George Walker, who died in 2018 at the age of 96, was a Pulitzer Prize-winning composer – the first Black composer to have nabbed that prize – and pianist, who was also the first Black soloist to perform with the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the Curtis Institute’s first Black graduate. And his Pulitzer-winning piece, “Lilacs,” setting a Lincoln eulogy by Walt Whitman, should be a mandated substitute for Aaron Copland’s odiously puerile “Lincoln Portrait.” Below, we travel back to 1987 and my review of a performance by Albany’s Capitol Chamber Artists, who championed Walker’s work.
THERE SHOULD BE A LAW banning frivolous settings of T. S. Eliot’s poems. And there should be a national celebration when a thoughtful setting comes along that does justice to Eliot’s work.
In which case composer George Walker would be hoisted upon shoulders for his brand-new setting of "The Hollow Men."
Capitol Chamber Artists premiered the work this weekend, locally at Page Hall in Albany last night. Walker’s “Poem for Soprano and Chamber Orchestra” is more than just a chamber piece, however. With its surprising theatrical touches and disquieting voice, it is a completely appropriate and thought-provoking interpretation of the text.
Scoring is for flute, clarinet, violin, cello, guitar, piano, harpsichord and percussion battery; in addition to the soprano two speakers (human, not electronic) are required.
Soprano Mary Anne Ross entered in whiteface, an old felt hat on her head, a blanket grasped round her waist. She carried a plastic bag bulging with street-life stuff.
Michael Murphy, one of the speakers, was ragged and unshaven and wore a woolen watch cap. He uttered the poem’s epigraph (from Conrad’s “Heart of Darkness”) as the music began.
This isn’t a work that offers its own melodies. The music is lifted from the words in the poem, from the twists that Walker’s ear has discerned. It might not be the music you and I here, but one of the biggest challenges Eliot offers is diversity of interpretation.
The music was fragmented, constantly shifting in tempo. Little bursts tossed from instrument to instrument as Ross began the first stanza.
Each of the five sections shifted a little in character, as the poem suggests. Many violent, unpleasant words are cloaked in Eliot’s elegance, and Walker’s setting sought and realized that violence.
This is the dream-poem of a person too desperately unhappy to put thoughts into words, and that feeling of having ventured into a dream was supported by the eerie shifts in the music, the same sense you have when a high fever causes your thoughts to shimmer into dreams.
In the end, the thoughts are fragmented enough that Janet Rowe, the second speaker, murmured a poetic counterpoint behind the famous closing lines.
It’s no easy task to perform a score like this one: credit goes not only to conductor Angelo Frascarelli but also to each member of the ensemble. Percussionists Richard Albagli and Scott Stacey moved like wizards; Malcolm Kogut was dexterous in his keyboard work as he shifted from piano to harpsichord and back again.
Irvin Gilman and Charles Stancampiano played the wind instruments; strings were Mary Lou Saetta and Douglas Moore. Sam Farkas was the guitarist.
Walker’s “Poem,” commissioned by CCA in conjunction with a consortium of other chamber groups, is a devastating work, deserving of greater attention.
This premiere is one of the more prestigious occasions that Albany has overlooked lately.
The program of this concert took some shifts since it was announced last autumn. Beethoven’s Serenade in D Major, Op. 25, was moved to front of the program, and presented Gilman, Saetta and Rowe on flute, violin and viola in a five-movement work very much in the classical tradition.
It’s a fun piece of occasional music, already showing the whimsy that Beethoven would make the most of in later compositions. It was the right choice, too, to warm the audience up for the Walker work that began the second half.
From there on in it was all enjoyable fluff. Heitor Villa-Lobos seems to have written something for every possible combination of instruments: “Distribution of the Flowers” is for flute and guitar, and Gilman and Farkas had a ball with it.
Gilman, Saetta and Kogut joined forces for two short works: a minuet by Haydn and a rondo by Mozart, the latter a “Turkish dance” that featured Gilman’s sprightly piccolo.
And the conclusion was downright hilarious. Adolphe Adam, a Frenchman with romance in his heart, fiddled with Mozart’s variations on the tune we know as “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” to provide a soprano showcase, the kind of deal you would have heard at a “society” dinner party as the special guest showed off her tonsils.
With Kogut at the piano, Gilman and Ross took turns (with flute and voice) dancing through these fanciful variations, complete with a voice-busting cadenza before the big finish.
All in all, this was program of contrast and delight.
Malcolm Kogut
Musician Malcolm Kogut has been tickling the ivories since he was 14 and won the NPM DMMD Musician of the Year award in 99. He has CDs along with many published books. Malcolm played in the pit for many Broadway touring shows. When away from the keyboard, he loves exploring the nooks, crannies and arresting beauty of the Adirondack Mountains, battling gravity on the ski slopes and roller coasters.
Saturday, October 17, 2020
A review of George Walker’s “Poem for Soprano and Chamber Orchestra”
Friday, March 20, 2020
Some Little Bug Is Going to Find You Someday
From 1915: The song hit introduced in Franz Lehar's operetta "Alone at
Last." They say that food can kill you. Here's how. Performed in 2020 by
Byron Nilsson and Malcolm Kogut.
Sunday, February 23, 2020
Thursday, February 20, 2020
Saturday, January 25, 2020
In piano playing, what does “to caress the keys” mean?
There
is an old technique called carrezando which literally means to caress
the keys. Carrezando playing can injure a musician, it is very
dangerous. The reason is because people think it is a technique when in
reality it is the symptom or end result of technique. It should not be
sought after but rejoiced when it appears.
This
is a condition of virtuoso teaching. Many virtuosos move properly and
never fully learned the biomechanics of playing because playing well
came naturally to them so when they teach, they tell the student what
they feel and not what they are doing to get that feeling. The student
then tries to force that feeling into their playing but they can make many
mistakes while trying to obtain it. Virtuosos are often the worse teachers because they
sometimes don’t know how they do what they do.
Consequently
students who try to force caressing into their technique begin pressing
into the keys, playing with flat fingers and doing all sorts of things
which will strain the tendons and then crippling pain will ensue over
time because the damage is cumulative. The pianist will ignore the warning signs
until one day something just breaks.
Ergonomic
playing requires in/out motions, up/down, forward/backward and
left/right. When you combine all these movements the player begins to
play up and allows gravity to play down. The symptom of the congealment
of all these motions is the feeling of caressing the keys. The pianist
should not be caressing them but should feel like they are caressing
them. When done properly the pianist won’t even feel their fingers
because the skeleton will be playing from the arm muscles while the
tendons in the hands predominately relax.
Much
like petting a dog. Your arm lifts up, you move it toward the head,
then down, then you pet down the dog’s back. There are four movements
there and without them, there would be no petting. The petting is the
result of the four movements where the hand appears do be doing the petting, using the arm.
Better
yet, lay your arm on a table and lift your elbow off the table, allow
your wrist to flex but keep all your fingertips on the table top. Now
pull your arm off the table. Feel that your fingers are caressing the
table but the fingers are NOT doing the caressing, it is the result of
the arm pulling away. THAT is the carrezando technique.
But every motion
MUST have an equal and opposite motion. Like petting that dog, before
you can pet down the dog’s back you must first lift up and forward
before you can drop down and backward. If you focus on caressing, you
will lose the equal and opposite motions required to play properly. Your
fingers have no muscles, all the muscles which move your fingers are in
your arm. The finger bones move by a pulley system of tendons. All
these equal and opposite motions are what gives a pianist a graceful
look but some players force that look into their playing. Now, some
schools of technique, such as the Russian, will teach you to do this
hoping that carrezando will magically appear but shortcuts often come at
a cost. If not pain, ignorance of the mechanics.
It
is erroneously thought that the carrezando technique will give you
great speed and a very light pearly touch. Again, that is the end result
feeling of a proper technique. Don’t ever seek it, it will find you if
your technique is proper.
First,
you have to find a good teacher. If you want to find a good teacher,
don’t listen to them play, listen to their students. If 90% of them play
the way you want to play, you found the right teacher. Hopefully that
teacher provides student recital opportunities for you to go hear several at a time. Otherwise, go to any of
those ubiquitous Chopin competitions and ask the good students whom they
take lessons from. CAREFUL the student isn’t a virtuoso whom the
teacher is just guiding.
*I* have a virtuoso student but it is nothing I did. The kid just plays correctly naturally and i keep out of his way.
Answer requested for Malcolm Kogut
Wednesday, January 22, 2020
Monday, January 20, 2020
Do ergonomic keyboards and mice really help to prevent/decrease pain?
Pain and hand problems are caused by moving improperly. Ergonomic equipment, in theory, is designed to force your body into proper positions. They CAN work but it would be better for you to learn how to move ergonomically without the equipment.
The reason is, let’s say you have an improper ulnar deviation when you type (wrist twists to the left on your left and right on your right), you can still execute that improper motion with an ergonomic keyboard and, what good is fixing your typing deviation when you open doors, brush your teeth, write, use your phone or drive your car with the same deviation?
You can’t spot fix ergonomic problems. It is all or nothing. That is why people don’t heal because they try to fix isolated symptoms and not everything that is part of the problem. You may have pain in your wrist but that is only the location of the symptom. The problem is most likely how you are using your whole arm.
Often it is not a single movement that is a problem but a cavalcade of movement issues. You may type with flat fingers, curled fingers, too much pressure, equalized fingers, not enough “up,” radial deviation, you may abduct too much, you might isolate a finger, dorsiflexion, have an isolated elbow or shoulder . . . there are a lot of motions we should not do but we do them because many of us are lazy and unaware.
In the old days, manual typewriters forced us to type with the weight of the arm or, gravity. Today's effortless keyboards have insidiously encouraged us not to use gravity and the fulcrum of the elbow to type and thus, we isolate smaller parts which strain our tendons. There is no such thing as "repetitive stress." There is only improper movement and if you move improperly, all movement is then "repetitive stress."
Imagine casting a fishing pole with just your fingers, you'd probably hurt yourself. Now imagine that only with the wrist. That is better but still not optimal. Now with your elbow. Better. Add the shoulder. Notice how you are now using all the parts of the arm for one movement. No single part is isolated but they all share in the casting, including but not exclusively the fingers. Now as you cast, notice how your feet are planted, how your weight or center of gravity is distributed, your back and abs, notice also the equal and opposite motion required to cast. In order to cast forward you must first cast backward. Typing, too. In order to type down you must first have an up motion. Without it, you will strain your flexor tendons. That is also the most dangerous part of using a mouse. We rest our index finger and long flexor tendon flat on the button and click with no "up" or equal and opposite motion. There is nothing wrong with the mouse, only how we use it.
The laws of physics must be obeyed. Break them and there is a price to pay.
The reason is, let’s say you have an improper ulnar deviation when you type (wrist twists to the left on your left and right on your right), you can still execute that improper motion with an ergonomic keyboard and, what good is fixing your typing deviation when you open doors, brush your teeth, write, use your phone or drive your car with the same deviation?
You can’t spot fix ergonomic problems. It is all or nothing. That is why people don’t heal because they try to fix isolated symptoms and not everything that is part of the problem. You may have pain in your wrist but that is only the location of the symptom. The problem is most likely how you are using your whole arm.
Often it is not a single movement that is a problem but a cavalcade of movement issues. You may type with flat fingers, curled fingers, too much pressure, equalized fingers, not enough “up,” radial deviation, you may abduct too much, you might isolate a finger, dorsiflexion, have an isolated elbow or shoulder . . . there are a lot of motions we should not do but we do them because many of us are lazy and unaware.
In the old days, manual typewriters forced us to type with the weight of the arm or, gravity. Today's effortless keyboards have insidiously encouraged us not to use gravity and the fulcrum of the elbow to type and thus, we isolate smaller parts which strain our tendons. There is no such thing as "repetitive stress." There is only improper movement and if you move improperly, all movement is then "repetitive stress."
Imagine casting a fishing pole with just your fingers, you'd probably hurt yourself. Now imagine that only with the wrist. That is better but still not optimal. Now with your elbow. Better. Add the shoulder. Notice how you are now using all the parts of the arm for one movement. No single part is isolated but they all share in the casting, including but not exclusively the fingers. Now as you cast, notice how your feet are planted, how your weight or center of gravity is distributed, your back and abs, notice also the equal and opposite motion required to cast. In order to cast forward you must first cast backward. Typing, too. In order to type down you must first have an up motion. Without it, you will strain your flexor tendons. That is also the most dangerous part of using a mouse. We rest our index finger and long flexor tendon flat on the button and click with no "up" or equal and opposite motion. There is nothing wrong with the mouse, only how we use it.
The laws of physics must be obeyed. Break them and there is a price to pay.
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