped at 11, started flute at 13, added recorder at 21, added baroque flute at 25, went back to violin at 31, added viola at 33, began composing seriously at 40, and added viola d’amore at 48. Do you have any reasonable explanation for this pattern?

E: I’m fickle and restless. Because I live in a place with little stress, and I'm often underemployed, I need to do things that stimulate my mind. I usually concentrate on practicing one stringed instrument at a time (I never touch the flute, unless I’m writing music for it). I play my recorders and my viola d’amore every Friday with my collegium.

I: Your collegium?

E: Yes. I meet with a group of 6 or 7 friends, and we play Renaissance and Medieval music.

I: How do you find 6 or 7 people to play Renaissance music on recorders in your remote Illinois town of 20,000 people?

E: One is my recorder student, and another is my former composition professor. One moved back to town after many years away (once, many years ago, this town was a relative hotbed of musical activity). Two others (a married couple) are instrument collectors. Both were music majors in college and graduate school, but ended up doing other things for a living. The last member of the group is a university student. He's a euphonium player who appreciates the real musical education he gets from playing great music on recorders and his new rackett.

I: And you also play in a string quartet?

E: Yes. We have played together for years, and because we are dispersed between Illinois and Indiana, we now play mainly for weddings. I enjoy making arrangements for the group. I find that writing arrangements is a wonderful way to exercise creativity while not really being bound to do anything really original. I find it a relaxing pastime, and, because the people in my quartet are such fine musicians (they really are) the arrangements always sound good. They make the people getting married and their guests happy, and they make us happy.

I: Do you find that it is work to write music?

E: I find that it’s a wonderful pleasure to write music. When I am writing something I can make all sorts of decisions without having to compromise or consult with anyone. I am the CEO of my musical domain. I can also be expressive and critical at the same time, and I can allow myself to feel the physicality of what I am writing. If I’m setting a text, I allow myself to explore that text much more deeply than I would if I were simply reading. I also get a real kick out of the idea of making something totally new; something that has never been written before. I often have to make sure that a significant amount of time passes between finishing one piece and beginning another, just to make sure that I'm actually writing something new and not just an extension of my last piece.

I: Would you like to be able to make a living from your compositions?

E: I would love to, but I know that it is a total impossibility. I consider myself an accomplished composer, and I’m very proud of the work I have done, but I find it very difficult to think of it as something of a set monetary value that I can sell. I have a lot of music published by publishers that own the rights to what I have written. From that I see very little in the way of royalties. Royalties for composers come to about 10% of the price that a person buying a piece of music pays. When I began working with my first publisher, Raoul Ronson, I saw considerable royalties. My first royalty check, which came after 6 months, was for $500.00, which meant that the music I wrote generated $5,000.00 in revenue. This went on for a while, but after Raoul Ronson died, and his company, See Saw Music, was sold to Subito, royalties have trickled down to around $25.00 every year or so.

I: Have you thought of starting your own publishing company?

E: I have. I even thought of a good name. But I don’t have any sort of business sense, and I'm sure that I would fail as a publisher. Publicity and promotion is the way of the 21st century, and the closest I can really get to self promotion is by posting this interview with myself on my blog. I have always believed that if what I write is of any quality, and if it is the kind of music people will want to play, they will seek it out if I make it available without selling it. I make everything new that I have written available in the Werner Icking Music Archive, which is now about to merge with the ISMLP's Petrucci Library. I do hope that musicians won't think less of me as a composer because I do my work in a non-commercial way, and do not spend the money that I would otherwise make (perhaps) on hiring a professional publicist and someone to do my accounting.

I: Isn’t composing without monetary compensation doing a lot of work for very little in return?

E: Absolutely not. The greatest return for me is to hear a performance of something I have written. It is far more valuable than money. Unfortunately success has come to be measured in dollars and cents (not so much cents anymore, I suppose), but I don't measure it that way. I measure it through doing something that gives me true satisfaction. Another benefit I find (in the abstract much of the time) is to help people communicate with one another musically, and perhaps even communicate with me. I keep hoping that some old friend will come across a piece of music I have written, will play it, and will get in touch with me. People so often think of composers as dead people or people who are inaccessible. I pride myself on my accessibility and enjoy the fact that I’m still alive.

I: That’s probably a good place to end this interview. I’m glad you took the time to talk with me.

E: I enjoyed our conversation too.

New Definition of Artist

"You only get to be an artist like that by turning everything in your life upside down, by making horrible, ugly, mistakes, by doing things so differently that people will never be able to figure you out. By failing, cheating, lying, having everyone hate you, and coming out the other side with a little bit more wisdom than the rest."

James Altucher made this comment in relation to his claim that Steve Jobs is the greatest artist that ever lived. You can read his (rather interesting) article about Steve Jobs here. I really can't stand the way the word "artist" has been abused, misused, and diluted during the past forty years. When I was growing up, the word "artist" defined a person who produced pieces of art: paintings, drawings, or sculpture. The term was also used to describe how a person who did anything well could be an artist at it, but it was usually reserved for activities that involved expression, like music, poetry, dance, and acting. In other words, it described artistry.

When the term began to be used to define the "talent" in commercial recordings, anyone who stood in front of a microphone could be an artist. It took me years to understand that this term, one I reserved for people I held in the highest esteem, had become a term used to define a performer's role in packaging and selling recorded music, regardless of the quality. The first time someone in the music business referred to me as an "artist" I took it as a compliment. I later realized that the term "artist" was one he used for any person who performed, and I felt kind of stupid. The term "fine artist" is now, I suppose, the operative one for people who used to be normal "artists," though the term "performance artist" does not give the impression that the person doing the performing is doing it in any sort of "conventional" sense.

The issue I question is not the value and quality of Steve Jobs' work. I take issue with Altucher's claim that he is the greatest artist that ever lived (and I imagine Jobs would too). Altucher's definition of an artist is one I have never encountered before (and I have encountered many people I would consider artists--the kinds of artists who use brushes, pens, voices, and bows). I just don't understand the cheating and lying part. Real artists do not cheat and lie their way to gaining the ability to express themselves concisely and truthfully through their particular medium.

Failure for an artist is a relative term (Bizet considered himself a failure), and having everyone hate you is something that cannot be proven or even measured. What is Altucher talking about? Who is "everyone?" What is the "other side," and what is this wisdom of which he speaks?

When is a door not a door?

When it's a coincidence!

Yesterday, after putting the last coat of paint on the side door to our garage, I entered the house, paintbrush in hand, to the sound of a ringing phone. It was my friend Margie, calling from New York. She asked how I was, and my response was, "Great! I just finished painting a door." Margie told me that she was waiting for someone to come and paint HER door (which was suffering from a deep cat scratch), but she didn't know if he was actually coming. We talked for a bit, but had to end the conversation abruptly when her door painter came to her door.

What are the odds of this bit of coincidence?

Solfege Chronicles: Sarah Glover

Meet the woman who turned "si" to "ti," (a drink with jam and bread).

The Streets of Persia, the Streets of Paris

Now that I finally know how to pronounce Koechlin's name, I can share this bit of musical coincidence (though I believe it is pure influence).



[Listen carefully from 21:45 minutes in until the end ("A travers les rues"), and see if there is anything that sounds familiar, particularly having to do with orchestral color.]

Now listen to this piece, written ten years later in 1928:

The Morini Strad

I just heard about a production of Willy Holzman'splay The Morini Strad that will be opening in Portland, Maine on September 27 and will run until October 23. The role of Erica Morini will be played by Laura Esterman.

The play is about the relationship between Morini and violin maker Brian Skarstad, and the mysterious disappearance of her instrument, a 1727 Stradivarius, from a closet in her apartment, while she was in the hospital.

You can read more musical assumptions about Morini here.

Amanda Maier's Grave

This is a picture of Erika Vermeulen-Illes, a violinist from Amsterdam, who is playing Amanda Maier's Sonata for Violin and Piano there on September 13th. She sent me this picture of herself standing next to Maier's grave, and I haven't been able to successfully e-mail a note of thanks. So I'm voicing my thanks here. Perhaps, if you would Erika, you could send me details about where your performance is, and I can include a notice about it on this post.

Symphony of Living

Symphony of Living is a charmingly clumsy movie from 1935 about an aging violinist, Professor Grieg, who can no longer play, so he opens a teaching studio. His son uses his father's studio as a front for a get-rich-quick scheme, and the rest of his children treat him horribly. One day Professor Grieg's grandson (who he doesn't know is his grandson) comes for a lesson, and it turns out he's a terrific violinist. The movie is rich with violin playing and teaching, not to mention trombone teaching, and an unintentional building-wide jam session, along with boy students in knee pants and a gum-chewing student who takes her gum out of her mouth and puts it on the back of her violin.



[Carl's mother tells him, "You should give up music."]



[Professor Grieg in his studio, where nobody uses a shoulder rest.]



["My dog ate the top half of my music, so I could only play what was on the bottom of the page."]



[Carl plays the Bach Chaccone.]



[Professor Grieg and Carl find out that they are grandfather and grandson.]



[The film ends with a triumphant concert.]

The violinists in this movie (as well as the other musicians) do their own stunts. Young Carl is played by Lester Lee, which might have been the stage name for Ron Carver (but I can't find out anything about a violinist named Ron Carver).





[The other musicians in the building all unwittingly jam together (in separate studios) on "Melody in F."]

What are you waiting for? You can see the whole movie on line!

Rearrangement: A Yardstick for Progress

Very soon after I began playing in a string quartet, during the early 1990s, I started making arrangements. You could say that it was my "gateway drug" to composing. A wedding request came in today for the Schubert Serenade, and when I realized that the arrangement I had in hand (the one I made back in 1995) was really not something I thought would sound very good, I decided to revise it. Rather than making my re-arrangement from the arrangement I made (below), I started from scratch and used the original vocal score.




I was 36 in 1995. I was an adult. I had a degree from Juilliard, and I had a lot of professional playing experience (at least as a flutist and a recorder player) to my credit, but clearly I had no idea how to make an arrangement for string quartet. I plowed ahead anyway, and after 16 years of playing in a string quartet and writing for string quartet, I'm kind of proud to say that now, looking at the arrangement I made today, I have made some progress.

Here's a link to the whole score and a set of parts.

Procrastination Par Excellence

I have never been one to procrastinate, but the situation is extreme, and after writing this blog post I will be getting down to work. The work at hand is writing program notes for a concert of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and his Egmont Overture. Of course I have done a bunch of reading (score and otherwise), but I haven't actually written anything.

To make matters just a little extreme, I have been spending the weekend alone. Michael is returning tonight from driving Ben to Boston, and in his absence I have put off working on my program notes by keeping myself really busy. The empty nest has to be feathered as well as a full one. Here's how I spent yesterday and today:

1. I powerwashed the deck
2. I cut down weeds
3. I powerwashed the house
4. I painted the house numbers
5. I painted the mailbox
6. I organized two closets
7. I washed the floors
8. I cleaned the bathrooms
9. I vacuumed the carpets
10. I cleaned the kitchen
11. I finished my syllabus for the fall semester
12. I wrote three CD reviews
13. I wrote three blog posts

I guess I'll wait to make muffins until after I finish writing my notes.

Name That Manuscript

[Make sure to click on the pictures for a larger view.]



I find the handwriting very hard to read, but I imagine the notes are very important. I would love to have help deciphering them, so if you have any ideas, please leave them in the comments.





Your answer (at least for the identity of the manuscript) is below.





The manuscript is in the Petrucci Library.