Ilya Kaler and Rasa Vitkauskaite Play my arrangement of Price's "Adoration"

I have loved Ilya Kaler's playing ever since his Schumann Violin Sonatas and Paganini Caprices on some early Naxos recordings arrived at the radio station where I worked at the end of the twentieth century. What a thrill it is to hear his particular old-world sound embrace Florence Price's new-world lyricism. And Rasa Vitkauskaite's piano playing is as thrilling to hear as Ilya Kaler's violin playing.

The sonata that Beethoven wrote for George Bridgetower that we know as the "Kreutzer" Sonata (even though Kreutzer never played it) is part of this series of recordings. You can listen to that recording here.

“Dear Lara”

I asked the Canadian violinist/filmmaker Lara St. John if I could have a chance to see her new documentary, which was streaming, for a short time, only in Canada, and is, fortunately, having a handful of showings in a few select theaters in the United States. She made it possible for me to watch it, and I watched it with Michael, who is writing a post about it as I type.

[His post is here.]

I have been following the subject, the proliferation of sexual abuse of young women by their conservatory professors, for my entire life. I was deeply aware of the behavior of powerful men in the world of classical music when I was a child. It was sometimes even dinner table conversation when I was a teenager.

When you watch the documentary you will see the widespread nature of this criminal behavior within a field that is supposed to be about finding truth and beauty. The irony!

One thing I did learn from the film that I hadn't known was that the financé of my fifth-grade stand-partner in All-city orchestra was being abused by her teacher (neither of us knew her then: she was eight when it started). I feel so deeply sad for my friend. Sexual abuse, or in this case rape, has a profound impact on the entire musical community and their families and friends.

The only spoilers I will give you are musical ones. The whole musical background for the film is amazing. It is perfectly in proportion, and has fantastic playing, much of it by St. John. Never before have I experienced music that I know really well used as a narrative voice in a documentary in a way that transforms the way I think of the music.

The documentary style is honest, straightforward, comfortable, and relaxed: a perfect way to showcase dishonesty, ambiguous, uncomfortable, and tense. I wouldn't be surprised to see future films with St. John as either director or as the person running the music department. I also wouldn't be surprised if this film were to win a few major awards.

Magical Musical Hospital Moment

While we were on our usual walk of the hospital hallways yesterday, I noticed that the exercise room door was open, and inside was a young woman with a violin. Indeed it was part of a hospital musical program where they have musicians play in various locations on various days.

Our first experience with this was hearing Spanish and Brazilian music played by a guitarist in the lobby of one of the non-hospital buildings. It was wonderful to hear, and when I asked him if he could play something for me by Paulo Bellinati, he did.

On our next lap I learned that the violinist would be playing from 2:00 until 3:00, so I came in to listen. She played a few pieces from the various Suzuki books. It was lovely. She played beautifully in tune, and she played in such a way that demonstrated her deep love of music.

When she started playing a movement from one of the Seitz Concertos, a piece I can play the accompaniment for, after teaching it so often, I asked her if she wanted me to accompany her on the piano. She loved the idea. I grabbed my iPad, and we began. But the electric piano was about a quarter tone low, and we didn't know how to adjust it. I didn't want to ask her to tune down, so I grabbed my violin (my room is a few doors down from the music room), and we played some duets.

I had "Weights and Measures" on my iPad, so we played a few of those. I let her know that I wrote them, and explained how they worked as scale pieces. I hadn't ever played them with such a good violinist, and hadn't played them in a very long time as duet pieces. It was a real treat for me.

At around 3:00 a few of her friends came by. They were all college students working in the hospital for the summer while they were home in Chicago. They might have had other duties in the hospital, but they were all musicians. One was a pianist and a bass player, and the other was a violist.

The violinist told her friends that I had written the music we were playing, and it was clear to me that none of these young people had the sense that it was unusual in any way for a composer to be a woman. I asked the violist what he was working on, and the last piece he played was by Rebecca Clarke. The bass player had just played the Rachmaninoff Second Piano Concerto for the first time in her life, and was thrilled by the experience.

The violist and I talked about repertoire, and I learned about a new/old/obscure viola composer (new-to-me) from him: I. Chandoschkin (1747-1804), a Soviet "creation." I am excited to do a deep dive into learning about this person.

I was thrilled and enchanted by these young musicians, and I somehow feel, in the not-yet-engrafted marrow of my bones, that "the kids are alright," at least the kids that have music running through their veins,

Charles Dickens and Pauline Viardot!

Imagine my surprise when coming upon this passage in David Copperfield:

"I came out to inquire whether Annie would like to go to the opera tonight," said Mr. Maldon, turning to her. "It's the last good night there will be, this season; and there's a singer there, whom she really ought to hear. She is perfectly exquisite. Besides which, she is so charmingly ugly," relapsing into languor.

The only singer contemporary to Dickens it could be would have to be Pauline Viardot.

I'm rather new to Dickens, and though I have certainly observed that he had a great enjoyment of music, I never would have imagined that he would have been close friends with Pauline Viardot. He first met her after a performance of Gluck's Orphée, (she played the title role, which is written for a mezzo-soprano) and Dickens wrote about the encounter to his friend John Forster (Nonesuch Letters, 3.322):

Last night I saw Madame Viardot do Gluck's Orphée. It is a most extrordinary performance--pathetic in the highest degree, and full of quite sublime acting. Though it is unapproachably fine from first to last, the beginning of it, at the tomb of Eurydice, is a thing that I cannot remember at this moment of writing, without emotion. It is the finest presentation of grief that I can imagine. And when she has received hope from the Gods, and encouragement to go into the other world and seek Eurydice, Viardot's manner of taking the relinquished lyre from the tomb, and becoming radiant again, is most noble. Also she recognizes Eurydice's touch, when at length the hand is put in hers from behind, like a most transcendant [sic] genius. And when, yielding to Eurydice's entreaties she has turned round and slain her with a look, her despair over the body is grand in the extreme. It is worth a journey to Paris to see, for there is no such Art to be otherwise looked upon. Her husband stumbled over me by mere chance, and took me to her dressing-room. Nothing could have happened better as a genuine homage to the performance, for I was disfigured with crying.

They soon became very close friends.

Shortly after finishing Bleak House I had the idea of writing some musical character studies featuring characters in the novel, but now that I am in the middle of David Copperfield, my cast of possible musical characters has expanded a great deal.

Once I get out of the hospital and my stay close to the hospital (on 53rd Street in Chicago), and can get my hands on my viola d'amore, I will get to work on a piece for three violas d'amore (to be played at the 2027 viola d'amore congress) inspired by some of the characters I have come to know.

I am certainly not the first person to do this, but I might be the first to write Dickens-inspired pieces for three violas d'amore. I do imagine that Dickens would be enchanted by the instrument.

Here is a passage from a paper by Charles Cudworth that was published in the June, 1970 edition of The Musical Times (Vol. 111, p. 589):

Dickens was not only intersted in music himself; he also provoked music in others. During his lifetime, his novels fostered some curious musical offspring, such as The David Copperfield Polka and The Barnaby Rudge Tarantelle, to say nothing of The Micawber Quadrille, "played in the drama of Little Em'ly, at the Olympic Theatre," in 1869.

Scenes from the Hospital on my "Birthday"

How appropriate is it to have "Symphony" as the maker of the water and ice machine that sits outside of my hospital room? And isn't it nice to know that the walnuts our daughter brought me from my favorite store were packaged in a facility that also packages nuts.

Today I get five bags of stem cells pumped into my system. I believe they start going in shortly before lunchtime, which gives me time to go to the exercise room, which has a piano to play. There is also a music stand in there, so I don't need to assemble and take down my heavy folding stand, and risk getting another pinching bruise.

I showed the physical therapist, who gave me goals for walking and brought me to the above-mentioned exercise room (which is very close to my room), my Sigo tenor recorder, which requires a fairly large inhalation (like 2000 ml of air to make a good sound). She thought it might be a great research project for people involved in physical therapy.

I hope that other musicians going through stem cell transplants might be encouraged to try instrument as part of their recovery process.

Michael and I have been playing together every evening after dinner (Sigo and guitar), but tonight, now that my port insertion is healed, I can play violin too.

The "birthday" in the title of this post means that my immune system is like that of a newborn baby today. It is called "Day Zero." I probably won't post much during the rest of this week since my energy level will be very low, but I will do my best. Connecting with people, and particularly with musicians, really does help.