Valentina Lisitsa

Seriously, the next Mrs Stainforth.

Knowing my luck, she’s probably a dyke.

Solace: A Mexican Serenade by Scott Joplin

On the sheet music of several rags Scott Joplin had printed “NOTICE! Don’t play this piece fast. It is never right to play Ragtime fast – Author.”

To which he might have added “It is not necessary to wear shoes and socks when playing Ragtime; and if you have a ponytail and a beard that’s OK too.”

Scott Joplin died of syphilis in 1917.

A vastly underrated composer.

Try Schenkerian analysis on this piece (as I did when I was 20 before I realised it was complete bollocks) and you will very soon run into trouble. If there are any young music students reading this, tell your teachers “Fuck Schenker!”.

Late Brahms

Manchester City 0 Tottenham Hotspur 1
Mancini Must Go

Striking is the crab-like progression of Brahms’s productions. He has certainly never been able to raise himself above the level of mediocrity, but such nullity, emptiness, and hypocrisy as prevail in the E minor Symphony have come to light in no other of his works. The art of composing without ideas has decidedly found its most worthy representative in Brahms.

(Hugo Wolf, Wiener Salonblatt, October 1885)

I am referring to those jewels found in Op. 116, 117, 118, and 119. These are among my favourite works for solo piano.

I am partial to the Op. 116 No. 6 Intermezzo, the lovely Intermezzo in A minor of Op. 117, the mighty Op. 118 No. 3 Ballade, and the Op. 119 No. 4 Rhapsody, a triumphant finish to this collection of mostly dark, minor-key works. And when I am in a sentimental mood, the Intermezzo Op. 118 No. 2 and the Romance Op. 118 No. 5 are lovely as well.

I have Kempff playing them.

They are connoisseur pieces, outside the ken of even many sophisticated listeners. They belong somewhere with the late Beethoven bagatelles or the late Haydn sonatas: not exactly forgotten, not exactly neglected, but in some netherworld one step short of the sunlight of general appreciation.

I seem to recall reading somewhere that Brahms lived just long enough to have heard the very earliest ragtime piano pieces from America and, evidently, some piano rags were played for him late in life. That conjures up a wonderful mental image for me – Brahms sitting in his flat in Vienna listening to someone play ragtime on his piano! Anyway, he supposedly liked what he heard and even expressed a desire to compose a piece of ragtime himself. Wouldn’t it be fascinating if among Brahms’ late piano music there were “Viennese Two-Step Rag as picked by Johannes Brahms” or something like that?

Apocryphal, no doubt. I seem to remember the story comes from a book called The Unknown Brahms by Robert Schauffler, published around 1933. My young friend Melissa tells me the book is not factually reliable.

Chopin played by Zimerman

Some more Polish jollity. Zimerman famously refused to play in the United States because the authorities took away his piano and destroyed it. He was also less than happy about the US using Poland as a launching pad for its missiles.

Chopin’s Birthday

He arrived in Manchester towards the end of August [1848], and was put up at the house of a German Jew called Salis Schwabe, who had settled in England thirty years before and amassed great wealth. The Schwabes were widely travelled and cultivated, and their fine mansion just outside Manchester, Crumpsall House, was often used by visiting artists.

Chopin was a little astonished to find that “in this smoky place there is the most charming music room imaginable”.

(Adam Zamoyski, Chopin: A Biography)

Depending on whether you believe official records, or the composer himself, Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin was born either on 22 February or 1 March, 200 years ago. He died thirty-nine years later, of tuberculosis.

I find his music rather depressing, mainly because I am painfully aware that I will never write anything for the piano half as well as he did.

This hasn’t stopped me “borrowing” some of his more chromatic passages for use in my own compositions, which are frankly atonal and dodecaphonic, although admittedly in the sense that Alban Berg’s music is atonal and dodecaphonic.

The greatest interpreter of Chopin, for me, is Horowitz, although my young friend Melissa has a soft spot for Tamás Vásáry.

I find it interesting that the world’s greatest pianist, Alfred Brendel, rarely performed Chopin’s music, possibly because it lacks humour.

Art Tatum, Earl Wild, Erroll Garner, Liszt

Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille,
Sich ein Charakter in dem Strom der Welt.

(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Torquato Tasso)

I’m not into virtuoso music in general, but I have about ten recordings of this guy and I’m just floored by each one of them. His fireworks can get boring after a while, but his musical invention is unmatched. Everything gets a spin, rhythm, harmony, colour, dynamics, key changes, and it happens all so fast and spontaneously. If a piano could play itself, I’m sure this is what it would sound like.

I enjoy Erroll Garner’s playing even more than Art Tatum’s. Both were undeniably great. Garner was largely self-taught, could not read music, but could play incredibly fast and incredibly lyrically as well. Too bad young people don’t listen to and appreciate this stuff instead of that horrific, dehumanizing gangsta rap hip hop crap.

I almost forgot … R.I.P. Earl Wild, who died last week. Who now can be bothered to bang out all that Liszt? A sad loss.