Tag Archives: video

When I Don’t Play the Piano

Posted by MaryO on

Schubert took piano lessons aged six, but don't let that put you off

 

 

By Stephen Hough

A concert pianist is someone who plays the piano in concerts. So far so good, although it may be worth adding the adverb ‘regularly’ to that description. Someone did once tell me that his Aunt Ada was a concert pianist. “She had a lovely touch and played to great acclaim in a concert in our church hall – ‘Rustle of Spring’ I think.”

To avoid any confusion the clip above was played by Semprini, not Aunt Ada.

I’ve written before on this blog about how much more time is spent practising secretly at home or backstage than in front of an audience. It’s the training leading up to the Wimbledon Final, the solitary punchbag months before the blood flies into the roaring crowds at the World Heavyweight Boxing Championship.

But between home and the stage there are many hours when I want to work and I can’t. It’s one of the greatest frustrations of my touring life that, unlike other instrumentalists, I arrive at a hotel without my instrument. There’s that hour before dinner or the time spent twiddling thumbs before doing an interview when I would love to twiddle all ten fingers and check through a passage in my concerto or just get loosened up after a long flight … and I can’t.

Or at least the effort involved in doing so can be enormous. A piano somewhere in the hotel is the best solution, as long as it’s far away from prying ears. It has been suggested to me in the past that I play in the atrium lobby, amidst the mingling guests, the palm trees, the pile-up of Samsonite suitcases. Not even ‘Rustle of Spring’ is thinkable in those circumstances, I’m afraid. If the hotel is a mere walk from the hall then that’s the next best scenario although, later in the evening, there’s unlikely to be someone waiting just for me at the stage door. It has to be planned in advance and it’s often hard to know my plans in advance.

Then the options start to get worse, a taxi ride to a distant hall in heavy traffic, for instance. Finding the venue itself is the first hurdle but then, how to find the stage door? I’ve spent many occasions circling the building, rattling rusty handles, banging my fists against flaking doors, pressing antique buzzers, shouting through glass walls, leaving voicemail messages … to no avail.

Sometimes a generous patron will invite me to use his or her piano. Now I don’t want to sound like I don’t appreciate such kind offers (and sometimes it’s been the beginning of a wonderful friendship) but in my experience pianos in strange homes often come with cats … or rattling photo frames perilously balanced on piano lids, or a vase of trembling flowers on the same, or an impossibly high bench, or a squeaky pedal. And worst of all is the person who, leaving the door open, says to me: “Oh, I love the piano. Don’t mind me. I’ll just be in the next room if you need anything. What are you going to practise?” Then I freeze. I simply can’t work if I know someone is listening to me. It’s a bit like writing when someone is looking over your shoulder. Self-consciousness makes self-expression (and self-criticism) impossible.

So for a long time I oscillated between these various unsatisfactory formats until in more recent years I just stopped trying to practise on the road at all. But then a few seasons ago I started renting an electric keyboard if I was going to stay in a city for more than a couple of days. It was wonderful, saving time and making time so much more fruitful. I’d turn the volume down very low and work away at any time of the day or night.

I’m just beginning a two-month tour, starting in Hobart this week with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and Marko Letonja, playing all five Beethoven concertos for the first time. And, also for the first time, I’ve brought along my own electric piano. It’s an experiment and so far (during a short stop at a beach in Thailand last week) it’s been invaluable. A full length keyboard of 88 keys is no good because, as well as being just that bit too heavy to maneuver, it won’t fit into a regular taxi.

But then I discovered the Nord 76-key Piano 2 with Hammer Action. Hand-made in Sweden (yes, I did a second take too) it’s the perfect tool for the job. There are lots of pieces of course which you can’t play from start to finish with a reduced keyboard (although only one note, occurring just three times, in all five Beethoven concertos is missing) but, like a ballet dancer at the barre, in just thirty minutes I can warm up, stretch the muscles, work at a few problem passages here and there and generally keep in shape without having to leave my room. Now when I don’t play the piano I don’t want to.

By Stephen Hough

Concert pianist, writer of words and music, governor of royal ballet companies, theology, art, poetry, perfume, puddings. Website: www.stephenhough.com Twitter: @houghhough

via When I don’t play the piano – Telegraph Blogs.

August 18 ~ Today in Music History

Posted by MaryO on

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• 1750 ~ Antonio Salieri, Italian composer and conductor
More information about Salieri

• 1873 ~ Leo Slezak, Austrian tenor

• 1907 ~ Howard Swanson, American composer

• 1937 ~ The first FM radio construction permit was issued. It went to W1X0J (later to become WGTR) in Boston, MA. The station went on the air two years later.

• 1939 ~ Johnny Preston, Singer

• 1944 ~ Carl Wayne, Singer with The Move

• 1949 ~ Ralph Flanagan and his orchestra recorded their first tune on wax, You’reBreaking My Heart.

• 1950 ~ Dennis Elliott, Drummer with Foreigner

• 1957 ~ Ron Strykert, Guitarist with Men at Work

• 1958 ~ Perez Prado, the ‘Mambo King’, received one of the first gold records awarded by the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA). The single, Patricia, was certified as having sold over one million copies.

• 1973 ~ Jazz drummer Gene Krupa played for the final time with members of the original Benny Goodman Quartet. Krupa, a jazz and big band legend, died on October 6, 1973.

• 1981 ~ Robert Russell Bennett passed away

• 1981 ~ Rex Harrison brought the award-winning My Fair Lady back to Broadway as he recreated the role of Henry Higgins. The play had originally opened in 1956.

• 2001 ~ Jack Elliott, a composer and conductor who worked on numerous hit television shows and movies, died of a brain tumor. He was 74.
Elliott came to Los Angeles in the early 1960s to work as a musical arranger on Judy Garland’s television show.
He gained a reputation as one of the top composers and arrangers in Hollywood. If a television show was popular in the 1970s, it most likely had the music of Elliott and his frequent collaborator Allyn Ferguson. They worked on such shows as: “Police Story,” “Barney Miller,” “Starsky and Hutch,” “Charlie’s Angels” and “The Love Boat.”
He also worked in films and teamed with director Carl Reiner on several projects, including: “The Comic,” “The Jerk” and “Oh God.”
Elliott served as music director for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, writing the music for the opening and closing ceremonies as well as conducting the orchestra.

• 2003 ~ Tony Jackson, bass player for The Searchers, a Liverpool band best known for the 1964 song “Needles and Pins,” died at the age of 63.
Jackson sang and played bass for The Searchers, a Liverpool band that briefly rivaled The Beatles for popularity in the early 1960s. “Needles and Pins” made the top 20 in the United States after it was released in 1964.
Jackson was lead singer on the band’s first two British hits, “Sweets for My Sweet” and “Sugar and Spice,” but played bass only on the enduring “Needles and Pins” and “Don’t Throw Your Love Away.”
Feeling sidelined, Jackson quit the group in 1964. His follow-up band, Tony Jackson and the Vibrations, failed to score a hit and he drifted out of the music business.

August 17 ~ Today in Music History

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today

 

1686 ~ Nicola Porpora, Italian composer

• 1838 ~ A total of 138 singing teachers traveled to Boston, MA to attend the first music convention.

• 1903 ~ Abram Chasins, American pianist, composer, writer and educator

• 1909 ~ Larry Clinton, Bandleader, composer

• 1920 ~ Georgia Gibbs (Fredda Lipson or Gibson), ‘Her Nibs’, Singer

• 1932 ~ Duke Pearson, Composer, band leader, pianist

• 1947 ~ Gary Talley, Guitarist with Big Star as well as The Box Tops

• 1948 ~ John Cheek, American bass-baritone

• 1953 ~ Kevin Rowland, Guitarist, singer with Dexy’s Midnight Runners

• 1954 ~ The Newport Jazz Festival opened at the Newport Casino in Rhode Island. It featured jazz legends Dizzy Gillespie, Gerry Mulligan and Ella Fitzgerald.

• 1955 ~ Kevin Moulding, Songwriter, singer, bass with XTC

• 1958 ~ Belinda Carlisle, Guitarist, singer with The Go-Go’s

• 1965 ~ Steve Gorman, Drummer with The Black Crowes

• 1970 ~ Donnie Wahlberg, Singer with New Kids on the Block and brother of Marky Mark

• 1983 ~ Ira Gershwin, U.S. lyricist and elder brother of George, died in Beverly Hills at the age of 86.

• 1984 ~ On this, the first night of his Breaking Hearts Tour, Elton John announced that he was retiring from touring.

• 1990 ~ Pearl Mae Bailey passed away. She had entertained two generations with her stage and record performances.

 

Ludwig Van Beethoven Piano Trios Opus 70 No. 2, Opus 97 “Archduke”

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beethoven

Beethoven’s first published works—his Opus No.1—were three trios for piano, violin and cello and already they show a marked advance on Haydn’s trios in the comparative interdependence of the three parts. Their freedom from Haydn’s oppressive formality looks forward to the first mature trios, the pair that comprises Opus 70, displaying all sorts of harmonic twists, thematic innovations and structural idiosyncrasies, these trios make much of the piano part and contain plenty of dramatic outbursts that are typical of Beethoven’s middle period.

Even more arresting is the first of the Opus 70 trios (1808) nicknamed ”The Ghost” because of its mysterious and haunting Largo. Its sibling boasts a cheerful bombastic finale that is the most entertaining music that Beethoven composed for this combination of instruments.

The “Archduke” Trio Opus 97 (1811) was Beethoven’s last full – scale work for piano trio and is typically conclusive. The third movement is its centre of gravity, a highly moving set of variations with the cello dominating the thematic content. It opens with a hymn-like theme and progresses to a coda which magnificently sums up the movements ideas. The finale might be less powerful than that of Opus 70 No. 2, but it nevertheless has a sweeping rhythmic power. Again, it is beyond the shadow of a doubt that Beethoven defined the piano trio form that it retained throughout the 19th century by allowing the string instruments the status of genuinely equal partners in this superlative performance.

Read more at Ludwig Van Beethoven Piano Trios Opus 70 No. 2, Opus 97 “Archduke” | World Music Report.

 

August 16 ~ Today in Music History

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today

 

• 1795 ~ Heinrich Marschner, German opera composer

• 1863 ~ Gabriel Pierné, French composer, conductor and organist

• 1929 ~ Bill Evans, American jazz pianist and composer

• 1932 ~ Eydie Gorme (Edith Gormezano), Grammy Award-winning singer, married since 1957 to Steve Lawrence.

• 1938 ~ Robert Johnson passed away

• 1939 ~ The famous vaudeville house, Hippodrome, in New York City, was used for the last time. There were several places called the Hippodrome around the country. They weren’t, generally, theatres, nor true nightclubs. Hippodromes were designed for the wide variety of vaudeville acts available at the time … dancing, music, comedy and skits.

• 1940 ~ Marching Along Together, by Frankie Masters and his orchestra, was recorded for Okeh Records.

• 1942 ~ Barbara George, Singer

• 1945 ~ Suzanne Farrell (Ficker), Ballerina

• 1953 ~ James ‘J.T.’ Taylor, Singer with Kool and The Gang

• 1958 ~ Madonna (Madonna Louise Veronica Ciccone), Singer

• 1962 ~ Brian Epstein, manager of The Beatles, handed drummer Pete Best his walking papers. Best had been with the group for 2-1/2 years. Ringo Starr (Richard Starkey) was picked to take his place. One month later, the group recorded, Love Me Do.

• 1977 ~ Elvis Presley was rushed from Graceland to Baptist Memorial Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. Doctors’ efforts to revive him were fruitless and he was pronounced dead (coronary arrhythmia) at 3:30 p.m. He was 42 years old.

• 1984 ~ Prince was pictured on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine. He was shown with his left armpit exposed.

• 1984 ~ Though it didn’t make the pop music charts, a new single by Elvis Presley was released by RCA Victor Records. The song was originally recorded in 1956 at the Tupelo (MS) Fairgrounds. It was called, Baby, Let’s Play House.

• 2000 ~ Sally Amato, who founded the Amato Opera Theater with her husband, Anthony Amato, in 1948, died at the age of 82.
Amato, who performed under her maiden name, Serafina Bellantone, was born in Little Italy in 1917. As a child she appeared in vaudeville skits in local movie theaters.
She met her husband when they were both appearing in an operetta at New Jersey’s Paper Mill Playhouse, and they founded the Amato Opera Theater to provide young singers with a chance to perform.

• 2000 ~ Alan Caddy died

August 15 ~ Today in Music History

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today

 

• 1890 ~Jacques Ibert, French composer and educator

• 1909 ~ Hugo Winterhalter, Orchestra leader

• 1922 ~ Lukas Foss, German-born American pianist, conductor and composer

• 1925 ~ Oscar Peterson, Canadian Jazz pianist, jazz trios, solos, played with all jazz greats, composer.  He achieved international fame with the touring “Jazz at the Philharmonic”.  His biography is Oscar Peterson: The Will to Swing

• 1925 ~ Bill Pinkney, Musician, bass with The Drifters

• 1933 ~ Bobby Helms, Singer

• 1941 ~ Don Rich, Country musician, songwriter, one of Buck Owens’ Buckaroos

• 1941 ~ Au Revoir, Pleasant Dreams was recorded by Ben Bernie and his orchestra.

• 1942 ~ Peter York, Musician, drums with Spencer Davis Group

• 1946 ~ Jimmy Webb, Grammy Award-winning songwriter

• 1961 ~ Matt Johnson, Musician, guitar, singer

• 1965 ~ 55,600 people attended a Beatles concert at Shea Stadium, New York, creating world attendance and revenue records for a pop concert.

• 1969 ~ The first day of the most famous musical event of 1969, Woodstock. It was originally called The Woodstock Music and Arts Fair and it began in Bethel, New York.

• 1969 ~ Three Dog Night (Danny Hutton, Cory Wells and Chuck Negron) were awarded a gold record for the album, Three Dog Night. Where’d the name of the group come from? In Australia, the aborigine tribes of several regions slept outside all year. As the temperatures got colder, the tribesmen would sleep with a dog to keep warm. In colder weather, they would huddle with two dogs. It must have been an extremely cold night when the group was formed!

• 1980 ~ I, Me, Mine, an autobiography by former Beatle George Harrison, went on sale.

• 1981 ~ Lionel Richie and Diana Ross hit number one on the pop music charts with their beautiful duet, Endless Love. It was a huge success for the two singers. Endless Love was number one for 9 weeks.

• 1989 ~ Many groups who had been to Woodstock had a twentieth-anniversary celebration.

August 14 ~ Today in Music History

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today

 

1778 ~ Augustus Toplady, English hymn-writer who wrote Rock of Ages, died.

• 1868 ~ Leone Sinigaglia, Italian composer

• 1926 ~ Buddy (Armando) Greco, Singer and pianist

• 1937 ~ Brian Fennelly, American composer, pianist and conductor

• 1940 ~ Dash Crofts, Drums, mandolin and keyboard with Champs; singer is a duo with Seals and Crofts

• 1941 ~ David Crosby (Van Cortland), American rock singer, guitarist and songwriter. Performed with The Byrds as well as Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

• 1941 ~ Connie Smith (Meadows), Singer

• 1946 ~ Larry Graham, Bassist and singer with Sly and the Family Stone as well as Graham Central Station

• 1971 ~ Elton John put the finishing touches to his Madman Across the Water LP at Trident Studios, London. Since the album’s release on Feb 2, 1972, it has sold over two million copies in the U.S. alone.

• 1981 ~ The BBC recording of the Royal Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana reached number one on the album charts in Britain.

• 2000 ~ Leonard Kwan, a master of slack key guitar whose composition Opihi Moemoe is considered a classic of the genre, died at the age of 69.
Kwan began recording in 1957 and most recently recorded two albums for George Winston’s Dancing Cat Records. The second will be released in September.
Kwan also was the first slack key guitarist to publicly share his instrument tunings in an instruction book.
Hawaiian slack key, or ki ho`alu, is a unique musical style dating to the 1830s, when Spanish and Mexican cowboys arrived in the islands. Some of the guitar strings are slacked from the standard tuning and songs are played in a finger-picking style, with the thumb playing bass.
In 1960, he recorded, Slack Key, the world’s first all-instrumental slack key album.

• 2001 ~ Nicholas Orloff, a dancer and ballet teacher, died at the age of 86.
Orloff was known for his performance of the Drummer, a character he originated in David Lichine’s 1940 “Graduation Ball.”
He was a popular teacher with the Ballet Theater and other schools. He continued to teach in Manhattan schools even after suffering from a stroke three years ago.
Orloff appeared in the 1950 French film “Dream Ballerina” and on Broadway in the musical “Pipe Dream.”
He also was the ballet master of the Denver Civic Ballet in the mid- 1970s.
Born in Moscow, Orloff trained in Paris. He performed with the Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, the Original Ballet Russe, Ballet Theater, as the American Ballet Theater was known, and the Grand Ballet du Marquis de Ceuvas.

• 2001 ~ Daniel Adrian Carlin, an Emmy-winning music editor who worked with soundtrack composers Lalo Schifrin and Ennio Morricone, died of complications from lung cancer and pulmonary fibrosis. He was 73.
Carlin edited the music for “Scorpio,” “The Outlaw Josey Wales,” “Ghost,” “Gorillas in  the Mist,” “Dead Poets Society” and “Cliffhanger.” He won a music-editing Emmy in 1987 for his work on the miniseries “Unnatural Causes.”
He was founder in 1972 of La Da Music. Now known as Segue Music, it is considered the leading film and television editing company.

August 13 ~ Today in Music History

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today

 

• 1820 ~ Sir George Grove, British musicographer and educator.  Grove was editor of the Dictionary of Music and Musicians, the latest revised editions of which still carry his name

• 1860 ~ Annie Oakley born as Phoebe Anne Oakley Moses. She was a markswoman and member of Buffalo Bill Cody’s “Wild West Show” which toured America. The Irving Berlin musical, Annie Get Your Gun, was based on her life.

• 1912 ~ Jules Massenet, French composer of the operas Werther and Manon died.
More information about Massenet

• 1919 ~ George Shearing, British-born American jazz pianist and composer

• 1924 ~ The first country music record to sell one million copies reached that point on this day. It was The Prisoner’s Song, recorded by Vernon Dalhart. He became a Country Music Hall of Famer in 1981.

• 1930 ~ Don Ho, Singer

• 1930 ~ Guy Lombardo and his orchestra recorded Go Home and Tell Your Mother, on Columbia Records.

• 1948 ~ Kathleen Battle, American soprano, Metropolitan Opera diva, performed with the NY Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony, Boston Symphony, Berlin Philharmonic, Vienna Philharmonic, Orchestre de Paris

• 1949 ~ Cliff Fish, Musician, bassist with Paper Lace

• 1951 ~ Dan Fogelberg, Singer

• 1958 ~ Feargal Sharkey, Singer with The Undertones

• 2001 ~ Neil Cooper, the founder of the ROIR rock and reggae record label, died of cancer. He was 71.
Cooper started Reach Out International Records in 1979 and put out his first release – on cassette only – in 1981 by James Chance and the Contortions.
He then produced a catalog of cassettes by rock groups such as Bad Brains, Glenn Branca, Television, MC5, G.G. Allin, Johnny Thunders, and New York Dolls. ROIR’s reggae releases included Lee “Scratch” Perry, the Skatalites, Prince Far I, and Big Youth among others.
The cassette releases were a way to sidestep the artists’ exclusive contracts with other record labels. Vinyl album and compact disc versions were later issued.
Cooper also worked as an agent for MCA and Famous Artists before starting his label.

• 2003 ~ Ed Townsend, who wrote hit songs including 1958’s “For Your Love” and Marvin Gaye’s controversial “Let’s Get It On,” died at the age of 74.   Townsend had written more than 200 songs.    Nat King Cole and Etta James were among the stars who recorded Townsend’s songs. One of his first hits was “For Your Love” – which Townsend recorded himself.
Townsend also wrote and produced the Impressions’ 1974 No. 1 R&B hit “Finally Got Myself Together (I’m A Changed Man).”

Play Corvallis, Play

Posted by MaryO on

 

Play Corvallis, Play pianos are about to hit the streets, but first a giant gift to the community must be unwrapped at 6 p.m. Friday by the riverfront downtown.

“On Friday, we want to celebrate Corvallis and the citizens for being involved in music,” said Lee Eckroth, who came up with the street piano program last year. “Our reveal that day is a gift to the community and it’s pretty special.”

After the gift is opened, theme-painted pianos will start being available for free playing in various locations around town.

Eckroth was inspired to start the event after a family vacation in Boston a few years ago. He said the city had a street pianos program and his daughter, Morgan, thought it would be cool to bring that idea to Corvallis.

A mutual friend introduced Eckroth to Dave Lundahl, organizer of the Corvallis Imagination Music and Arts Festival, and the two decided to collaborate. The idea was to use both events to generate money for art and music programs in area K-12 public schools.

Eckroth said, “I put out a message to the community in February of 2014 that there was a guy looking to collect pianos. All of sudden I had 10 pianos in my garage.”

From June until the beginning of last August, Eckroth invited local residents and volunteers to use his driveway as a studio to paint whatever theme they wanted on the pianos. Themes included an all-orange piano called the Beaver Believer, or fruits and veggies, and more. One, called Happy Hands, featured a painted handprint of every volunteer. The pianos appeared outside locations such as the public library, the Oregon State University Valley Library and the downtown American Dream Pizza on Second Street.

“Last year we were amazed with what happened with the pianos,” Lundahl says. People were planning parties around the pianos, and impromptu concerts emerged from players of all different ages.

“We were giving people the opportunity to come out of their shells and express themselves,” Eckroth says.

The pianos, each with its own sponsor, will be re-released one by one between 7 a.m. and 10 p.m. every day in various locations until August 16. And like last year, when the pianos go away for the winter, they will be sent to different families to enjoy in their homes until next summer.

From http://www.gazettetimes.com/news/local/play-corvallis-play/article_694381ef-4c10-5570-9fab-490469eb4c2b.html

August 12 ~ Today in Music History

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today

 

• 1644 ~ Heinrich Biber, Bohemian violinist and composer

OCMS   1859 ~ Katharine Lee Bates
Listen to Katharine Lee Bates’s music, America the Beautiful
Read about Katharine Lee Bates
More information about Bates


• 1919 ~ Michael Kidd (Milton Greenwald), Choreographer, dancer

• 1926 ~ Joe Jones, Singer, pianist for B.B. King

• 1927 ~ Porter Wagoner, Singer, songwriter

• 1929 ~ “Buck” (Alvis Edgar) Owens, American country-music guitarist, singer and songwriter

• 1941 ~ Jennifer Warnes, Singer

• 1944 ~ Peter Hofmann, German tenor and rock singer

• 1949 ~ Mark Knopfler, Musician, guitar, songwriter, singer with Dire Straits

• 1954 ~ Pat Metheny, Musician, jazz-guitar

• 1959 ~ Suzanne Vega, Musician, folk-guitar, singer, songwriter

• 1961 ~ Roy Hay, Musician, guitar with Culture Club

• 1966 ~ The last tour for The Beatles began at the International Amphitheater in Chicago; and John Lennon apologized for boasting that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ. London’s Catholic Herald said Lennon’s comment was “arrogant … but probably true.”

• 1967 ~ Fleetwood Mac made their stage debut at the National Blues and Jazz Festival in Great Britain.