Dragon’s Inkwell- Playing violin

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pen portraits-Ludwig van Beethoven

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More on Toscanini and music- anecdotes

Arturo Toscanini (1867-1957)

Musical genius of Toscanini on looking back was in his ability to convey what the composer had in mind not only musically but psychologically and thus playing his work he made it a dramatic experience. By studying the score sheets he saw beyond the notes the intention of the composer and by memorizing it, brooding over it he saw the work as a totality of the man, his work and his role as a faithful translator of his ideas . As he told George Marek, his biographer ‘When I look at a score I see the profile of the composer on the page’.
He was a stern taskmaster and yet he was not a martinet. He respected individual ideas. He said to an oboist playing the cadenza in the Beethoven’s Fifth, ‘That is not the way I would have phrased it –but I like it. There is nothing absolute in music.’
Pianist Rubinstein once played Beethoven C Minor Concerto under the leading of Toscanini. It was their first encounter. The pianist was a bit apprehensive and on the first rehearsal Rubinstein came and sat at the piano. The maestro nodded and the pianist began. It was a catastrophe since they found their ideas were completely different.
At the end of the first movement Toscanini looked at the pianist and asked him if he intended to play his part like that.
‘Yes.’
Toscanini asked him to repeat the first all over again. While he played Toscanini listened noticing the tempo, phrasing and every expression mark. On the repetition they had the look as if they had been playing the music together all their lives.
2
At the time he was developing and perfecting his technique as a conductor he set new standards of interpretation in his insistence that music should be played exactly as was written. One occasion,- and it was not the only time, Toscanini stopped a rehearsal because the timpanist failed to give an accent to a particular note. ‘There is no accent marked here on my copy, maestro’ the timpanist said.
‘Then put it on’ said Toscanini and he was certain it was how originally written. Some time afterwards the timpanist went to a library where the original of the composer’s score was kept. On checking it he found the maestro was right: the accent was there.
3.
Once he hollered at a well-bosomed soprano in Italian and he said pointing to her head ‘If you had up here what you have down here, what a singer you would be!’
(Toscanini, A Biography: Gorge Marek,1975/Atheneum)

Tailpiece: The other day I heard a Chinese girl of 9 playing Chopin and not a note was missed and her playing was faultless. On the other hand I heard Lang Lang playing Liszt’s Piano concerto #1 ( BBC program) recently at the Albert Hall-having heard him and enjoyed his music, I was disappointed. His facial contortions in bringing solo passages to a close was distracting to say the least. I hear often criticism of lacking in experience leveled against Far Eastern performers. Nationality of players have not come in way of enjoying their recitals.
Is life experience needed in order to play Chopin or Liszt?
In my opinion a player should stick to the score faithfully and if the player could get the dynamics and tempo right it is all needed for me. My life experience and mood is what counts and not the players’ contortions to be transcendental.
Herbert von Karajan was like a sphinx but his presence was unmistakable. Toscanini was tempestuous while rehearsing but on podium he was the conductor and his personality also made it an satisfying experience.

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Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart- his run of bad luck

The fact the composer was buried in an unmarked grave is too well known to repeat here. The cure for the illness from which he died was discovered only a few years after his death. A blizzard and sleet drove away the mourners who had come to pay their last respects.
Shortly before the composer’s death the Emperor Josef II had passed a decree, evidently to discourage the Viennese tendency to erect opulent tombs more in vying with one another to show off their wealth,- and as a result a grave stone was not thought of for the occasion.
He was unlucky that there is no truly authentic portrait extant for posterity to conceive of a composer who set down the very voice of God in musical language. A death mask was made and was accidentally smashed.

This child prodigy was fortune’s fool and yet no one who has listened to his music can ever refuse a kinship that is nurtured only in realm that matters, one’s soul. He is a soul-mate for anyone who seek for consolation in times of weal or woe beyond one’s immediate circumstances.
benny

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Woodie Guthrie-anecdote

Woodie Guthrie (1912-1967)
Woodie Guthrie had been on the road most of his life , a drifter with a guitar and singing folk songs. Alan Lomax, who was collecting folk songs for the Library of Congress persuaded him to record them for posterity. Woody lived with Lomaxes while he recorded three hours of songs and conversations for the Library. During this period he slept on the floor wrapped in his lumber jacket, and had his dinner standing by the sink. ‘I don’t want to get softened up,’ said he to his host, ‘I’m a road man.’
benny

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Music, Music,put another nickel…

When I listen to Mozart i know I am transported to another level and having come down to earth I shall never be the same at least for a couple of hours. I am sure I have seen how my cat would come purring and walk around me swishing his furry tail as though he kept time to the Mozart’s piece. House tits also come flying chirring their delicate wings to wow my day. I haven’t cared to find if they find something special in his Requiem or in divertimenti.
I know I am at peace with the living and the dead.
benny

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Music of Beethoven

The first time I visited the British Museum in 89 one item that captivated me was the autograph of Beethoven. Alongside was that of Mozart. The tidiness of the latter was totally missing in the work of Beethoven. Comparing these is easier than analyzing why one is distinct from the other.
Yet both have been essential to me. Though I have no musical training to appreciate the merits of a composer from his style, in the manner one uses melodic, rhythmic or textural elements, my responses to both composers have been varied. Whereas one has smoothed my troubled spirit by life’s inconsequential hammerings, as an infant satiated by it mother’s milk, Beethoven has supplied more than ample muscle to keep me going through day’s chore. I require both. Even as I get on with tasks on hand, snatches of his themes are ever in my mind. I can smooth day to my liking. 
Is there anything that I may pick out from works of Beethoven as infinitely of high order than others? Given the temperament and cast of my mind second movement in symphonies, the slow movements touch me deeper than others.  Whatever I may be doing while the music goes on the background I pause in order to take the delicious passages: Seventh symphony, the third piano concerto are cases in point.
After becoming acquainted with his music for years my ear can note development of a theme, tonic major and minor relationships how bits and pieces of it are scattered throughout the work. Such juxtapositions of key and dynamics give the piece its variety; themes when restated are like memory playing tricks, a sunny brisk passage when restated is in minor key nevertheless balance is achieved.  His music almost mirrors life in that that sunny outlook of a child derived from its influences may be transformed by tragic aspects of life. But such major minor relationships do not make life seen separately; overall unity of a Beethoven symphony is in its variety despite the motive force of life merely lets each of us to touch highs and lows of joy and sorrow. If the music has its structure and unity is neither of joy nor of sorrow of life can be isolated. They are part of a design. As long man is subject to such tempests of life music of Beethoven must be relevant to him.
As long as my ears can note the difference between a violin and drum I shall listen to Beethoven. If totally deaf with age I hope my memory shall continue to give my ruined state some semblance of sparkle. I shall end with a quotation of Lenin, ‘I know nothing which is greater than the Appassionato…It is marvelous, superhuman music. I always think with pride –perhaps it is naïve of me-what marvelous things human beings can do. (Maxim Gorky-Days with Lenin)’

benny

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Arturo Toscanini-anecdotes

Arturo Toscanini(1867-1957)
Conductor

As a conductor he was a martinet and his total dedication to the composer was as distinct as William Furtwängler, for example, was not. He began his musical career as a cellist. When he was 19 he found himself as cellist and assistant chorus master, part of an Italian troupe performing in Brazil at São Paulo and Rio. The chorus and orchestra were to be filled out by locally hired talent. The Brazilian conductor Miguez was severely criticized in the Press after a performance of Faust. He sent an open letter to the newspaper accusing ‘the foreign singers’ for the bad performance.
In the next performance the locals booed Miguez down. Toscanini who was late in coming found total confusion in and front of the curtain. One from the audience pointing to young Toscanini shouted,’Let him try! He knows the opera by heart.’ The impresario and the Italian troup turned to the cellist to save day and he did. His debut on the night of June 25, 1886 was a triumph.
2.
When the WWI broke out there were pressures on him to leave out Beethoven and other German composers from the programmes, as concession to prevailing patriotic sentiments. He refused to let politics interfere with music.
In the matter of Fascism he resisted it. When Mussolini became dictator there was directive to display his portrait in all public buildings and play Giovenzza, the Fascist hymn before all concerts. Whole of Italy it was enforced except at La Scala, Milan.
In the end Toscanini had to choose self-exile than give in. In 1943 when Il Duce fell the day after, two big banners appeared in front of La Scala asking Toscanini to come back and he did.
3.
He fell foul with Hitler also. In the summer of 1933 he was invited to Bayreuth to conduct Wagner on his 50th Death Anniversary. Personally it was to be realization of a dream long cherished. But on April 1, 1933 Hitler proclaimed a national boycott of all Jewish shops. Next day Toscanini decided to refuse to conduct Wagner in Bayreuth. Not even Hitler’s conciliatory letter could change his decision.
Later the maestro was in the USA and he was the conductor of N.B.C and scheduled for a rehearsal. The news reached him that Hitler’s troops overran Salzburg, the city of Mozart.
The same day during rehearsal he exploded over a trifle. Having stopped the rehearsal he went to his dressing room, locked himself and wept.
4.
His memory was as keen visually as well as aurally. His photographic memory absorbed a page at one glance in its entirety. One day when he was rehearsing the orchestra at the end of Act I of Tristan and Isolde he suddenly stopped and asked,’where is the cymbal?’
There was no cymbal crash marked in the score. They showed that there was no cymbal marked and he was not convinced. Finally Wagner’s manuscript was fetched and there was the cymbal crash. Over the years it had somehow dropped out.
His rehearsals were quite intense that he once remarked,’every rehearsal is like a concert to me; and every concert like a debut.’

benny

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Michael Jackson is Dead!

I record my sorrow at his passing. The world has lost a great entertainer. Music industry shall look for another and I do not think it will be easy.

When Elvis died as a courtesy to the dead I stopped shaking my pelvis; with Michael Jackson I shall go extra mile. He deserves all that I’ve got. No more I shall moonwalk. Instead I shall walk straight. 

Rest in Peace, O great One.

benny

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How Sailors Came to Sing Shanties

A Musical Joke©
Arion was the most celebrated musician in his time and he served Periander, the despot of Corinth. After serving him for long he took leave for a certain period. First he sailed for Sicily and went though Italy where his musical gifts earned him great wealth. Then it was time for him to return to the court of his master. He took the same Corinthian vessel on his way back. During his long voyage the crew seeing all those wealth in his possession planned to kill him and divide the money among themselves. That night however Arion saw in a dream a dolphin and it said to him, “ Your life is in a danger. Let us play a musical joke on the villains who are steering your course to a watery grave.” Next morning the crew approached the musician and said, “Kill yourself if you want a burial ashore. Or we will throw you overboard.” Poor Arion of Methymna! He was terrified of water. Much more was his terror to be carried around as a carrion in a ship. So he agreed to take his chances with a watery grave. “Before I jump to my death let me at least sing a farewell song to you. Thereafter you may do what you will.” He put on his costume and gave a song to them. Then he leapt into the sea. The ship with the villainous crew sailed onwards to Corinth.
Arion struggled to keep afloat and at last he felt drowsy and he would have perished but a dolphin  appeared out of nowhere  and it said, “Sing a song so I may be cheered along”.  Arion sang a song as he had never sang before. After he finished the dolphin observed, “ That song you sang for the crew was delectable but infinitely sad. How come you now sing a song of such cheer?” Arion eyed the approaching coastline and he could see the familiar features of Corinth and said, “Out there I sang to the band of thieves as though my life was pouring out of me, syllable by syllable. Literally. But you made me sing as though life was being poured on me.”
Arion after landing ashore went to Periander who didn’t believe his story.  He called the captain of the ship to the palace and asked what befell Arion. The villain replied that he left the singer safe and sound at Tarentum in Italy. At that point Arion appeared before them and the Captain could not believe his eyes. The Despot said, “ You and your crew are worthy of death. I shall spare you if you can sing for your life. Lives of your crew depend on you.”
Poor Captain, he just croaked. Periander had them killed for their villainy.
Since then sailors would rather sing shanty than solo. (ack:Herodotus-The Histories)
benny

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