Grace Notes

Norman Gilliland gives the stories behind the struggle to create great music.

The Sunday Pianist

Wednesday, July 11, 2018, 11:30am

Franz Liszt was not only a masterful pianist and a world-class composer. He also fostered the talent of other composers. Alexander Borodin wrote of a formative encounter with Liszt in July 1877.

Greatness in ruins-it was a popular theme for poets and composers in the early 19th century. A little too popular as far as Beethoven was concerned. In July 1811, he found himself being upstaged, and he wrote to a Viennese theater director to do something about it.

Your Excellency-I hear that the actor Scholz will shortly be giving as a benefit for the Theater An der Wien the melodrama The Ruins of Babylon. I wished to write an opera on the subject, as I have already announced to you. I cannot comprehend this complication! I dare say you know
...

The Starving Artist

Monday, July 9, 2018, 11:30am

The starving artist. The phrase is a cliche, but it is also a literal description of composer Karl Goldmark as a young theater musician.

In 1851, at age 21, Goldmark was scraping out a living as a theater musician in Budapest. He and a friend rented a single room with a kitchen. They slept in the kitchen on a bag stuffed with straw. Their only other furniture was a chair and a piano. Goldmark practiced diligently, h oping to become a capable self-taught pianist so that he could supplement his income as an accompanist for singers. He also played for...

Too Much of a Good Thing

Friday, July 6, 2018, 11:30am

Was it too much of a good thing? He was born with the best musical heritage imaginable and his talent was considerable, but Wilhelm Friedemann Bach fell short of everyone's expectations. He was the first-born son of Johann Sebastian Bach, and that in itself may have proved a handicap. Friedemann was his father's favorite among his four composer sons, and among the four it was Friedemann who wrote music most like his father's.

By the 1730's,though, Friedemann found himself defending his and his father's harmony-rich music against those favoring a newer style that Fridemann disdained as mere "ear-tickling" and "bouncing...

The Summer Job

Thursday, July 5, 2018, 11:30am

In the 1920s the most reliable way for a young composer to make money was to teach--without being too picky about the quality of the students. When twenty-five-year-old Aaron Copland had a chance to make money by performing in a trio at a Pennsylvania summer resort, he took it.

Copland was working on a Symphony for Organ and Orchestra. He imagined a perfect summer with leisurely mornings in which to compose, free meals, and playing easy pieces for afternoon teas and genteel dinners.

It was not to be.

The Milford Inn was running in the red and had so few...

A Versatile Tune

Wednesday, July 4, 2018, 11:30am

The song began humbly and rose to great heights over the course of 150 years. Our story begins in London in 1780 with a social club named after a fun-loving Roman poet said to have died at 86 from choking on a grape seed.

Most of the members of the Anacreontic Society were amateur musicians, though a few of them were professionals. [They met every two weeks at the Crown and Anchor Tavern in the Strand. The evening's entertainment consisted of a concert, dinner, and drinking songs.] The society began each evening with a song tailor-made by two...

Sad Thoughts from Paris

Tuesday, July 3, 2018, 11:30am

In 1778, 22 year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had gone with his mother to Paris, hoping to enhance his international reputation. He had gone reluctantly, and once he got there, he found one obstacle after another. On July 3, he wrote to his father in Salzburg:

"I have very painful and sad news to give you, which in fact accounts for my n ot having replied sooner to your letter. My dearest mother is very ill. They have bled her according to custom, which was indeed quite necessary and did her a lot of good. But a few days later
...

Stravinsky's Star-Spangled Banner

Monday, July 2, 2018, 11:30am

Igor Stravinsky had been living the in the United States for two years and he wanted to make a patriotic gesture. But America didn't exactly appreciate Stravinsky's gift-an arrangement of "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Two Things gave Stravinsky the idea of writing the arrangement. A composer who visited him twice a week "to have his works re-composed" suggested it. And since Stravinsky was obliged to begin all of his concerts with the National Anthem anyway, and didn't care for any of the existing arrangements, he set to work. He finished it in Los Angeles on July 4, 1941. Shortly afterward an...

Villa-Lobos Plays the Guitar for Segovia

Friday, June 29, 2018, 11:30am

It was only natural that Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos would write for the guitar. And maybe it was inevitable that he would meet the world's greatest guitarist, Andres Segovia. But exactly what happened at that first meeting is not so certain because Villa-Lobos and Segovia gave sharply contrasting accounts of it.

It happened in Paris in 1924. They were at a party given by a mutual friend. According to Villa-Lobos, Segovia didn't recognize him at first and remarked that the composer wrote music that was at odds with the guitar since it required impossible techniques. Then, according to Villa-Lobos, the...

Mahler's Appointment with Freud

Friday, June 22, 2018, 11:30am

It was to be a meeting of minds. The great symphonist Gustav Mahler had an appointment with the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud.

Although he initiated it, Mahler was clearly uneasy about the meeting. He canceled three times before finally coming face to face with Freud in 1910. By the time the session was finally arranged Freud was vacationing on the Baltic coast. Only Mahler's stature made him agree to interrupt his relaxation for professional work.

After a fitful exchange of telegrams, they met at a hotel in Leyden and spent four hours ambling through town as Freud delved into...

Saved By a Button

Thursday, June 21, 2018, 11:30am

The Water Music, the Royal Fireworks Music, Messiah. It's possible that none of them would have been written if it hadn't been for a lucky encounter with a button.

In 1704 George Frederick Handel was a 19-year-old hothead who took his music making very seriously. He was serving as harpsichordist in a Hamburg production of the opera Cleopatra by another young composer, Johann Mattheson. Mattheson was one of the stars of the production, playing the part of Antonius. After falling on his sword and going through his death scene, Mattheson was free to slip into the orchestra pit and pick...

An Improviser Par Excellence

Friday, June 15, 2018, 11:30am

By 1740, when Carl Philip Emanuel Bach went to Pottsdam to work for King Frederick the Great, his father, Johann Sebastian Bach, was famous throughout Europe, and King Frederick grew increasingly eager to meet the man known as "the Old Bach."

In 1747 Johann Sebastian Bach, age 62, finally left Leipzig and made the journey to Pottsdam with his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann. The king was in the habit of holding private concerts every night, during which he would solo in the performance of flute concertos. One evening as the king and his musicians were all ready to play, an...

The Rhapsody that Wouldn't Let Go

Tuesday, June 12, 2018, 11:30am

Composers have various reasons for writing--inspiration, pleasure, and money. In the case of Claude Debussy's Saxophone Rhapsody the motivation was provided by money and a persistent music-lover named Mrs. Elise Hall.

Mrs. Hall was a wealthy Boston matron who had taken up the saxophone. In 1895 she commissioned Debussy to compose a work for her instrument. As far as Debussy was concerned, Mrs. Hall's commission had a good side and a bad side. On the bad side was his lack of familiarity with the saxophone. On the good side was the payment enclosed. He accepted the...

More Than You Deserve

Monday, June 11, 2018, 11:30am

Portrait of Ludwig van Beethoven by Joseph Karl Stieler

Ludwig van Beethoven was very dependent upon the good will of his publishers, but he was blunt by nature, and in a letter to Breitkopf and Hertel in June 1810, Beethoven minced no words...

Favors

Friday, June 8, 2018, 11:30am

Pianist and composer Stephen Heller had gotten to know violinist Joseph Joachim during a concert tour in England. When a friend needed a favor, Heller wrote to the influential Joachim from Paris on June 8th, 1862:

“Besides the quiet sincerity and simple manners of the good men of the country I miss all that lush green which you get in the parks and squares and gardens of London. The heat is intense and I dread July and August. My new rooms are pretty and cool and comfortable. The only problem is a piano teacher who lives on the fourth floor...

A Friend and a Liability

Thursday, June 7, 2018, 11:30am

Composer Charles Gounod was handsome, talented, and charming. He needed to make some connections in opera circles. When he met Pauline Viardot he made connections quickly, but he paid for them.

In 1850 Madame Viardot was the talk of Paris music circles. Some thought she was ugly, some found her strangely attractive. All agreed that she was a fine singer, though not in the usual way. According to composer Camille Saint-Saens Madame Viardot's voice was neither velvet nor crystal, but harsh and powerful, with the "pungent flavor of a bitter orange."

She lived in an unusual household. It consisted of...

The Shaky Accompanist

Wednesday, June 6, 2018, 11:30am

Modeste Mussorgsky's physician had good reason to fear that the composer was in no state to participate in a concert he had arranged for the benefit of medical students.

Mussorgsky was to accompany the distinguished Italian tenor Ravelli, and when on the day of the performance, the singer asked to meet Mussorgsky, the physician found the composer reeling under the influence of alcohol. Mussorgsky told his friend that he wasn't up to meeting Ravelli at that particular moment, but assured the doctor that he would be just fine for the evening performance.

With that, Mussorgsky saw the doctor to the...

That Useless Company

Tuesday, June 5, 2018, 11:30am

Sometimes even the greatest composers have to distinguish between just and unjust criticisms of their work. After a bad performance of his opera Un Ballo in Maschera, Giuseppe Verdi wrote to the producer on June 5, 1859:

You were wrong to defend Un Ballo in Maschera against the attacks in the newspapers. You should do what I always do-don't read them, or let them sing whatever tune they want. Fact-an opera is either bad or good. If it's bad, the journalists are right to pan it. If it's good and they refuse to acknowledge it because of some prejudice,...

Paganini's Gratitude

Monday, June 4, 2018, 11:30am

Hector Berlioz and Niccolo Paganini. The passion, the extravagance, and the eccentricity of their music was a reflection of the way they lived. Berlioz wrote one of his greatest works, Harold in Italy, for Paganini, and it brought the two composers together in an extraordinary way.

Paganini was away when Berlioz completed Harold in Italy, so he heard it for the first time as a member of the audience. At the end of the concert, as Berlioz stood trembling and perspiring with exhaustion, in through the orchestra door came Paganini followed by his son Achilles. Because of a throat infection...

Surviving a Russian Tour

Friday, June 1, 2018, 11:30am

Clara Schumann was one of the best-known pianists in the world. After a concert tour, she shared some of her impressions of Russia and Russian performers in a letter she wrote to Johannes Brahms from Dusseldorf on June 1st, 1854:

“We attended a grand festival in the Kremlin on Easter night and I'll remember it for the rest of my life. As far as my success in Russia is concerned I have to say that I'm perfectly satisfied given the current acute financial crisis there. I couldn't have done that well in Germany. It's true though that the stress was...

The Special Effect

Thursday, May 31, 2018, 11:30am

The crossing from Europe to New York left Igor Stravinsky with hours to fill and so he prevailed upon cellist Gregor Piatigorsky to work with him on a cello and piano transcription of his ballet Suite Italienne. Violinist Nathan Milstein also had some time on his hands and so he came along and watched as Piatigorsky made daring suggestions and defended them as Stravinsky listened.

One of Piatigorsky’s most brilliant effects came about by accident.

Tea was served aboard the SS Rex at 4:45, and Milstein and Piatigorsky attended regularly, enjoying the company of various attractive young women who were...

The Million Dollar Trio

Wednesday, May 30, 2018, 11:30am

They were three of the world’s most formidable musicians, and in 1949 they were invited to perform together during a series of four concerts in Chicago’s Ravinia Park. Their togetherness would be short-lived.

Pianist Arthur Rubinstein, cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, and violinist Jascha Heifetz drew huge admiring crowds at Ravinia, and the newly-formed threesome was so successful that one critic referred to them as “The Million Dollar Trio.”

Rubinstein disliked the nickname so much that he couldn’t wait to drop out of the ensemble, but when RCA invited the trio to make a recording of their concert repertory, he agreed to...

The Shortcut

Tuesday, May 29, 2018, 11:30am

In the spring of 1592 John Bull left London for Bristol, leaving his work as organist at the prestigious Chapel Royal to a subordinate. In a curious way, his leave of absence would provide a great opportunity to an undistinguished musician named William Phelps.

For reasons unknown, Bull took his time getting back to London, riding north through Gloucestershire, perhaps stealing a bit of a vacation from his employer, Queen Elizabeth, who was known to keep a short leash on her favorite musicians. He seems to have been on his way to visit friends in Worcester when he took the...

The Magician, the Musician, & the President

Monday, May 28, 2018, 11:30am

Would the composer and the president catch on to the trick? In 1914, at an evening’s entertainment for the German Sailors Home and the Magicians Club of London, after the Ritz Carlton orchestra’s performances of excerpts of Puccini operas, the agenda moved on to the great magician Houdini.

Houdini began with some simple close-up illusions–changing the colors of silk handkerchiefs and turning water into wine, and he noticed that sitting next to composer Victor Herbert was a very intent Theodore Roosevelt. He was sure that the former president had been able to see through every trick–so far.

The magician proposed...

A Team Effort

Friday, May 25, 2018, 11:30am

In the spring of 1782, Mozart was a busy twenty-six-year-old composer with music and matrimony on his mind. On May 25 he wrote from Vienna to his father Leopold in Salzburg, and the letter was a team effort between Mozart and his intended. Mozart wrote:

This time I really do need to steal a moment, so that you don’t have to wait too long for a letter. Tomorrow our first concert takes place in the Augarten, and at half past eight, Martin will be bringing me in a carriage and we still have to make six visits, which I
...

The Wayward Bach

Thursday, May 24, 2018, 11:30am

Johann Sebastian Bach fathered four sons who became prominent composers, but he had other musical children, including a black sheep named Johann Gottfried Bernhard.

In 1736, when a position opened for an organist at St. Mary’s in Mülhausen, Bach put in a good word for the twenty-year-old Bernhard, who was impressive enough at his audition to get the job.

Much like his father thirty years earlier, young Bernhard had a way of annoying church officials. One of them complained that his overlong preludes cut short the time available for the services, and another warned, “If Bach continues to play this...

A Pleasant Interlude

Wednesday, May 23, 2018, 11:30am

As one of Europe’s leading composers and performers, Felix Mendelssohn was also an astute judge of the talents of others, including his best friends. On May 23, 1834, he wrote to his mother of an encounter at a Music Festival in Aix-la-Chapelle after a rehearsal of Handel’s oratorio Deborah:

Who should trip right into my arms but Ferdinand Hiller, who was so glad to see me that he almost hugged me to death. He had come from Paris to hear the oratorio, and Chopin had skipped out on his students to come with him, and so we met again.

Now I had everything...

The Wrong Answer

Tuesday, May 22, 2018, 11:30am

One day in the 1770s the Prince of Asturias was eager to hear the latest quintet by Luigi Boccherini, and with a simple lapse of tact the composer turned the honor into a catastrophe.

The story might well have been exaggerated for the sake of good gossip, but the confrontation between the composer and the prince was clearly tense enough to leave a lasting impression.

According to the story, the prince began to play the first violin part of the quintet and found it extremely monotonous, the notes do si,do si alternating on and on for half a page. The prince launched into his...

Vampires

Monday, May 21, 2018, 11:30am

In his 1978 reminiscence My Many Years, pianist Arthur Rubinstein describes an early confrontation with the innovative composer Igor Stravinsky.

Just after World War I, Rubinstein and the cash-strapped Stravinsky were in a Paris recording studio. The composer asked the pianist, “Did you play in your concerts my Piano Rag Music?”

Rubinstein replied that, while he was proud to own the manuscript of it, the piece didn’t suit his preference for music of “the old era.” He added that it was written “for percussion rather than for my kind of piano.”

Stravinsky argued that Rubinstein didn’t understand the piece. To demonstrate, he...

Such a Marvelous Gift

Friday, May 18, 2018, 11:30am

Ludwig van Beethoven is said to have proposed marriage to Therese Malfatti, a supposition supported by the tender tone of a letter he wrote to her in May 1810. He referred first to something he had sent her, quite possibly a copy of a piano piece dedicated to her, later to become famous as Für Elise:

In this letter, beloved Therese, you are receiving what I promised you, and, in fact, if it weren’t for some very powerful hindrances, you’d be receiving even more, if only to prove that I always do more for my friends than I promise. I have every confidence...

The Devil's Trill

Monday, January 21, 2019, 11:30am

For centuries the violin was been thought of as an instrument of the devil. In 1770 the English music historian Charles Burney came across the remarkable story of "the Devil's Trill." Burney's primary interest was contemporary music, and he was disappointed to arrive in Padua a few months after the...

Why Bother To Get Up?

Saturday, January 19, 2019, 11:30am

Gioacchino Rossini was one of the most active opera composers of all time, but according to one of his contemporaries he was notoriously lazy. During the winter of 1813 Rossini was lodging at a cheap inn in Venice. He was composing in bed to avoid paying for a fire. He was just finishing a duet...

The Faust Stratagem

Friday, January 18, 2019, 11:30am

For one reason or another some operas fail to draw crowds. When it happened to Charles Gounod's opera Faust in London in 1863, the composer was lucky enough to have the services of a clever and daring impresario. With the opera's London debut just a few days away, only a handful of tickets had been...

Mendelssohn in Rome

Thursday, January 17, 2019, 11:30am

In the 19th century many a composer made a pilgrimage to Rome and was awestruck by the greatness of its ruins. When 22-year-old Felix Mendelssohn made the trip, he saw ruins but little greatness. To his family in Berlin he reported on January 17th, 1831: “The night before last a theater opened with...

Breaking In

Wednesday, January 16, 2019, 11:30am

In his native land Fernando Sor learned how to make music and developed a career as a performer and composer. He was a gifted guitarist and also wrote an opera, a motet, and songs. But Spain wasn't in the mainstream of music making and so in 1813, at the age of 35, Sor went to Paris to become an...

Indoor and Outdoor Culture at the White House

Tuesday, January 15, 2019, 11:30am

Although the President was a noted outdoorsman, he also he enjoyed the subtleties of chamber music. And sometimes the wild and the refined met cheek to jowl in the White House of Theodore Roosevelt. When he came into office in 1901, Roosevelt brought a new sophistication to music making in the...

The Dangerous Host

Monday, January 14, 2019, 11:30am

Music making can be hard enough for those whose instruments are mainstays of the orchestra. For harmonica-player Larry Adler the early years were tough--and a little scary. In 1928 or so, at age 14, Adler left his home in Baltimore to audition in a New York harmonica band. Adler played the Poet and...

Weber & the Wrong Bottle

Friday, January 11, 2019, 11:30am

In 1804 Carl Maria von Weber was a 17-year-old composer and singer with little conducting experience. He was invited to lead the theater orchestra in Breslau, and accepted the position in part because he hoped that its modest salary would enable him to support his father, an unsuccessful engraver...

Weber's Conducting Ordeal

Thursday, January 10, 2019, 11:30am

In the spring of 1804 Carl Maria von Weber was not yet 18 years old. But he already had some distinguished compositions to his credit, and though he had little conducting experience, he was invited to lead the theater orchestra in Breslau. The salary was small and the position modest, but it would...

The Adventuresome Soprano

Wednesday, January 9, 2019, 11:30am

Anna Riviere was one of the most admired of 19th-century English sopranos. She was also one of the most adventuresome. She was born in London on January 9th, 1810. She entered the Royal Academy of Music at the age of 14. Seven years later, just after her professional debut, Anna married Sir Henry...

The Cure

Tuesday, January 8, 2019, 11:30am

One night in 1994 72-year-old pianist Abbey Simon and his wife were in The Hague, crossing a street in a rainstorm when an inattentive driver smashed into them. Simon’s wife was badly injured. His own injuries were not life threatening, but he had four broken fingers. The pianist’s doctor was blunt...

The Beethoven Conspiracies

Monday, January 7, 2019, 11:30am

Beethoven is said to have described composing as ten percent talent and ninety percent work. On January 7th, 1809 he wrote from Vienna to his publisher in Leipzig suggesting that the hardest work comes after composing.

The Frozen Train

Friday, January 4, 2019, 11:30am

In January 1864 New Orleans-born pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk was on a train, making a concert tour of the northern states. Stalled near Harvard, Illinois, and worn by war and weather, he found comfort where he could, as he relates in his diary: "Even though I had spent the night with my clothes...

A Dangerous Reward

Thursday, January 3, 2019, 11:30am

In 1853 the famed contralto Marietta Alboni was about to give a farewell concert and the manager of New York's Broadway Theater was desperate to have her perform on his stage. He approached conductor Luigi Arditi and asked him to convince the star to sing the part of Norma at his theater. As a...

A New Year's Letter from Tchaikovsky

Wednesday, January 2, 2019, 11:30am

On January second, 1877, Peter Tchaikovsky chided his brother Modeste for not being a better correspondent. “Most Honorable Sir Modeste Ilyich: “I don't know if you still remember that I exist. I happen to be your own brother. I hold the position of professor at the Moscow Conservatory and have...

Mussorgsky's Mysticism

Wednesday, September 26, 2018, 11:30am

Mysticism came easily to Modeste Mussorgsky. A little too easily according to a letter Mussorgsky wrote to his fellow composer Mili Balakirev on September 26 th , 1860: “I think you will be interested in how I spent my time in the Moscow countryside. My illness dragged on almost until August so...

It Happens to the Greatest of Them

Tuesday, September 25, 2018, 11:30am

Nowadays world class guest soloists usually rehearse a familiar concerto at least once with an orchestra. But before the middle of the 20th century, great soloists frequently didn't rehearse familiar works at all -- and occasionally experienced some uncomfortable surprises. In his book " Gentleman...

The Shocking Conductor

Monday, September 24, 2018, 11:30am

At orchestra concerts today we take for granted the conductor directing the music with a baton. According to Louis Spohr things were done very differently in 1820 when he went to London to conduct a Philharmonic concert: "In those days it was customary there that when symphonies and overtures were...

Schubert's Vision of War

Friday, September 21, 2018, 11:30am

Franz Schubert wrote many songs celebrating the beauty of nature, but his letters reveal that his response to nature went far beyond mere sightseeing. In September 1825, Schubert was traveling through the Tyrolese Alps with his friend, the singer Michael Vogel. It was a time when much of Europe was...

Too Much Partying

Thursday, September 20, 2018, 11:30am

John Dowland probably thought that he had it made. He was at the height of his reputation as one of England's greatest lutenists and he had just been appointed as lutenist to the Court of Christian the Fourth of Denmark. But coming from service to the reserved Queen Elizabeth, Dowland was shocked...

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