Piano On A Milk Carton

Awoman's search for her beloved and long "lost" piano. It's the kind of story that stays with you for awhile.

"Nearly five years ago, while financially strapped because of medical bills, Kathy Leclere sold her most prized possession: a piano given to her by her parents on her 12th birthday."

Read the rest.

I thought about that often and on today. We name our pianos. We pour our lives into them. And when they are gone, something more than an instrument is missing.

I hope she finds her piano.

Storied Piano

Bronfman gives a recital on "storied" piano. But that's not what caught my eye scanning thru the article. It was this bit about Balakirev's "Islamey"

''It has the reputation of being the single most difficult piece in the world," said Ledbetter. ''It is so difficult that the composer himself couldn't play it."

More here.

I'm not sure I'd say it's the "single" most difficult piece, it is wildly difficult and not very rewarding as music goes, but I wonder what is the single most difficult work for piano. I imagine it has no real answer. It's likely that its whatever happens to be sitting on your music desk at this moment. Whoever you are, wherever you are in your journey playing the piano.

Spring Rolls

Canada's forgotten piano genius

Andre Mathieu . I confess it is the first time I came across the name.

..He was a child musical prodigy who some consider Canada's Mozart, but Quebec pianist Andre Mathieu died nearly four decades ago, poor and largely forgotten. Few of his works have been performed in public since his death but that is about to change.

Read the rest here.

Is Classical Music Going to the Dogs?

Details.

Why is it still so tough for women in classical music?

That's a good questions. Some thoughts on the matter, at least with reference to the field of conducting, can be found here.

Brain Food

If you're still hungering for more of last year's Cliburn competition, you might be interested in a new documentary titled "Encore!with James Conlon". I have not seen the series, but it looks to be a very good one (piano competition focus or not):

"Maestro James Conlon explores the relationship between the concert pianist's internal world and the composer's score - with the finalists of the Twelfth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition as his examples - and examines what makes one interpretation so different from another." Read the rest here.

Each episode is organized around and attempts to explore a particular theme or question. A fairly familiar rubric:

"Apollo or Dionysus?"
"Plato or Aristotle?"
"Being It or Playing It?"
"Beauty or Truth?"
"Technique or Spirit?"
"Tradition or Innovation?"

As I have not seen this series yet, I've no idea how it fares in tackling the subject matter it sets before itself. But there is a review that might, or might not, give an answer to that question: "a brainy, if naggingly flawed, treatise on the philosophical underpinnings of great classical music."

What seems to irk the reviewer is both the very asking of the questions, dimissively derided without qualification as "conceits", and what's seen as the series' apparent failure to connect the dots for the viewer ["often fails to make the link between Conlon's grandiose ideas and the music"]. But that seems, in my book, no real flaw at all. In exploring something it is often the asking of the question that is more valuable than the "answer" itself. (As an aside, this is one of my main complaints about education: very few students are taught how to ask good questions). A rough reformulation of Wittgenstein's bon mot might apply here: "Tell me how you seek and I will tell you what you seek."

I look forward to checking out the series.

music for theremin and piano

Lovely. Fresh. You find it here.

Piano Santa Foundation

New to the WTB list of Piano related web links is the "Piano Santa Foundation", a non-profit that brings music to young people. Link.

Jerksville

Here's something you don't read everyday in a music review:

"I have never been in the same building with a more powerful and masterful musician on any instrument in any genre. Ever. And, on a personal front, Mr. Atamian is what some people would call ... well ... some might say rather, under certain circumstances, at least on the surface ... a bitch...in rehearsal Dickran was grimacing and rolling his eyes at the orchestra, apparently unhappy with the piano, the conductor, and whatever else - maybe even the orchestra. We thought, is this guy a jerk?."

Living out of a suitcase might make one a little cranky. Then again it seems Atamian has been cranky for quite awhile: "When I was young my managers always said 'Richie, don't complain about the hotel. Richie, don't whine about the piano. Now Richie doesn't care any more."

Whatever else you might say, he is definitely, refreshingly, honest.

Read the rest here.

And, to be honest, every area of human endeavor has it's share of jerks. BTW, "epicurean lifestyle boutique" rates a good chuckle or two.