Better Know a Composer: Clara Schumann

Her husband gets more attention today, but back in the 19th century Clara Schumann (1819-1896) was the star in the family.

With a performance career spanning six decades (she made her solo debut in Leipzig at the age of 11), Clara was Germany’s reigning “Queen of Pianists” throughout most of the 1800s. Chopin, Liszt, and Mendelssohn dedicated works to her, and no less a cultural kingpin than Goethe was an enraptured fan of her playing.

She also served as Brahms’s confidant, musical adviser, and muse from the time they met in 1850, when Brahms was an up-and-coming twenty-year-old, until her death.

She was a first-rate composer, although she was personally insecure about her skill at writing music. Clara’s most popular piece during her lifetime was the Piano Trio, which she wrote in 1846. Only months later, her husband completed his inaugural work in the genre, and she often paired the pieces in concert. Here’s the last movement, which includes a fugato section much admired by Mendelssohn:

Everyone Needs a Hobby: I Write Program Notes About Schoenberg

Last January, I gave a paper on Rochberg’s Second String Quartet at the winter meeting of the American Musicological Society’s Greater New York Chapter. In March 2012, I’ll be down in Charlotte to give a paper on the composer’s Music for the Magic Theater at the Society for American Music’s annual conference. Here’s the abstract:

Coldplay Cover Alert

Stereogum posted a clip of Swedish singer Robyn covering “Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall” as part of an appearance on the BBC.

I don’t know who Robyn is, but her version is nice. Certainly, it’s a lot less overwrought.

It’s Getting Harder to Like Coldplay All the Time

Last week, Coldplay released the video for its latest mashup, “Every Teardrop is a Waterfall,” and it isn’t pretty.

Steuermann’s Schoenberg

Last week, Russell Sherman gave a recital of Schoenberg’s piano music. In his remarks to the audience, he made a point of noting that his teacher, Schoenberg acolyte Edward Steuermann, never taught these works to him. According to Sherman, Steuermann told him that “this is your music.”

Steuermann recorded Schoenberg’s piano music in the 1950s; here’s the Three Piano Pieces, Opus 11:

You can read my essay on Schoenberg’s piano music here.

Who Needs a Publisher?

So, you want to be a novelist? Go ahead. John Locke (I don’t believe this is his real name) took the bull by the horns and published his own books through Kindle Direct Publishing, and today Amazon.com announced he’s the first independently published author to have sold a million e-books.

This past weekend, The New York Times Magazine published an article about Amanda Hocking (I’m pretty sure this is her real name), who recently signed a $2 million book deal with St. Martin’s Press on the strength of the sales on her self-published books.

Reading about how St. Martin’s went after Hocking to exploit her personal success building a healthy niche audience reminded me a lot of the major record companies’ approach to bands back in the early 2000s, when they didn’t want to touch groups unless they brought an audience with them. We know how that turned out.

My Favorite Riots

Jokes about Canadians acting un-Canadian abound on Twitter in the wake of the Vancouver riots last night, but those in the Great White North have a wonderful tradition of purposeless rabble-rousing.

As the Nova Scotia Archives pointed out on Facebook, Halifax celebrated the end of World War II with hooliganism:

In 1955, Montreal reacted to the suspension “Rocket” Richard by taking out their displeasure on pretty much anything they had around at the time. They do this kind of thing a lot in Montreal over hockey and Guns ‘n’ Roses.

They rioted in Vancouver when the Canucks lost the Stanley Cup back in 1994. Back then, they reacted with shock (only in “a big American city” does this sort of thing happen); it’s old hat now.

Better Know a Composer: Arnold Schoenberg

If you want to get a good picture of how Schoenberg’s aesthetic thought changed over time, his solo piano music is the place to start. In no other genre can you so clearly hear the shift from free-wheeling intuitive expression to a historically conscious formalism grounded in a desire to redeem Western music.

Here’s an essay that appeared in the program for Russell Sherman’s recital of these works last night at Mannes as part of the Institute and Festival of Contemporary Performance. Take a look. If you’re interested, I’m happy to point you to other things to read, and recordings as well.

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You can listen to Steuermann’s recording from the 1950s of the Three Piano Pieces, Opus 11, here. Also, here’s a video of Glenn Gould and Yehudi Menuhin talking about Schoenberg’s Violin Fantasy.

Every Coldplay Track’s Another Song

Coldplay everywhere. I heard the Pixies’ “Where is My Mind?” in a bookstore the other day.

Five minutes later I was humming “Fix You.”

This guy hears it.

Sherman’s Schoenberg

On Monday, Russell Sherman is performing all of Schoenberg’s piano music in a recital at the Mannes School Concert Hall in Manhattan, the opening concert in the annual Festival for Contemporary Performance.

Sherman’s personal link to Schoenberg is his teacher Edward Steuermann. More than just a student of Schoenberg, Steuerman was the composer’s go-to pianist in Berlin and Vienna. Here in the US, Steuermann premiered the Piano Concerto in 1944 with the NBC Orchestra and Leopold Stokowski. (Originally, Schnabel was the scheduled pianist, which may have offended Steuermann.)

Despite this close connection to Schoenberg, Steuermann taught very little Schoenberg to his students, according to Sherman. Here he is in an interview with Gunther Schuller:

“Well, he hardly taught me any modern music, and even Schoenberg he wasn’t much interested in teaching. But he used to say–in that Polish way–‘That’s your music. You do what you want with it; I don’t have to teach that to you.'”

(You can listen to Steuermann’s recording of Schoenberg’s Opus 11 here, but not here.)

I had a chance to talk with Sherman a week or so ago about the recital; we talked more about hockey than music. Apparently, Sherman’s quite the Rangers fan, and we bonded over memories of some great Canadiens teams from the 1970s.

To fill out the program, Sherman’s performing Beethoven’s Opus 109 sonata, and he’ll tell you in his opening remarks why he chose this piece.

I CAN HAZ SCHOENBERGER?

Cat’s play Opus 11:

If you want to see how a human might perform this piece, Russell Sherman’s giving a recital of all of Schoenberg’s piano music Monday night at the Mannes School Concert Hall in Manhattan. It’s part of the Institute and Festival of Contemporary Performance’s annual spring festival.

MoogFest Set for October in Asheville

Instead of writing more about Les Paul and Google’s homepage guitar logo, I thought I’d direct your attention to another music-technology innovator and the festival named in his honor.

Last week, MoogFest announced the bands appearing in October down in Asheville, NC on October 28-30. The headliner is Flaming Lips, but Battles are also appearing. A video that runs down the list is here.

Last year, I posted a video of Robert Moog explaining his Minimoog synthesizer. This year, to celebrate its founder’s birthday, the Moog company put out its own YouTube video on the history of its most celebrated product: