tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-46168166551237812412024-02-06T21:27:56.372-05:00Con SpiritoPianist Martin Perry
provocateurMartin Perryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17709439736501506650noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4616816655123781241.post-65620023608992650592017-01-16T10:48:00.001-05:002017-01-17T06:29:55.239-05:00REPEAL AND REHEARSE<br />
<span style="font-family: "verdana";"></span><i><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">"We will replace it with something great!" – Donald Trump</span></span></i><br />
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</span><b><span style="font-family: "verdana";">Trumpcare</span><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;"></span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana";"> Platinum</span></b></div>
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Recommended for those with a solid background in musical theater/dance.
Applicant must perform </span><span style="font-family: "verdana";"><span style="font-family: "verdana";">"Audition
(The Fools Who Dream)" from La La Land, </span>in its entirety and in the original key. Additionally, proficiency must be
demonstrated in one non-singing skill, as long as it's not boring. Schedule
your livestream audition at the fantastic new Trumpcare</span><span style="font-family: "verdana";"> website, which will be fully functional on day
ONE, thank you very much. Performances to be adjudicated by a wonderfully
diverse panel of conscripts from the performing arts division of the new Trump
Fired/Undocumented Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida (TFUC). <br />
Thumbs up: 100% coverage (except in case of illness or injury) <br />
Thumbs down: see <i>Trumpcare</i></span><i><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;"></span></span></i><span style="font-family: "verdana";"><i>
Bronzed</i><br />
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<b>Trumpcare</b></span><b><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;"></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "verdana";"><b> Golden</b><br />
For "serious" artists in the fields of literature, classical music,
jazz, the visual arts and other uninteresting pastimes. Also for those with
pre-existing medical conditions such as heartbeat, respiration or skin. Live
audition not required-we couldn't care less and no one else does either, trust
me. Just send a hard copy portfolio of your "work" to
Secretary Rick Perry, U.S. Department of Energy, Washington, DC 20585, where it
will be incinerated to provide low-cost high-CO</span><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;">2</span></span><span style="font-family: "verdana";"> energy for the new White House Watersports Pavilion. Coverage as in Platinum, except for a lifetime maximum of $15,000 or
894,770 rubles, whichever comes first.<br />
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Trumpcare</b></span><b><span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-char-type: symbol; mso-symbol-font-family: Symbol;"></span></span></b><span style="font-family: "verdana";"><b> Bronzed</b><br />
For the completely ungifted, or those who failed their Golden audition. <br />
Well then, what CAN you do? Have you tried slam poetry, celebrity cook-offs,
fashion design? All I can suggest is you get off your lazy Medicaid keister and
make something interesting of yourself before asking for a handout from the
United States Treasury. Visit <i>Trumpweb</i></span><span style="font-family: "verdana";"> (really, really secure) for a link to the Trumpcare</span><span style="font-family: "verdana";">-approved "Personal Responsibility"
program- or "I've Got Some Talent</span><span style="font-family: "verdana";">" as we like to call it! Enrollees will receive free <i>Trumpcare</i></span><span style="font-family: "verdana";"><i> Gold</i> coverage contingent on successful completion
of a four-year, 5,000-hour course designed by the acclaimed Kushner Institute
(formerly the National Endowment for the Arts). Annual tuition based
on race, religion, sexual orientation and degrees of separation from Mitch
McConnell. <br />
Note: Financial aid available but really, really frowned upon.<br />
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>#iguessthisdoesnthurtsomuchafterall<br />
#willcanadagetmuchwarmerinmylifetime<br />
#fakepresidentrealconsequences<br />
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Martin Perryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17709439736501506650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4616816655123781241.post-40571558869333425592015-06-15T23:42:00.002-04:002015-06-15T23:44:00.561-04:00Limited Partnership airs on PBS in JuneDon't miss this heart-rending chronicle of a gay couple's 40-year love story and struggle against anti-gay marriage and immigration laws:<br />
<a href="http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/limited-partnership/film.html" target="_blank">Limited Partnership | Independent Lens | PBS</a><br />
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Absolutely brilliant, bittersweet and inspiring. Bravo.Martin Perryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17709439736501506650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4616816655123781241.post-12549929931303780132015-06-14T07:21:00.004-04:002015-06-15T12:42:35.081-04:00Pickled hearing at the Chelsea Music Festival<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Lucky patrons of the 2015 <a href="http://www.chelseamusicfestival2015.org/" target="_blank">Chelsea Music Festival</a> featuring the music of Finland and Hungary, are not going hungry or thirsty. With <i>Hear/Taste/See</i> as the festival rallying cry, almost all of the concerts in this 10-day series are advertised to include (<b><i>in bold italic</i></b>) "reception and open bar" along with a smattering of "curated" (?) food presentations by celebrity-ish chefs. Apparently worried about those pesky two remaining senses, there was last evening the unveiling of the "2015 Chelsea Music Festival Scent by perfumer Christophe Laudamiel." No sign as yet of a touch-themed event, but perhaps things might heat up if they move the Finnish Fiddle-Off to a sauna with goulash-tasting afterwards. But I'm ONLY going if it's curated.Martin Perryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17709439736501506650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4616816655123781241.post-77891636085313865462015-06-12T17:43:00.000-04:002015-06-15T12:44:07.071-04:00Suffer the little children<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5Kbl177eR0JPN1jQyiZcSke5be9rjv585pFfgEygailPlQMwGvVGf9YlpZIy3puYUnJ5y7qTJ44bBW6vmgOm-LDur8AMWRK3CyTqr-ycxw6pC9ox38WY6pUK9B7v8JefK1idD41dck3w/s1600/north-korea-ss-slide-DK0Y-jumbo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><i><b><img border="0" height="265" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5Kbl177eR0JPN1jQyiZcSke5be9rjv585pFfgEygailPlQMwGvVGf9YlpZIy3puYUnJ5y7qTJ44bBW6vmgOm-LDur8AMWRK3CyTqr-ycxw6pC9ox38WY6pUK9B7v8JefK1idD41dck3w/s400/north-korea-ss-slide-DK0Y-jumbo.jpg" width="400" /></b></i></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><i><b>Photo: David Guttenfelder for the New York Times<br />A performance at the Kyongsang Kindergarten in Pyongyang</b></i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A few months ago I was hired as an accompanist for an international competition for young pianists, the youngest division ranging in age from about 9-13 years old. Even at this tender age, the contestants were required to present from memory the equivalent of a full-length solo recital program and a complete concerto from a list of "easier" but nonetheless typically virtuosic showpieces. Those that were selected to go on to semi-final/final rounds faced multiple days of public performance, all before an audience of expectant teachers, wigged-out parents and distinguished judges. The final three contestants completed the grueling week with a public performance of their concerto with orchestra. And what were YOU doing when you were 11?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like most pianists, this wasn't my first go-round at youth competitions, having endured them many times both as anxious contestant and later as accompanist or adjudicator. I understand their value for young artists, even though I don't often agree with their modi operandi. What has changed quite dramatically over the decades, though, is the level of repertoire being inflicted upon these unquestionably ultra-talented children. When once a Bach invention, a Haydn sonata, a Mendelssohn or Schumann character piece and a Kabalevsky sonatina were considered suitable student offerings, we are now hearing works once reserved for the mature virtuoso- Liszt's Don Juan fantasy, Beethoven's Appassionata Sonata, Prokofiev's fiendish Toccata, and on and on. Competition guidelines often don't attempt to place limits on repertoire choices anymore, unfortunately encouraging this kind of audience-pandering selection. It is unthinkable to me what these poor children must endure from teacher and parent in order to prepare such daunting and age-inappropriate material; there is no other word for it than abuse.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Behind the scenes, one overhears judges and competition staff tsking and clucking over this regretful emphasis on pure technical display, but they nonetheless more often than not promulgate this behavior by dismissing those with less developed (i.e. normal) technique, overlooking inspired and honest musicality amidst all the noise. What message are they sending? That only those with preternatural technical gifts and a penchant for forced labor will be strong enough to survive in today's cutthroat world of solo pianism.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Is this true? Perhaps, sadly. Is it right? All I know is you can't skip directly from Haydn to Rachmaninoff without missing some crucial development along the way. The simple clarity of a Clementi sonatina, the vivid characterizations in Schumann's Album for the Young, the tonal palette of a Chopin nocturne or Debussy prelude; all of these and a thousand more musical experiences must meld together over time to form an accomplished and yes, even virtuoso pianist.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Teachers, can we let kids be kids? Even Mozart had a day off now and then.</span><br />
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Martin Perryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17709439736501506650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4616816655123781241.post-60382902000301152032015-06-10T11:49:00.000-04:002015-06-14T09:08:38.820-04:00Art rules<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="-webkit-tap-highlight-color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0); background-color: white; color: #222222;">Vis-à-vis </span>yesterday's post about the <a href="http://nyti.ms/1drt8eb" target="_blank">Times music review</a> that began "classical music has too many rules for its own good"- I assume the critic was referring to the often fusty style of fine art music presentation, with performers on stage in formalwear and ball gowns circa 1897 Vienna, regardless of the tone of the event or its repertoire; hushed audiences sweating it out until the end of pieces, never but never clapping between movements; the obligatory "edgy" work quickly followed by a warm, squishy Romantic masterpiece to appease the donor base. And the list goes on.</span><br />
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But of course there are just the same kinds of silly rules at work today within other music genres. Popular music maintains a rigid devotion to juvenile emotional expressions and simplistic harmony (tonic/dominant + love + backbeat). The commercial success of pop artists is almost without exception reliant on slavish observance of current musical fashions. Much of of jazz performance consists of reinterpreting past styles and repertoire, called in rule-like fashion "standards." Opera, dance, chamber music festivals, all have their blind allegiances to customs that in my eyes and ears have far outlived their supposed usefulness. I'm all for jettisoning the silliest of these traditions, and in fact that is already happening across the board in many arts organizations. Sometimes the results can be gimmicky and market-driven (Beer and Beethoven!) but at least they seem to be trying. </span><br />
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To me, the best artists take rules and stand them on their head. I am currently captivated by Paul Hindemith's 1942 piano masterpiece "Ludus tonalis" - good thing, too, since I am recording it this fall for <a href="http://bridgerecords.com/collections/catalog-all/martin-perry" target="_blank">Bridge Records</a>- and I see it as a perfect example of this ethos. Nothing could be more traditional in Western classical music than the fugue, and here Hindemith writes 12 of them with inspired and effortless virtuosity. Instead of maintaining this rather heady level throughout the work, he alternates each fugue with an interlude of complete, almost unrelated fancy, as if to say "Stop taking yourself so seriously! Music is just music!" In a bigger gesture of rule-breaking, Hindemith constructs the whole work to support the basic tenets of his own system of composition- a system that sometimes sounds like conventional Western harmony, but then again really doesn't. It just speaks, pure and simple. Without rules this work wouldn't exist, and yet it is a completely individual and uncompromising statement. That's what art is about, and I suspect the foolish mores rampant in current music presentation will be gone long before this sort of genius is extinguished.</span><br />
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The challenge remains to find innovative ways to present works like "Ludus" to an increasingly distracted and impatient public. What rules can we sweep away, what new traditions can we create? To be continued...</span>Martin Perryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17709439736501506650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4616816655123781241.post-22543713746297392015-06-09T11:31:00.002-04:002015-06-14T09:06:36.321-04:00What's new?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I choked a bit on my Nespresso this morning over the </span><a href="http://nyti.ms/1drt8eb" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;" target="_blank">Times review</a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> of the Locrian Chamber Players at Riverside Church. Claiming that "classical music has too many rules for its own good" the critic praises the ensemble for their "laudable" practice of not distributing program notes until after their concerts, and for their mission of performing music written only within the last ten years. I guess these are not considered rules, just fun ideas.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Laudable practices exactly how? Let's face it, program notes always seem tedious, regardless of when they are made available to the hapless audience, like a nagging homework assignment. If this ensemble is truly committed to an analysis-free experience, why not let people get away completely clean, savoring their own reactions, insights, pleasure/displeasure? Surely anyone moved to enrich their understanding could rush home to read all about motivic transformation on Wikipedia. In this case, with all of the music being Beaujolais Nouveau, it's a really good bet that most of the composers live within a ten-block radius of the venue. Heck, just invite them all to dinner instead! As for the ten-year gimmick, I'm still trying to figure out how this relates to an ensemble named after an ancient Greek mode.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">OK, this eruption may not surprise, coming from someone committed as I am to performing works from the wildly untrendy mid-20th C. It's still my conviction that a vast and compelling repertoire continues to be sidelined by musty Brahms symphonies and flavor-of-the month premieres. May I propose a more truly laudable rule? Cast the net wide, but throw back the baby fish.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And enough with the program notes.</span><br />
<br />Martin Perryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17709439736501506650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4616816655123781241.post-84340001906411589142015-05-24T10:20:00.001-04:002015-06-13T10:52:31.290-04:00What rhymes with hose art?<a href="https://www.blogger.com/%3Ciframe%20width=%22560%22%20height=%22315%22%20src=%22https://www.youtube.com/embed/_LbZWfvT9Dg%22%20frameborder=%220%22%20allowfullscreen%3E%3C/iframe%3E"><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_LbZWfvT9Dg" width="560"></iframe></a><br />
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Say "period practice pioneer" 10 times fast in a row.Martin Perryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17709439736501506650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4616816655123781241.post-391006390908657842013-08-20T10:24:00.001-04:002015-06-13T10:48:39.852-04:00Putin vs. Met<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> This whole horrifying, history-repeating-itself Putin debacle continues to roil and rankle, and well it should. Today's <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/arts/music/petition-wants-met-gala-dedicated-to-gay-rights.html?ref=arts&_r=0" target="_blank">lead article</a> in the NY Times Art's section pushes the debate along with its coverage of reaction to composer Andrew Rudin's recent brave and appropriate <a href="http://www.change.org/petitions/the-metropolitan-opera-dedicate-9-23-opening-gala-to-support-of-lgtb-people" target="_blank">online petition</a> calling on the sacrosanct Metropolitan Opera to dedicate its upcoming Russian-themed opening night gala to the support of LGBT rights. At issue are the evening's megastars: diva soprano Anna Netrebko, and conductor Valery Gergiev, artistic director of St. Petersburg's Mariinsky Theater. Both were outspoken supporters during the rabidly anti-gay Mr. Putin's rise to power, with Gergiev even being crowned "Hero of Labor" by Putin this spring. To top it off, the evening features (gay, gay, gay, gay) Tchaikovky's opera "Eugene Onegin." The ironies stupefy, even by Manhattan standards.</span><br />
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"I'm not asking them to be against anybody. I'm asking them to be for somebody" said Mr. Rudin, which to me is a brilliant, succinct call to artistic arms. This last month I've already been aghast at the varied and creative apologia rhetoric, ranging from the ignorantly offensive to the downright self-serving, of star athletes and Olympic officials the world over as they selfishly guard their chance to grab glory, dollars and endorsement contracts in Sochi-at the trifling expense of basic human rights. But now that this thing has landed right in my lap as an artist, I find the time to speak out is now. At very least, <a href="http://www.change.org/petitions/the-metropolitan-opera-dedicate-9-23-opening-gala-to-support-of-lgtb-people" target="_blank">SIGN THIS PETITION!</a> I did it this morning, and now I'm writing this.</span><br />
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Like elite athletes, performing artists are certainly not immune to opportunistic, head-in-the-sand thinking. After showing no qualms at all about stumping for Putin, Netrebko and Gergiev have gone mum. Ms. Netrebko on Facebook: "As an artist, it is my great joy to collaborate with all of my wonderful colleagues-regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexual orientation. I have never and will never discriminate against anyone." Oh, and by the way some of her best friends are gay!...including about 99.9999% of her fans, patrons and CD buyers. It's just a little <i>too</i> much trouble to speak up for them, though her superstar status in the classical music world guarantees her enormous power on the world stage. Not to mention that the very core of true artistic expression, and the subject of nearly every song and opera she has ever warbled, speaks to our shared human experience of man's cruelty to man, injustice, greed, loss and betrayal. But at least she has made a statement, as pale as it is. Mr. Gergiev, who is slated to be a grand marshal at Sochi, has yet to make comment. But perhaps the most enraging is the marshmallow corporate-speak response from the office of Met manager Peter Gelb, saying "we stand behind all of our artists, regardless of whether or not they wish to publicly express their personal political opinions." They should say "hide behind." Others have stepped forward: Bartlett Sher, recent star director at the Met, and violinist Gidon Kremer have made admittedly cautious but honest statements to the press condemning Putin, seemingly urging the Met to take an action, any action. </span><br />
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There is a prevailing belief that it is inappropriate for artists to speak out in the world of politics. We would rather our great singers, conductors and instrumentalists don their costumes and trot onstage to re-enact the great operas of Bellini, Barber, Corigliano, Donizetti, Handel, Menotti, Ravel, Poulenc, Saint-Saens, Tchaikovsky and a thousand other LGBT artists before and since, while we safely watch from the insulation of our $475 box seats as a world leader brazenly, methodically strips away the rights of already vulnerable citizens. The Met claims its "mission is artistic" and is therefore excused from taking a stand. But what is our role as artists, if not to raise our voices, hands, pens and brushes against tyrants such as Putin who, given the chance, would extinguish all those who differ from his Russian ideal? It seems that world governments and their athletes have already found their convenient justifications for not boycotting the winter games in Sochi. Maybe it is not too late to encourage a mere 3,800 opening night gala attendees to forgo their tuxedos and fur coats and throw their offensively overpriced tickets into the Lincoln Center fountain on September 23rd? Or perhaps, the Met might wake up and begin the process of setting asides decades of veiled homophobia at last. If they are afraid of losing artists such as Netrebko and Gergiev along the way, I venture to say there will be a hundred others of equal talent and stronger principle lined up to take their place. Warning! A few of them might be lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>Martin Perryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17709439736501506650noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4616816655123781241.post-55177348498345490782013-03-20T08:59:00.000-04:002015-06-13T10:48:52.017-04:00Excuses, excuses<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Longish time no post, and I can offer no better explanation than the vicissitudes of the winter past: a death (my dear father), a marriage (my own, thank you State of Maine) and arpeggios (which will get in the way of everything if you let them). But with the advent of spring I am back at it...hoping that my countless dozens of readers haven't jumped blog for some other more entertaining and reliable pianist? </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/20/arts/music/san-francisco-symphony-strike-darkens-halls.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0" target="_blank">San Francisco Symphony strike</a> awakened my dulled senses. The orchestra's current season and upcoming tour have been shut down over wage disputes, the current average salary being $165,000. My burning question: does that include the bass clarinet player? According to SFS executive director Brent Assink (a Dickens-worthy surname that!) management was “ready to resume bargaining” with the players, though
“collectively, we need a few hours of sleep.” </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Now, I will say right off the baton that I don't know a thing about how these organizations tick. A job as principal pianist for a large regional orchestra in years past only provided an outsider's view at best; orchestra pianists often play fewer than half the contracted annual services, since the vast majority of symphonic repertoire doesn't include the piano at all. When it does, you will often have 400 measures of rest, a highly visible eight bars or so of colorful solo material, and then a return to a state of longeur for the rest of the concert. One spends a lot of time avoiding the bitter stares of string players who must endure every minute of rehearsal, knowing that you will probably be home on your couch watching Law and Order SVU reruns while they are still thrashing out the last passages of the Tchaikovsky 4th. Nevertheless, I am pretty darn sure that even the most senior contract players in our hard-working ensemble didn't make anything <i>near </i>$165,000 a year, not to mention the health benefits and various extras such as recording fees that must come with a seat in a prestigious orchestra like San Francisco. My colleagues would have been lucky to cobble together even half that much money, even while supplementing their income by working with other nearby orchestras, teaching privately and in academic institutions, and with the occasional soul-wearying wedding gig and such. Assuming that SFS players have the opportunity to take on these kinds of additional employment as well, they would be looking at nearly $200,000 a year. Even in our completely skewed culture, that seems pretty close to a fair recompense. I mean, you are also being given the privilege of playing and recording exciting music with some of the world's greatest musicians and conductors, often traveling the world in the process. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> As a fellow musician, I totally sympathize with the orchestra players and their quest for fairness. But from the point of view of a solo artist who lacks the ongoing continuity, comradeship and financial security that an orchestra can provide, I envy these musicians their current great fortune. Were their orchestra to fold, as sadly so many others have of late, the loss would be felt not only by these individual players and their audience- not all of whom are fat cat industrialists, surely- but also by classical musicians everywhere who are also fighting hard to survive by their art in a culture that seems to value it less and less every day. A fine dilemma.</span>Martin Perryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17709439736501506650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4616816655123781241.post-74957063646428242332013-03-20T07:09:00.001-04:002013-03-20T08:58:41.758-04:00View from my bench 7:07 am<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVorxoWIvD0Ba5LMEC4wySKr2pkiuQ_zw27RO6nlv0hk8LsGQLOToAKiMt3JjoE5JzGRB1n4HqdmZzZJmSUDkFw5coS9LHtQfpsaH19k2CoBIO56lBQtHo4scJdZuuBYjRKXzVT6D1Pvc/s1600/IMG_0195.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVorxoWIvD0Ba5LMEC4wySKr2pkiuQ_zw27RO6nlv0hk8LsGQLOToAKiMt3JjoE5JzGRB1n4HqdmZzZJmSUDkFw5coS9LHtQfpsaH19k2CoBIO56lBQtHo4scJdZuuBYjRKXzVT6D1Pvc/s320/IMG_0195.jpg" width="239" /></a></div>
Vernal equinox. Northeast did not get the memo.Martin Perryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17709439736501506650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4616816655123781241.post-43652440057360134362012-09-23T14:28:00.001-04:002015-06-13T10:49:04.321-04:00The promise of something big<span style="font-family: Arial;"> Last week I promised my manager that I would refrain from
dark-toned posts bemoaning the sorry state of affairs in classical music and the
often inappropriate and superficial methods of promotion being used to reel in
audiences. Apparently, the whole subject is kind of a downer. I don’t see it
that way, but then I also really like Schoenberg and therefore cannot fully
trust my instincts. My dilemma is that the overly sensitive artist within is
somehow not done with this subject. If I switch the emphasis to literature,
music’s evil twin, am I breaking my vow?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"> What set me off this time
was all the recent <i>isn’t-this-cool?</i></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">
coverage of the Moby-Dick “Big Read Project.” This is “an online version of
Melville’s magisterial tome: each of its 135 chapters read out aloud, by a
mixture of the celebrated and the unknown, to be broadcast online in a sequence
of 135 downloads, publicly and freely accessible.” Hold the presses! An American
literary masterpiece, full of untapped contemporary significance…yet largely
unread, you say? Enter the <a href="http://www.mobydickbigread.com/" target="_blank">Big Read</a>, hybrid fruit of an academic-style summit and the
Web, with celebrities and politicians signing on out of the goodness of their
hearts to spread the message about the life-altering power of great literature.
How could I take offense at such a noble and selfless venture?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"> Let me count the ways. To
start, I’m not a fan of audio books. The way most people admit to using
them-during long car trips to stave off boredom-is roughly akin to the widespread habit of playing CD’s in the background while eating, entertaining
or engaging in some other completely unrelated activity. To me, entering the
world of a fine piece of fiction, read by a gifted actor, while plummeting down
the highway at 75 mph is about as dangerous as texting while driving, and the supposition
that literature and music are created just to help pass the time or set
a mood should be insulting to all artists. If you are unable to read due to some disability, of course audio books
are wonderful and indispensable. Even so, there are already many fine
recordings of <i>Moby-Dick</i></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">
available (read, inexplicably, by only one person!) including free versions for
immediate download. What rankles here is the growing assumption that everyone today suffers from attention deficit disorder,
and must be lured in and kept still with a promise of constant
novelty, whether or not this come-on is in any way appropriate to the work at
hand. The multitasking Internet age, it is often claimed, has made all people so, and we
can only hope to gain and hold the fickle interest of the public by constantly refreshing the cast
of characters. Hence Tilda Swinton, David Cameron (!) and dozens of other celebrities and non-celebrities are brought
together like a patchwork quilt to survey a work that, though certainly ranging through many characters and points-of-view, </span><span style="font-family: Arial;">still relies crucially upon the single-voiced power of one author for its enduring brilliance and
cumulative, hypnotic power. It would be nice if this quality was somewhat respected in its presentation.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"> OK, I will admit there is a bit
of goodness in all of this. Though a not-for-profit venture, donations received
by the project go to whale and dolphin conservation, and who could argue with
that? I listened to the first chapter with the estimable Ms. Swinton, and she was excellent. But just don’t ask me to go beyond; all continuity and artistic
architecture would be instantly shattered for me upon the entry of the next new
and unrelated voice. Can you imagine a performance of Chopin’s 24 Preludes
where the pianist left the stage after each one and was replaced by another
player? While we’re at it, wouldn't it be irresistible if some of the
performers were local amateurs, or celebrities especially trained to appear
like real pianists, like on Dancing With The Stars? Yes, you might have a
sell-out house, but it would have nothing at all to do with Chopin’s
magnificent, highly integrated masterpiece.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"> As I have somehow slipped back into music-another broken promise-I've just completed a recording of Charles Ives’ Second Piano Sonata (the "Concord"), a work of similar magnitude to Moby-Dick in the realm of
American art. Like that masterpiece, it is much more often discussed than
actually experienced in its complex entirety. The edition of the
sonata that I chose was published in 1982 by the Ives scholar and pianist John
Kirkpatrick, and is itself a massive compilation of over thirty years-worth of Ives’ sketches and variants. Kirkpatrick’s goal was to bring out a
version of the <i>Concord</i></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> that would
recreate how the work might have sounded at its earliest
conception in the 1910’s, as opposed to the highly revised and arguably less-digestible second edition of 1947. In fact, I do believe it is in many ways more
playable and listenable than the later edition. Is this
attempt to retell an established classic, in perhaps a more audience-friendly way, really any different in motivation than the Big Read? In choosing to perform and record it, am I any less guilty of pandering to
accessibility? In my opinion there is a great difference. Regardless of
Kirkpatrick’s decision to sew together, Dr. Frankenstein-like, hundreds
of passages from different sources, what results is still the work of one very
qualified and gifted mind in conjunction, medium-like, with another. My
performance is the work of one pianist, though of course as in most all recordings,
it is also the stitching together of multiple takes into a hopefully cohesive whole. But even a</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"> subconscious desire</span> to please stops
there. I would expect my listeners to attend to the music for the whole 50
minutes or so of its duration, as it is part of Ives’ design that every note on every
page means something to the parts and to the whole, and the work can only reach its
full emotional power in a cumulative way. I hope they would
honor the quality of the recorded performance by listening somewhere other than
in their car or on the subway. I expect them to be at times distracted,
or even bored, and to accept the fact that it may be necessary to listen to the work-gasp!-more than once to gain understanding. This all requires a commitment to
full, undivided attention as a prerequisite to a true artistic experience, and
if there is a less rigorous substitute for this acquired skill, I’ve yet to
discover what it is.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;"> There is certainly justification
and even a necessity for collaboration and compilation in all the art we make, up
until the time it is ready to come alive. If at that point we succumb to a
variety show format out of a fear of complexity, or to satisfy an
assumed shortfall in the attention span of our audience, we have crossed over
from the world of fine art into the world of popular entertainment, however we
label it or dress it up. Backbone becomes backbeat. Though these two dominant musical worlds
inevitably influence each other, sometimes in exciting and productive ways,
they are not the same thing and do not usually share anywhere near the same
goals. And contrary to popular belief, times have not changed that much. Both
the <i>Concord</i></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> and <i>Moby-Dick</i></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"> were largely neglected when they were written, and
remain so today, notwithstanding the ongoing effort of marketers to
present fresh, enticing interfaces. </span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Art isn't easy, </span>Stephen Sondheim cautions. My secret hope is that this latest scheme to please devised
by the Big Read folks will eventually prove irritating enough to drive people into the
desperate but ultimately fulfilling act of just reading the book for themselves, once and for all. </span></div>
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Martin Perryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17709439736501506650noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4616816655123781241.post-51400805734717372102012-09-17T16:08:00.000-04:002015-06-13T10:49:22.100-04:00Catchy title HERE<br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Is classical music dying? This has been an increasingly burning question
</span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">within our struggling world of art music creation,
presentation and criticism</span> over the last decade or so. Much writing has been done on the subject out of
which continues to emerge various life-saving suggestions and directives for
artists, administrators and marketers. I’m slightly wary of contributing more ideas
to this admittedly important debate, for several reasons: I’m a happily
iconoclastic and yes, slightly skeptical artist who doesn’t easily embrace
one-size-fits-all solutions, regardless of their aptness; my work has always
seemed to situate itself enough out of the mainstream not to warrant grandiose
ambitions of universal adulation and big economic reward; and I also question
the main assumption upon which these discussions seem to be based. The first
two reasons are obviously the result of my own choices, but I feel the last
calls for a little blogification. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> As I have come to see it a basic assumption of this musical
round table is that viability equals market share. To justify our existence in
the arts industry, compensation for our creations or performances must remain
consistent or rise; the size of our audiences must always increase; our value
to potential advertisers and marketers must always grow. This decidedly Western
ethos is so deeply ingrained that it seems impossible or unrealistic to imagine
our goals being otherwise. So why are we so surprised that as economies across
the globe have shrunk dramatically and probably permanently, so has the demand
for “non-essential” art music? I’m afraid that many of the responses
to this perceived crisis arise from this market-based mentality. Students feel obligated to earn DMA's, regardless of their dedication to
scholarship, in order to improve the very long odds of landing a well-paying
job in the world of academia. Young musicians of promise are pushed by
teachers to prepare often inappropriate and usually sadly conventional repertoire at
younger and younger ages, in order to “compete” in the increasingly dog-eat-dog
world of concert performance, rather than explore their individual
strengths and interests. Orchestras and other music presenting organizations have become
tools of their marketing departments, who continually press for increased
audience “accessibility” by corralling sophisticated performances into
insultingly childish theme groups. Artists are enjoined to be uniformly
glamorous as well as business savvy and self-serving at all times, even though
the grueling, self-denying and life-consuming nature of their process will in
truth probably preclude anything of the sort. Sadly, I am finding that young artists view this situation as normal. I’m afraid that as long as we
persist in portraying classical music as just another product line under the umbrella of
capitalist enterprise, and teaching it as such, its demise is inevitable and in
some ways deserved. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> So, Mr. Smarty-Pants, I hear you crying, what’s then to be
done? Well, if the goal is simply economic viability, I really don’t know;
large life-sustaining fees and fame haven’t been the norm in my career as a
classical pianist, or in those of most of my peers. I have always found it necessary, and sometimes preferable,
to engage in a wide variety of work-for-money activities to support my fine art
habit. Sure, I grew up with all of this land-of-opportunity stuff and would
at times like nothing more than to be paid $25,000 for a Brahms Horn Trio
performance that, after all, took thousands of college-educated nerd hours to
reach fruition, not to mention the cost of earplugs. I would like critics (who
in this fantasy world are widely read and respected by all) to immediately
applaud my miraculous achievement, so that their readers would quickly rush
online to download badly-compressed versions of my CD’s (with free personalized
travel mugs) while breathlessly awaiting each of my twitter emanations. I would
love to see orchestras thriving instead of folding, schools expanding arts
budgets instead of slashing “electives.” And despite my apparent cynicism, I totally
applaud the brave and dedicated people out there trying to work within this
highly compromised system to ensure the survival of our struggling arts
institutions. Perhaps some of the clever and creative marketing angles being
implemented today will help to stave off disaster. They are certainly not all
without artistic merit. It’s just this: if you insist on reducing the experience
of classical music down to a shiny bauble sold
by a carny at an amusement park, the duped buyer will probably walk away
feeling cheated in the end anyway, never to return.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Instead, perhaps we could be asking: What does classical
music really do? Why do we create it, make it happen, or need it? In my very
humble opinion, it is an intensely powerful personal expression brought into a
necessarily complex existence by highly intuitive artists for others to
experience in real time. The amount of understanding that can be shared in this
process is entirely dependent on the listener’s ability to receive, her
education if you will, and the performer’s ability to communicate. Its goal is,
or should be, to enrich, enhance, alter; to transport the listener in some
lasting and profound way to a place of new and deeper awareness. We humans
still seem to crave this opportunity to go beyond; we continually seek it in classical music,
visual art and literature regardless of reward or difficulty. But let’s face
it, this promise of enrichment is not an easy sell compared to
say, a Big Mac or a pop tune. On <i>60 Minutes </i><span style="font-style: normal;">last night, when asked about the secret to her overnight international
success, the sensational singer Adele drew the distinction perfectly (if unknowingly) in her
refreshingly self-effacing way. To paraphrase her: “Look, people just really like
songs about love and betrayal, and that also happens to be what I like to sing.” But in our situation,
no matter how you try to market the </span><i>Symphonie Fantastique</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, it is never going to be simply about love
frustrated, and was never intended to be. </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">Some
would have us believe that the end justifies the means; all we need to
do is get people through the door and into a seat, by whatever means
necessary, and they will inevitably become lifelong appreciators of classical
music. But I believe </span></span>we do a disservice to the music and
its audience by oversimplifying, demystifying and dis-empowering the magic of
complexity in order to lure in possibly unreceptive or unwilling listeners. We rob them of the
opportunity of discovering, </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">when they are ready and </span></span>without bias, the </span><i>difference</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> between the wondrous ineffability of fine art and the everyday barrage of mass
market culture.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> I’m not sure if this magical substance is marketable in the
ways we have traditionally embraced, or even if the need for it will survive in today's turbulent seas of commercialism and greed. However, I suspect that spurious claims
of popularity and accessibility will do nothing to build lasting audiences for our work, and
may even prevent a true seeker from finding his muse. </span></div>
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Martin Perryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17709439736501506650noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4616816655123781241.post-61416832063974929592012-09-08T13:10:00.000-04:002015-06-13T10:50:17.524-04:00John Cage et alia, redux<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Based on the recent spurt of John Cage tribute articles and performances, you
would think that he was one of the most beloved, inspirational and
seminal composers of all time, that 4’33” was a crucial turning point in the
history of music, that his greatly varied and fine works are eagerly
anticipated staples of concert programs the world over. The real and more sad
truth is, he had to die and then turn 100 for his works and writing to return
this much into the public eye, and his compositions will likely lapse
again into relative obscurity by the time the November elections roll around,
or even before. </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
You might assume from my smug tone that this is yet another curmudgeonly
dismissal of John Cage’s oeuvre as anti-music, as gimmick and trend, as concept
without true content. Certainly this opinion of Cage is still common among many
classical musicians today-whether or not they have actually heard or played
any of his works-but I am inclined neither to overpraise nor censor him. Over
the years I have programmed a few of his piano compositions here and there, and
in college became excited enough about <i>Silence</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> to write an extremely long and quite terrible paper exalting its
revolutionary brilliance. In fact I still believe this, and I think it is truly
wonderful that so much attention is being paid him on this anniversary, even if
it took ridiculously long to happen. Which leads so nicely into my favorite
obsession: Why is so much music from the 20th century so very
greatly admired in print and conversation, and then completely ignored or
sidelined by today’s classical performers, educators, presenters and audiences,
unless they live and work in Greenwich Village? </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
The obvious answer is too obvious, and therefore somewhat true but not true at
all: the various languages of classical music modernism and post-modernism,
taken as a whole, are too ugly, too hard to comprehend, too challenging to the
limited attention span of the layperson, too uncompromising, too fatalistic or
depressing, too…modern. But here’s the thing: a typical audience member in 1804
would have probably had much the same reaction to the Eroica Symphony,
regardless of Beethoven’s undeniably consummate brilliance. So why do we still
hear one hundred Eroica performances annually for every Sessions 2nd Symphony?
One hundred Opus 109’s for every Hindemith sonata? I don’t think it is merely an issue of relative quality or
accessibility. I think it has much more to do with a disappointing lack of curiosity,
courage, willingness and openness on the part of too many professional musicians and arts presenters. There, I’ve said it. May the Internet spread it.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
Before I go pointing my ten fingers at everyone else for the neglect of
contemporary classical repertoire-although, what is a blog for if you can’t
blame others for the world’s problems?-let me tell my own John Cage story. I am
embarrassed to admit that the last work of his that I performed was <i>Water
Music</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, and that was some ten years ago. The
piece involves a rather virtuosic sequence of sound events, some
at the piano, some using difficult-to-master noise making devices such as a
little plastic bird call toy that you dip into water and blow through. It also
calls for a transistor radio, which even a decade ago was impossible to
find, so I had to substitute a suitably retro portable dial-type unit from
Radio Shack. At several points in the score, the dial is to be spun to
various specified frequencies, and whatever comes up, be it static, talk, music
or nothing at all, that is what you get. As you can imagine, the piece has its
lighthearted moments, and drew the usual titters of knowing amusement from the
audience. But right near the end, when I tuned the radio to its final notated
frequency, the last few bars of </span><i>Let it Be</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> materialized faintly and then drifted eerily into the ether. It also
happened to be the anniversary of John Lennon’s murder that day. You could have
heard a pin drop, and it was like the whole world of music was suddenly sucked
into a magical vortex. At that moment, I can guarantee you that no one in the
audience was making a cursory or dismissive judgment upon the enduring quality
of John Cage or “modern” music. Life met music met performer met audience, and
that’s what it’s all about.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
So, the bad news is…I’ve never programmed the piece again. I came upon
the wrinkly, water-damaged score a while back, and ran my fingers over
Cage’s crabbed notation wistfully. Isn’t this a big part of the problem? If I had
added this piece to my regular repertoire, including it on almost every
program, eventually people would become <i>Water Music</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> aficionados, more and more attuned to the subtleties
of its language and effect, their understanding informed through the power of
comparative experience, as if it were a familiar work of Chopin or Bach. Other
pianists would no doubt also begin to play the piece with greater frequency in
order to prove they could do it better and with much more depth of
understanding than I. Critics would then jump in to delineate right from wrong:
too much legato from Mr. X, a memory slip from Mr. Y, a definitive (but alas,
too slow) version from Mrs. Z. Old timers would reminisce about the legendary
Martin Perry performance when Lennon spoke from the dead. In short, it might
eventually become a part of a new “standard” repertoire, expected and demanded
by presenters and audiences alike. And this kind of buzz, excitement and energy
is what is needed right now to combat the growing perception that classical
music and the audiences it serves are dying off.</span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
My shameful <i>Water Music</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> abandonment
aside, I have since been trying to remedy this situation in my own modest way,
but it obviously takes a village. The most important people in this process are
educators, from beginning instrument teachers to those at the very top of
academia. They must begin more to INSIST on attention to a full range of
repertoire, encourage more curiosity and exploration in students, empowering
them with all the tools they need to decipher and interpret more and more
complex musical emanations. Otherwise music stiffens up and stops around 1885,
and we will deserve the label of irrelevance that has more and more been
slapped onto classical music. As I have already said, we musicians have an
enormous role in this process as well; not only should we challenge the status
quo by continually and stubbornly programming challenging works for our
audiences to accustom to, we must also demonstrate our love and deep
understanding of this fine music with tangibly gripping performances, all the
time. When we collaborate, we should lobby more noisily for repertoire
expansion instead of resigning ourselves to another Brahms quartet or Mozart concerto. </span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
There is some reason to hope that arts presenters are beginning to see
the value of adventurous programming as well. In this regard, “new” music seems
to fare the best, due to what I like to call the “premiere” effect: people love
to be able to say they were the first to hear, see or do something, to be
perceived as cutting edge, whether the thing being done is good, bad or indifferent. In any case, if the finest of these works are not championed by musicians, presenters and educators, and performed regularly, we will never know what impact they could eventually have on the course of musical thought. As for the audience, I believe that if you build
it, they will come. Contrary to common opinion, I don’t sense that classical
music is anywhere near dead, just suffering from a nasty, hard-to-shake case of
small-mindedness.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
Maybe this is why John Cage is so important right now. He
challenges us to imagine a world of sound as awesomely big as silence itself,
as vastly inclusive as indeterminacy. We can only truly realize this exciting
and yes, <i>modern</i> vision by celebrating all the music of all the many unsung composers of our
recent era, not just in their birthday years, but every time we walk onstage and
into the recording studio. Beethoven can take care of himself without our help.</span></div>
Martin Perryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17709439736501506650noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4616816655123781241.post-22174680811434398492012-09-01T13:39:00.001-04:002015-06-13T10:50:35.396-04:00I liked your concert, but why did you play that piece?<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
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Why did you program that 1945 Carter Sonata? Why the Ives, Bartók, Hindemith, Weisgall, Sessions, Copland, Shostakovich, Messiaen? The questioners observe that modernist forms and dissonances are unwelcoming, upsetting
or incomprehensible (while being blissfully unaware that many
of the very same musical techniques have become the norm in the underscoring for their favorite television shows and films). Why do I play these pieces? I want to take a
stab at answering this query here in as non-technical a way as possible; those with graduate
degrees in music may wish to close their browsers and look away. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
The simple
response: I have always had a strong affinity for classical music of the mid-
to late 20th century, and you need to play what you love, regardless
of perceived accessibility or marketability. This is apparently a rare
enthusiasm, if one takes a relative scarcity of programming, radio airtime and
recording to be indications of popularity. In any case, I know there are true
reasons to be fascinated by this music, and understandable circumstances that
have led to its neglect. Pre-millennium repertoire is a bit like the old state
road that was mostly abandoned when the interstate came through; it takes much longer
to get home, there are bumps and potholes to endure and all the trendy shops
have moved away. Nevertheless, there are well-earned beauties to discover and
relish along this overgrown byway, never to be seen at 80 mph. </div>
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If this music is so wonderful, why is it neglected? First and obviously,
it is not Bach, Beethoven or Brahms. Though completely connected and indebted
to the eras of music-we-love-to-hear, the various languages in use by even the
early 1900’s (as in art and literature) necessarily began to reflect and
comment upon the vicissitudes of modern life, the horrors of world war, the
fracturing of centuries-old social orders. There is enduring beauty and
necessary, scalding truth in these new expressions, but the old and powerful
cult of consonance and familiarity, the limiting addiction to music as comfort,
solace and escape has been hard to shake, even to this day. Second, a little
thing called popular music blossomed around the same time, as another facet of
modernism. A natural outgrowth of various folk music traditions, it eventually
made as complete a split as possible with fine art music and never looked back.
As in most folk music, its purpose was a non-complex expression of love or
hardship, and was primarily generated as a means of entertainment and
diversion. Over the last century or so, it has retained a maddeningly simple
approach to content, harmony, rhythm and form, at least in comparison to
contemporary classical music, relying on seemingly endless supplies of artistic
individuality and ingenuity to sustain interest (I don’t include jazz in this
rough assessment; I believe it has had an arc more similar to classical music
in most ways). As an irresistible economic juggernaut, popular music forever
banished art music to the corner of the classroom, where we stalwart few have
been forced to write <i>I must not play challenging music</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> on the chalkboard 100 times. Not surprisingly,
beginning in the 1960’s or so, various “postmodern” styles such as minimalism
began to emerge, with varying degrees of success, in an attempt to fuse the
classical and popular worlds–and as a means of survival. The nourishing importance of thoughtful, organic
development took a back seat on the freeway to the </span><span style="font-style: normal;">21st century</span><span style="font-style: normal;">, and seems more and more lost to the hyper kinetic, information-age audiences of today. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I fear we have left behind a wealth of wonderful music in this
inartistic desire to appeal. It is my mission to celebrate this music, to the
best of my abilities, because I believe it has something important to say to
us, and always has had. So perhaps my true answer to the question is:<i> I play this piece because as an artist I must,
because I need it and I believe you need it, even if you can’t fully understand or appreciate
the message it brings to you at this time. </i>
</div>
Martin Perryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17709439736501506650noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4616816655123781241.post-19159234627208704112012-08-11T09:49:00.000-04:002015-06-13T10:50:49.977-04:00Noted<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-weight: normal;">For me
the written word and live music are separate animals. Even when purposely brought
together as in song or opera they act as dueling parties, circling each other
and waiting for the opportunity to pounce and steal focus. For this reason
(mainly) I am vehemently opposed to concert programs and their perennial notes
on the music. </span><span style="font-weight: normal;">Aside
from its minor role as a musical checklist for those who must always know what
is coming next in life, today's classical concert program actually
exists to raise advertising revenue, promote future events having nothing to do
with the concert at hand, and to back-pat the venue’s illustrious contributors.
The program notes, </span><span style="font-weight: normal;">in the guise of helpful context, lurk threateningly in the
corner of this plump publication, daring you to approach: “Pssst…Hey you! Yeah you,
the one who never paid attention in Music Appreciation 101? You’ve got ten
minutes to read this and summarize in front of the class. Otherwise…well,
there’s no chance you’ll ever be able to grasp the complexities to come.”
Often, these notes are not even written by the artist, but by a more suitable
expert-for-hire. I find it hard to understand what bearing historical facts
or interesting anecdotes can have on the living, breathing music to follow. Sometimes this information will be at complete odds to the actual
performance and only serve to confuse matters; while innocently leafing through
the program backstage before a recent concert (always a tragic mistake) I was
perplexed to learn that the “Presto” movement of the work I was just about to
play–presto–was actually marked “Andante” in a recently discovered manuscript.
Touché!</span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
Can you imagine entering a
concert hall and not being bombarded with this hopelessly distracting
interface? No fascinating pre-concert talk about Beethoven’s state of mind in
1803, no fund-raising curtain speech, no off-putting egg-headed notes? Just
someone walking out and making music, warts and all? You would–gasp!–be allowed
to experience the performance without any preparation or preconception beyond
what life has given you so far. Sort of like how we go to see film, popular
music, theater, dance and most visual art, wouldn’t you say?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
I try to craft my playing to
directly meet the minds and hearts of a blissfully unprepared and uneducated
audience, no matter what the repertoire. If I can’t do that without first
forcing the Castor oil of scholarship down their throats, then it is doomed to
fail from the start. Yes, I will at times coax my listeners to meet me in the
middle; this should never be about pandering or sugar-coating (with a largely
20<sup>th</sup> century repertoire I am hardly in danger of that). Rather, my goal is to play in a way that <a href="http://www.artsjournal.com/sandow/">Greg Sandow</a> so brilliantly describes as “vividly": in a palpably alive and sense-driven way that
strives to make an intensely clear impression on any listener. In the end, it’s MY job to
be smart about the music. It’s the audience’s job to show up, get excited,
learn from the experience and hopefully come back for more.</div>
Martin Perryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17709439736501506650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4616816655123781241.post-84038050929098460732012-08-05T08:15:00.001-04:002015-06-12T21:00:54.445-04:00and with the pedal I love to meddle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsFKTl_8OQzLhQSuPSEvC6So5oG9-5ps53gZrALZfPXjhr3ZuGdxvJwpI9fwJZmbPcvd4xb2ZP-RgY4yxDvFZPIQ9CKPYGtxKlHomFv-OlatuUY8H80srKg1DME0YUopifSdkRYvIyKnI/s1600/loveapiano.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsFKTl_8OQzLhQSuPSEvC6So5oG9-5ps53gZrALZfPXjhr3ZuGdxvJwpI9fwJZmbPcvd4xb2ZP-RgY4yxDvFZPIQ9CKPYGtxKlHomFv-OlatuUY8H80srKg1DME0YUopifSdkRYvIyKnI/s1600/loveapiano.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
WTB, I beg to differ! Best cover art EVER.</div>
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<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
Courtesy of: <a href="http://pianophilia.blogspot.com/2012/03/how-not-to-design-album-cover.html?spref=bl" target="_blank">The Well Tempered Blog: How Not to Design an Album Cover</a>: Epic. FAIL.</div>
Martin Perryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17709439736501506650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4616816655123781241.post-90649272955369191252012-08-03T12:08:00.000-04:002015-06-13T10:51:32.975-04:00How do you get to Carnegie Hall?<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I hereby pledge to banish
from my ever-dwindling vocabulary the poisonous verb “practice” (for my
enormous British readership “practise”) with its connotations of mindless
conditioning and habituation. And I encourage all of you to do the
same when referring to the inspired, mysterious process of learning to play a
musical instrument and of creating a vibrant musical performance*.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Admit it, the p word reeks of
juvenile musical instrument instruction. Yet creepily it remains the most common
descriptor for preparatory work even amongst adult classical musicians. Many of
us hold graduate degrees from institutions where we were assigned p***e rooms
so that we could p***e on p***e pianos! Can you imagine artists
describing their time in the studio as p***ing painting? Published authors and
composers p***ing writing? We diminish ourselves and our craft with such a limited word.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> I don’t think the p word is particularly
appropriate for young musicians, either. As any music teacher will tell you
kids never f***ing p***e anyway; the word is essentially utilized as a verbal flogging tool. Why haven’t you
p***ed? How many hours did you
p***e? You’ll never get anywhere if you don’t learn
how to p***e! To make matters
worse many teachers frame p***e for their young students in terms of rote
repetition, mind-numbing exercises and slow tempo work, all of which are much more
appropriate to experienced musicians who have learned how to place these useful
techniques into a larger creative context. Budding musicians don’t need to be taught to p***e but rather to enjoy the utterly challenging processes of
focusing their minds on musical values and personal expression and to operating the piece of wood and metal in their hands reasonably well. Yes, we may then have fewer competition winners (quelle tragédie!) but perhaps the future of classical music would begin to look a bit rosier. But I digress...</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> We deserve our own term! One
that doesn’t seem infantile or ooze negative energy? Comment away.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">*I also recommend that you
not eat at Chik-fil-A. Ever. I mean, their plain chicken sandwich is a whopping
30% fat, 1400 mg. of sodium and 42 grams of carbs, a sure-fire way to clog your
arteries, not to mention the animal cruelty issue. I don’t want to see any of
my socially conscious friends go down that way. Everyone else, dig in and
please stay home on Election Day.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
Martin Perryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17709439736501506650noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4616816655123781241.post-20519418137116695692012-07-30T09:25:00.001-04:002015-06-12T20:59:44.279-04:00A pianist's call to arms<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> The other night I heard a virtuosic, energetic and amazingly accurate performance of the Bartok third string quartet, no mean feat. I wondered afterwards, why I was so completely unmoved? Then it occurred to me- simply observing a rest, a dynamic marking, a phrase is never enough, even if done with energy, commitment and grace. In this particular work, there must be terror in the silences, joy in the crescendos, disturbance and chaos reeling all about; and these moments come from the soul of the artist. The directions are not printed on the page for edification and reiteration. <style>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> Today’s worlds of classical music performance, education and criticism seem to have a love/hate relationship with individualism. “Faithfulness” to the score, consistency and complete accuracy of execution are held as the primary goals, and the artist’s “interpretation” of a work, though important, is viewed mostly as it relates to these mandates. How and when did this happen? Speaking to my field of piano, great keyboard artists such as Bach, Beethoven and Chopin were celebrated improvisers, and I find it hard to believe that they ever played one of their compositions the same way twice–or even with the same notes, tempos or phrasing. Don’t get me wrong- we love highly individual performers in every music genre other than classical. But in the “fine” arts this complete freedom of expression is quite subject to criticism. As a modern day performer, I was indoctrinated in this ethic. Suddenly, I see its total wrongness.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> When you listen to a “historic” recording of someone like Alfred Cortot playing a Chopin Nocturne, it is practically unrecognizable from the current standards of romantic performance, and completely free of unnecessary faithfulness to Chopin’s indications. Never would it occur to him to play against his soul’s design in order to honor a hundred year-old dynamic marking. Yet there is never a doubt that he had utterly and completely absorbed the composer’s spirit. The same is true of 19<sup>th</sup> century writing on music; authors did not hesitate to employ colorful, fanciful imagery. James Huneker on Chopin’s brilliant B-flat minor Prelude: “Its pregnant introduction is like a madly jutting rock from which the eagle spirit of the composer precipitates itself.” For me, this kind of extra-musical imagery does not limit the music to a narrow conception, but inspires the performer to search within for an equally compelling and individual reaction to the score. This truth is what an audience comes to hear.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> As a long time performer of fine art music, I am done with the deadening limitations of modern scholarship and performance mores. I say we all play like we want to play, and damn the torpedoes.</span></div>
Martin Perryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17709439736501506650noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4616816655123781241.post-6087542100623616392012-07-23T07:59:00.000-04:002015-06-12T20:59:22.068-04:00Putting your finger on it<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> While preparing the Samuel
Barber Piano Concerto for an upcoming engagement, I have been reflecting on the
importance of fingering, the highly complex and somewhat under-analyzed skill
that we musicians must master over the course of our careers in order to
achieve secure and persuasive performances. Considering its obvious importance
to piano playing, I find myself surprised to recall that my own (very fine)
teachers were rather unconcerned with my fingering decisions-or lack thereof-
apart from the occasional analysis of an especially difficult passage. I
suspect this approach remains fairly common, and might be based partly on
issues of practicality. The unspoken message seems to be, “With so many factors
at play and with all mechanisms so individual, too much valuable lesson time
would be spent exploring fingering that will best suit you personally, leaving
little time for more important musical matters. Do this during your own
practice time.” Well, I believe I have learned how to finger quite well, so
perhaps that’s a valid long-range pedagogical approach. Nevertheless, I feel that it deserves to be more recognized and taught
as an indispensable part of the </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">creative</i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> process.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> I’m not especially interested
here in analyzing or comparing published fingerings, since they usually
represent a safe one-size-fits-all approach. There are <i>wonderful</i> exceptions, like Schenker’s Beethoven sonatas and
Scholtz’s complete Chopin edition, but most are useless to me (i.e. seemingly
everything published by G. Henle Verlag-comments welcome!). <i>Wonderful</i> fingering is an uncompromising physical
representation of the phrase and touches the soul of a work; in the rare cases
where composers have notated fingering themselves this is often the case, and I
consider these as revealing as performance directions. <i>Useless</i> fingering seems to always favor a legato result based
on standard 19<sup>th</sup> century scale/arpeggio traditions, whether it be
Bach or Carter, without taking enough into account possible variants in tempo,
style, articulation, technical difficulty or character. Of course, I refer to
as many published editions as possible, freely culling brilliance and rejecting
the “academic,” but in reality one must have much more to go on.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> So what am I shooting for in
creating a good fingering? A microcosm of the whole. Before penciling in even
the most obvious scale passage I ask, “Do I feel I have discovered the innate
character of this work from the evidence on the page and from my knowledge of
the composer’s goals, and have I found an honest and compelling connection to
it? Do I have a reasonable grasp of its form so that I will be able to reveal
the work’s mysteries before an audience?” If the answer is a (humble) “yes” I
will embark upon fingering. Though changes will doubtless come over time, I am
now working from a basic understanding of the character of the work. This is
reflected in my choice of articulations, tempo and pedaling, the basics of
style that need to be somewhat in place <i>before</i> selecting fingerings because they are such an
intrinsic part of how the hand and arm will approach the keys. I like to think
of this as “linear” fingering. Working the other way around-fingering first, in
a “vertical” frame of mind- will often lead to short sighted choices that may
hinder the line or become annoyingly ingrained when a better option eventually
presents itself. It’s a little like a painter applying unrelated brush strokes
to a canvas, hoping for a painting to emerge.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> I explore the possible
directions of each phrase as a prelude to fingering. Once I feel I have
captured the essence of the line I begin to fashion a fingering that “reflects”
this shape, and of course honors the composer’s indicated articulations and
dynamics. The motion of the hand should mirror the line and the fingering used
should support this motion while using as much of the hand and each finger in
turn as practical. Too many intermediate changes of hand position will tend to
chop up a line, even though at first an easier fingering may seem expedient. My
goal is to achieve a sort of physico-musico synthesis that joins brain, body
and soul together. OK, I made that term up, but this is a blog after all.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"> Of course, there are less
lofty things to consider, such as the size of your hand and the current state
of your technique. This is why we need to learn how to find our own fingering
solutions, or be guided in the process by an intuitive teacher. A firm grasp of
a musical idea will go a long ways toward solving and transcending many
difficulties, but there are always passages that resist any easy solution. In
these cases, I will test a multitude of possible fingerings in close succession
while focusing my attention on my hand/fingers/arm, seeking the most relaxed
version that still reasonably supports the musical values desired. This balance
of comfort and musicality will increase (but maybe not always eliminate) the
chances for accuracy under pressure. Mastering an unusual but effective
fingering will also require diligent practice, so one must be a bit of a seer
at times when committing to a hopeful solution. Repetitive fingering patterns
are also useful when they are supported by the architecture of the composition,
and since they are pleasing to the brain and the memory they can help to relax
the musculature. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> Though specificity and
consistency are the ultimate goals here, I’ve learned to remain very open to
revising, refining or even trashing earlier fingering decisions over the course
of several practice sessions or weeks. Revisiting your decisions daily will
reveal surprising refinements; I swear that our brains continue to puzzle over
them while we sleep. Our hands and bodies change daily, musical awareness
deepens and larger patterns emerge over time that cannot help but inform that
perhaps less seasoned first, second or even third draft. The result of this
multifaceted process is rewarding: a beautiful fingering will all but play
itself.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
Martin Perryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17709439736501506650noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4616816655123781241.post-11587694919698689022010-06-03T10:49:00.003-04:002012-09-09T13:03:09.259-04:00Jane Austen is ALWAYS right<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Just finished re-reading <span style="font-style: italic;">Sense and Sensibility</span>, as necessary a spring tonic for me as sautéed dandelion greens. A few pages from the end, Ms. Austen's caustic wit jumped out and gave me a quick slap on the cheek. 200 years have passed, but our culture of single-minded, mindless self promotion still predominates:</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<blockquote style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">"The whole of Lucy's behaviour in the affair, and the prosperity which crowned it, therefore, may be held forth as a most encouraging instance of what an earnest, an unceasing attention to self-interest, however its progress may be apparently obstructed, will do in securing every advantage of fortune, with no other sacrifice than that of time and conscience."</span></blockquote>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br />That last clause is a killer. Snap!</span>
</div>
Martin Perryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17709439736501506650noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4616816655123781241.post-36416247025870741152010-03-18T05:00:00.004-04:002015-06-12T20:58:40.740-04:00The tortoise shell<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">In my readings as I continue to prepare Ives' Concord sonata, I am inspired by these remarkable comments by Thoreau, from a letter to H.G.O. Blake in 1850. 160 years ago, stunningly sharp observations on the challenge of living the life of a contemplative artist in a distracted, event-driven society. Sound familiar?</span></div>
<blockquote style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">I find that actual events, notwithstanding the singular prominence which we allow them, are far less real than the creations of my imagination. They are truly visionary and insignificant-all that we call life and death-and affect me me less than my dreams. This petty stream which from time to time swells and carries away the mills and bridges of our habitual life, and that mightier stream of ocean on which we securely float-what makes the difference between them? I have in my pocket a button which I ripped off the coat of the Marquis of Ossoli, on the seashore, the other day. Held up, it intercepts the light-an actual button-and yet all the life it is connected with is less substantial to me, and interests me less, than my faintest dream. Our thoughts are the epochs of our lives: all else is but as a journal of the winds that blew while we were here.</span></blockquote>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">And then a sort of artist's ten commandments:</span></div>
<blockquote style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">I say to myself, Do a little more of that work which you have confessed to be good. You are neither satisfied nor dissatisfied with yourself, without reason. Have you not a thinking faculty of inestimable value? If there is an experiment which you would like to try, try it. Do not entertain doubts if they are not agreeable to you. Remember that you need not eat unless you are hungry. Do not read the newspapers. Improve every opportunity to be melancholy. As for health, consider yourself well. Do not engage to find things as you think they are. Do what nobody else can do for you. Omit to do anything else. It is not easy to make our lives respectable by any course of activity. We must repeatedly withdraw into our shells of thought, like a tortoise, somewhat helplessly; yet there is more than philosophy in that.</span></blockquote>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">After this brilliant manifesto, a return to his characteristic modesty:</span></div>
<blockquote style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Do not waste any reverence on my attitude. I merely manage to sit up where I have dropped.</span></blockquote>
Martin Perryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17709439736501506650noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4616816655123781241.post-44421503902458248632010-02-08T05:56:00.004-05:002012-09-09T13:03:43.350-04:00Künstlerleben<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-WzwibE1If_RYhRcqkDrvSg3hFkRWIW3Ca1_baRuTHdLt3EoIAQDh5rztgzI19m4_MccJebdRmlYdyyntr46-6XsTYBz3Pm3mW6akdOFmmjtuxlXls9bpC4JdHXEC-k2c8dxUIFUl0xY/s1600-h/palinhandclose-300x166.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5435844398976674562" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-WzwibE1If_RYhRcqkDrvSg3hFkRWIW3Ca1_baRuTHdLt3EoIAQDh5rztgzI19m4_MccJebdRmlYdyyntr46-6XsTYBz3Pm3mW6akdOFmmjtuxlXls9bpC4JdHXEC-k2c8dxUIFUl0xY/s200/palinhandclose-300x166.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; height: 111px; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; width: 200px;" /></a></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">The vast majority of blogs (and I admit, the ones that are the most fun) are of the outrageous-shocking-appalling-humorous variety...daily snapshots of a world gone mad or brain dead, depending on your point of view. They entertain us and satisfy our need to feel superior, which is easy to do when you watch a clip of, say, Sarah Palin reading crib notes scribbled on her palm during a interview staged on her own behalf. While attempting here to express the urgent NECESSITY of art music to our survival as a species, I realize that no one can really compete with our popular culture for quick digestibility and gratification. Should we even try?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Last night I had a rehearsal with my trio at exactly the same time as the Super Bowl; no surprise that the hall where we have been working was easily available. While a teragatrillion citizens were being stupified by The Who and high sodium snax, we were exploring subtle shades of dynamics and phrasing in Mozart's glorious, quasi-operatic trio for clarinet, viola and piano, and trying to find the intrinsically "right" tempi, colors and moods for a selection of Max Bruch's achingly beautiful pieces for the same instrumentation. This was our third or fourth rehearsal, and the layers of understanding are beginning to build, both collectively and individually. This process takes preparation, patience, willingness, diligence, inspiration and intelligence, and a magical belief that this music WILL at the end of this mutual effort take on a life of its own, and jump out of our hands and hearts into the hungry souls of our listeners where it could possibly nourish them far longer than the corporate happy meal of popular entertainment.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">There is a trend now away from older traditions of concert presentation, programming and marketing, the goal being to lure more and younger patrons into the fold. Of course this is sensible, but it's nothing new. Art music presentation has never stood still, it is constantly evolving, as it should. But I think it's a mistake to believe that the answer to this problem of a dwindling audience base exists in dumbing down our aspirations to the level of the popular media-driven culture. There is a big difference between crackers and cassoulet, even though they are both tasty.</span></div>
Martin Perryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17709439736501506650noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4616816655123781241.post-72705416533213828192009-10-05T05:14:00.004-04:002015-06-12T20:58:11.037-04:00Vote NO on 1!<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">I was thrilled to play for a packed house yesterday afternoon at Bowdoin College in Brunswick. This was a benefit performance for the "No on 1/Protect Maine Equality" forces; we are attempting to fight off an ugly referendum on the state ballot Nov. 3 which would overturn Maine's recent same sex marriage law. I am proud to say the event raised $30,000 for the cause, and more importantly brought together and energized an amazing coalition of people, gay and straight, from the midcoast community and beyond. Many thanks to all who contributed and attended.</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Keep the faith,</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: small;">Martin</span></div>
Martin Perryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17709439736501506650noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4616816655123781241.post-24467699099387602432008-07-14T09:48:00.006-04:002015-06-12T20:57:49.382-04:00Fuel<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">I just plunked down a sizable chunk of money to "pre-buy" my heating fuel for this coming winter here in the northeast, and it makes me wonder how folks are going to handle the looming economic crisis, and what might change in how we live and share with others. And what does my life as an artist have to do with it? For instance, of what earthly use will my upcoming performances of Ives and Rzewski this fall be to the common good?</span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">
<span style="font-size: x-small;">My answer is, probably not a lot, since at this point in time the majority of people aren't touched in their lives much by classical music. But what can I bring to people who are open to this experience, and by extension the family and friends they interact with? Will these performances be merely a diverting evening out for them, a wash of somewhat comprehensible sound play, a chance to admire or criticize my pianistic abilities? My hopes are otherwise.</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Can th<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaKzhs0OTETToY7AN4R3XL5lqu6wE0Z60JfPqbcNp_SsYIlxcS7-zEdYsoQU_pkVyVgNgNrcjXioPM7Y1TdqtPT1tD44SdN1JK6Q-qtKYPSZS-WuhxP_eRo7J_qaohuKu5lsnGb6Q2poo/s1600-h/images.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5223429942821977954" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaKzhs0OTETToY7AN4R3XL5lqu6wE0Z60JfPqbcNp_SsYIlxcS7-zEdYsoQU_pkVyVgNgNrcjXioPM7Y1TdqtPT1tD44SdN1JK6Q-qtKYPSZS-WuhxP_eRo7J_qaohuKu5lsnGb6Q2poo/s200/images.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt;" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRzIjlA-9IlRAIQ5EHHfEZbKR0rLjQrA6UC6djqLjxB6Z-ils1AixTPqej1VSl2ODXZunlz79gM_LqCnbf86foU3HsyJF2U2jq5_7ODuNEaipdbuEeS6aQv_OaOX7NkNMSms9kloH6h6w/s1600-h/wild002_tbov.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5223428033651394930" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRzIjlA-9IlRAIQ5EHHfEZbKR0rLjQrA6UC6djqLjxB6Z-ils1AixTPqej1VSl2ODXZunlz79gM_LqCnbf86foU3HsyJF2U2jq5_7ODuNEaipdbuEeS6aQv_OaOX7NkNMSms9kloH6h6w/s200/wild002_tbov.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt;" /></a>e recitation/sound illustration of Oscar Wilde's searing letter from Reading Jail in Rzewski's brilliant <span style="font-style: italic;">De Profundis</span> reach beyond its melodramatic surface to prove the radiant power of acceptance over the soul-crushing injustice and prejudice so rampant in the world today? Can the Concord Transcendentalists' courageous message of universalism speak across time to the modern day listener when she hears the thunderbolt of Ives' <span style="font-style: italic;">Emerson</span>? Will the sensual strains of <span style="font-style: italic;">Thoreau </span>remind her of the fragility and power of nature as we hurl down the path of ecological destruction?</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">Charles Ives asked in a slightly different context: "Can music do this?" Whether it can or n<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR31eRXe1aZr1I7iKl7P52G1MM_3ckP1gpm2yKvJng887rarqE1Z9r6EZ-cFjgc4Dkk2TvUHQFLmk2SnstzSCtF0td57MCjzqcKoLFmYgtrIA76WDnlcBxWJu0QIdz0eYSq1GfnkIMtM0/s1600-h/small_portrait.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5223428665021546354" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhR31eRXe1aZr1I7iKl7P52G1MM_3ckP1gpm2yKvJng887rarqE1Z9r6EZ-cFjgc4Dkk2TvUHQFLmk2SnstzSCtF0td57MCjzqcKoLFmYgtrIA76WDnlcBxWJu0QIdz0eYSq1GfnkIMtM0/s200/small_portrait.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px;" /></a>ot, I'm willing to go down trying. If my listeners leave the experience somehow transformed, moved to take some different action in their daily walk, then there is ample reason to carry on this tradition. Besides, I will need the money to pay the gas bill.</span></div>
Martin Perryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17709439736501506650noreply@blogger.com0