Solo repertoire
A to Z -- 1500 - 20??
With orchestra
Bach (BWV 1052-1058)
Haydn (Hob. XVIII complete)
Mozart (KV 414) (KV 451) (KV 453) (KV 466) (KV 467) (KV 488) (KV 491) (KV 595)
Beethoven (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (Op. 61a) (Op. 80)
Chopin (1) (2)
Mendelssohn (1) (2)
Schumann (Op. 54) (Op. 92) (Op. 134)
Liszt (1) (2) (Totentanz)
Brahms (1)
Tchaikovsky (1)
Grieg (Op. 16)
Saint-Saëns (2) (5)
Strauss (Burleske)
Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue) (Second Rhapsody) (Concerto in F) (I Got Rhythm)
Bartók (3)
Prokofiev (1)
Stravinsky (with Winds)
Shostakovich (1) (2)
Rzewski (Long Time Man) (2014) (Dog's Life 2015)
A to Z -- 1500 - 20??
With orchestra
Bach (BWV 1052-1058)
Haydn (Hob. XVIII complete)
Mozart (KV 414) (KV 451) (KV 453) (KV 466) (KV 467) (KV 488) (KV 491) (KV 595)
Beethoven (1) (2) (3) (4) (5) (Op. 61a) (Op. 80)
Chopin (1) (2)
Mendelssohn (1) (2)
Schumann (Op. 54) (Op. 92) (Op. 134)
Liszt (1) (2) (Totentanz)
Brahms (1)
Tchaikovsky (1)
Grieg (Op. 16)
Saint-Saëns (2) (5)
Strauss (Burleske)
Gershwin (Rhapsody in Blue) (Second Rhapsody) (Concerto in F) (I Got Rhythm)
Bartók (3)
Prokofiev (1)
Stravinsky (with Winds)
Shostakovich (1) (2)
Rzewski (Long Time Man) (2014) (Dog's Life 2015)
| prog.div.bobby_mitchell__2020-22.docx |
A - Z :
J - Writer's block has kicked in, inevitably. It has been awhile since I have posted anything here, and I have spent endless amounts of time, including most if not all of the latest edition of sleepless nights, thinking about what the letter J means to me. This summer has brought with it a tectonic shift in things, I feel. I've been hot for more hours in a row than I care to remember, which actually does stand in contrast to a childhood punctuated by cool evenings mainly lit by lightning bugs, and (yes, I am part of the problem), air-conditioning. I lost time this week that I'll never get back by traveling through the night in an airplane, in order to just miss hearing Greta Thunberg speak on the other side. I wasn't delayed. I was just too tired to go witness history after being propelled through the sky in a steel tube. There is no need to justify why we are collectively experiencing the climate crisis and aren't (necessarily) doing something about it (does not apply to everybody!). The reason that I believe there is no need to justify this is because the proportion between knowing what to do about it and knowing how to do it is often made irrelevant by other factors in a human's life. I would go so far as to say, especially in the life of an artist. Beware, the following will not be a justification for the fact that I troubadour through life, because it is not intended to be. Rather, let it read as a kind of open debate between myself and my public self.
I do deeply know how important live music is to the world. I know this more than anything else I know, and that is because I experience it viscerally, over and over. When audiences gather (which inevitably involves some level of CO2 emissions), humans are communing. The best possible reason humans could ever commune, in my humble opinion, is to experience art. Art opens one's horizons, and in the best possible cases, it challenges the observer. In the very best of all possible cases, it makes the observer uncomfortable to some degree and therefore more aware of [his/her/its/insert pronoun of choice] surroundings. This is precisely what humans need, especially at the very moment that they have gathered together! It is this common experience that can catalyze a solution to our problems. I, the artist in this social contract, also inevitably need to present what I do to not just one audience over and over but to difference audiences, which are (inconveniently) to be found in different geographic locations. You might think that the endless onslaught of digital media solved this problem, but I actually think it has made it more acute. Art brings together and does not isolate. Art, especially music, can really only be viscerally consumed when it's observed in the same space as the observer. Live. Hence the need for performing artists to constantly travel. I am inspired by Greta to learn how to sail across the Atlantic Ocean, but am a little worried about my hands and also how much wine I can possibly get on board.
This is all to say that, more than ever, we are in need of communal, community-oriented thinking in terms of how we structure our society. I'm in the process of re-structuring my schedule so I can walk everywhere, so let there be audiences gathered all along the way.
A post-script and a weak hats-off to the letter J. This just in: I am very honored and grateful to succeed the late Robert Turnbull in fulfilling the role of artistic director for the en blanc et noir piano festival in the south of France (beautiful Lagrasse in Cathar country), active immediately. I'll start walking that direction pretty soon.
I - Being idle is hard work! Idleness is important for the imagination, creativity, and general spiritual well-being (in my humble opinion, being the kind of guy who is always happy to find an excuse to stop working and daydream for awhile), and so in the spirit of idleness I decided to do what a lot of people do for at least a week during the summer. Interrupt the daily life I'm used to, and replace it with daily life to which I'm completely unaccustomed and have no practice. Nowadays, this is more commonly referred to as taking a vacation.
Two parameters determined the vacation so conveniently that I didn't really even have to make a decision as to what to do in order to vacate. First and most importantly, I travel too much to even consider taking an airplane FOR FUN. This first parameter restricted the geography to a convenient degree: after concerts in the south of France, find a place to experience unfamiliar daily life. The next parameter: one of my oldest and closest friends is driving around France this summer in a camper van. We have a match.
Living in a camper van is wonderful, however anything but idle. At all times, there is a lot to do. Finding a bottle of win... I mean water involves getting to the refrigerator which involves moving things to get to the refrigerator which involves putting them back where they are before you can drive again so that they don't fly everywhere at the sight of the first traffic circle or speed bump. The trade-off for constantly assembling and disassembling and re-arranging and dissecting the jigsaw puzzle in the back is that a camper van has everything you will ever need in it already (if stocked correctly by its chauffeurs.) There is a bed, a fully-stocked kitchen and bar, clothes, and I can't remember if there was a bar of soap or not but somehow that only crossed my mind now. And with the van comes a special kind of freedom that I haven't yet experienced with other methods of travel. The opportunity to improvise and be somewhere unforeseen. The joy of not even having to look forward to something, but just to look at it.
The route from Normandy to Brittany along France's northern coast took us to unforgettable places. Eugene, our unfallable and ever-active chauffeur, combined experience and instinct to orchestrate five days of sensual experiences that I think could have only happened from the porthole that is the sliding back door of the big blue camper van.
Normandy's beach cliffs. Monolithic and extensive natural walls that give a sense of impenetrable grandeur. (Oysters on the beach with white wine!). Driving into the sunset on one of France's low-trafficked impeccable highways. (Baguette and salmon!). Arriving at Mont Saint-Michel at midnight, walking to this holy place across the sand during low tide, exploring the island with nobody else in sight, testing the quicksand with our body weight, talking to the two hotels' night watchmen while imagining all the tourists inside asleep, feeling the special-ness of the place in the quietest moments of the night under the full moon's supervision. (Rosé transferred from the box into an old water bottle, two bottles of Belgian beer, cheese and more baguette, chocolate cake!). Waking up to sea air, sailboats, and the ever-present light breeze that keeps Brittany from ever feeling too hot. A walk into the coastal town of Cancale. Nap. Finally hungry again! (Oysters, bread, cheese, the famous box of rosé.) Oyster shopping at the wholesalers. (Oysters!). A rural café. (Oysters! White wine! Mussels and fries! White wine!). Walking through the clay seabed that might also have been quicksand and using our bare feet to differentiate between grand cru and première cru natural cosmetics. (Somehow no food involved...) Friends of friends with whom you instantly get along. Visiting a particular Monsieur's Breton manor home and the emergent picnic. (The food items get repetitive in a list like this but they don't get boring while you're eating them!). Cliff walks along the beach and discovering private, miniature beach-lettes tucked between nature and accessible only to the brave. Market day in the rain! (Coffee, a second coffee, fries, chorizo, cider!). Driving inland and stumbling upon a town upon a castle upon a canal. (Beer with friendly strangers and their puppy.). Village fest, sundown, and dancing. (Cider, cider, cider, cider, crêpes, oysters, fish, cider, cider, ...).
Feeling grateful during the train ride home for having experienced such natural and cultural wealth, for having a dear friend to share it with, for having made new friends to share more things with, and because I also love my normal daily life and am eager to play the piano.
H - The musical term hocketing has been on my mind lately. A brief explanation: hocketing happens when two performers perform their own beat patterns, which never align and therefore consistently intersperse each other. One plays left and the other plays right and the resulting left-right-left-right-left-right pattern is produced neither by the one nor by the other, but by both players who work together by not working together. Although hocketing can and often does result from performances where there is some degree of steadiness apparent in the individual components that, when heard together, hocket each other, there is another type of hocketing where unsteady or unpredictable things evade each other and never (or rarely) align. Such a hocketed entity can only make sense as something that no particular person achieved on his or her own, something beyond the control of any particular participant.
Hocketing doesn't just happen in music. It shapes life for example when you miss a phone call and then try to call back, which almost always results in a game of phone tag. It happens when you find yourself in the countryside, and then try to imagine what is happening in a big city. The impossibility of being in both places at once creates a kind of hocketing in the brain while attempting to be somewhere and think about somewhere else. Hocketing is what happens during a conversation. It emerges when you are with one person but are thinking about somebody else.
In a world where travel is (still) so relatively accessible and inexpensive, hocketing naturally happens in the lives of musicians like me who have the honor to play music in many places. Working here, then there, can feel like working everywhere or feel like being nowhere. Often when people ask me where I live, I joke by saying "where my suitcase is." Joking aside, it's also true that the life of a professional musician inevitably involves hocketing between public appearances and an at-home-life. Between the stage and a private space where creative work happens. I hocket between bed and a more vertical existence every day, as you probably do as well. And I think it is exactly this paradoxical need to live both horizontally and vertically that creates the necessary tension to keep us healthy and creative.
G - Gigging is the main modus operandi in a musician's life. Not only does it provide him or her with cash to be exchanged for bread and butter; it gives the performer the opportunity to spiral towards a creative output that is traceable. A body of work that has a singular impression, as coming from a particular source. Of course, gigs happen because of external circumstances and come with their own demands. The list of demands I've thoroughly enjoyed fulfilling in the last few weeks (Play Stravinsky! Play Beethoven and Chopin piano concerti! Play Dieter Mack (and he'll be at the rehearsal)! Play Bright Sheng (he'll also be attending the rehearsal! Put together your own score to a silent film and then play it! Play alone! Play with others!) provided a unique workspace where another level of creative work happens. Performing music composed by others very often involves a slew of decisions that ultimately leave the sounding results with other impressions than just who composed the music. There are layers of contributions from the performer that overlap and affect the little bit of rubato as well as the improvised cadenza in a piano concerto. The performer is always present, the composer only sometimes. This might ultimately be why audiences still crave live music! Seeing each gig in turn as a way to look for consistency and urgency from yourself the performer seems to be the healthiest and perhaps also the most ethical way of fulfilling the task. As vague and indirect as this may sound, it may be the secret to getting gigs in the first place.
The logistics of these last few weeks of gigging have been complicatedly exotic. Five airplane trips were counter-balanced by many more train stretches (see letter F here below for my train fixation). Traveling across China at 300 kmh (186.4 mph if you don't know what kmh stands for) was matched only by experiencing the new Gotthard tunnel in southern Switzerland for the first time. The best pizza of my life. Lake Como and a few weeks later, the Vietnamese border. Cheese and port tasting in Lisbon; getting better with chopsticks. Humidity. Acidity. Food poisoning... Friendly faces all along the way. Lots of small and some big talk. Great travel companions. The absolute physical necessity of being horizontal. The books one has on hand help a lot, perhaps because they provide an arbitrary continuity between experiences that are coincidentally juxtaposed by the order of concert appearances. Reading a Thomas Jefferson biography in Miami feels different than in southern China. I had the feeling while finishing one of the later chapters in my hotel room in Nanning that Thomas Jefferson was pretty unimportant here.
F - Act One. I just stepped out of a shower with a nice-sized hole in the floor, through which I could see the ground passing by. Now I‘m looking at the distinctly brown Colorado River deciding whether or not to just have mussels again for lunch today or risk something else on the menu. Since thinking about lunch somehow doesn't occupy my whole brain, the rest is wondering when‘s the last time I enjoyed absolutely no internet connectivity for over 24 hours in a row… (Yes, by the time you read this I will have snuck this essay online, at a 10-minute station stop somewhere if I‘m lucky, otherwise in Chicago). For awhile I was mildly concerned I was getting gout, but some stretching seemed to help. My shoes have gotten smaller. In an effort to forego flying I am taking the train from San Francisco to Miami. So far so good, and even though we left late we‘re on schedule now. Only four more days for that to change. My feet are up on the chair across from me, I've already mentioned the view, and when I‘m not reading the new Alan Walker Chopin biography or working on a new soundtrack to the old silent film classic Sunrise (Murnau, 1927, the new score to be premièred next week in Miami with brilliant pianist Ashley Hribar!), I am looking out the window. The monotony is calming and yet things can look a lot different the next time you look out the window. Yesterday was particularly exotic in that department. The East Bay (essentially the Pacific Ocean) followed by Irish-looking landscapes (it has been raining a lot lately in California); then a bridge followed by what looks like a saloon; suddenly mountains, pine trees, then lots of snow; wow, Lake Tahoe; I‘m getting tired, whoah those are some serious dustbowl vibes. Today I woke up to what looked like the moon, but turned out to be Utah. Rocky Mountains in the distance but in all directions! The USA is definitely filled with diverse landscapes and they do take awhile to cross. Let‘s see what kind of impressions the flyover states will leave. My double-paned roomette window is like one slowly changing landscape painting, with some bug guts rubbed on it here and there.
Three recent performances in the Bay Area left me feeling satisfied that there are great audiences there and new friends to be had while seeing the lovely old ones too. I am hoping that this paradise for introverts - Roomette 6 - can help me rest and recharge before some wild music/merry-making in Miami soon. Roomette 6‘s neighbors are generally quiet. Now and then the two sisters who are audible from my room say something funny ("How do square rocks balance on round ones like that? Makes me wanna get out and push one…") - just innocuous enough to be cute and not annoying.
Six minutes of fresh Colorado air! This is as close as I'll get to taking a walk this week!
I was just seated for lunch with three hilarious ladies from Tennessee who had the most tremendous draaawwwlll. Talking to strangers is so much easier on a train than in one of those NYC coffee shops with a sign that says "WIFI password: talk to strangers.” "Community seating” helps: that’s their term for throwing strangers together at one table for a meal to see if anything explodes. So far all experiences have been positive. An inquisitive, eager, and anxious young Singaporean exchange student. The Mexican/Californian from Merced who somehow described gang violence in his neighborhood in a way that made everyone at the table laugh. The soul-searcher who quit his day job and is now looking for creativity. The smiley Berkeley retired couple who are swanking it in hotels and spas in the Southwest for awhile. I admire anyone who starts their swanky vacation on a train!
Saw Red Canyon for the first time and I did need the conductor‘s friendly reminder of why Colorado is called colo rado.
Naptime. The attendant said that everyone sleeps better on the second night of the trip.
Crossing Nevada, Utah, and Colorado reminds me of all the Bay Area traffic that kept me nice and nestled in when I was there. Wanna meet for lunch? I’m free the day after tomorrow on my way back from Vallejo when I have time to be in transit all day since I will be anyway. Memories are coming flooding back of Miami’s similar apocalyptic situation. Once I attempted to meet a friend for coffee on Miami Beach and made a new friend instead, the Cuban cab driver who I spent two and a half hours with sitting in traffic. She could sing every melody from the Tchaikovsky piano concerto and laughed out loud when I told her I’m a "freelancer.” “So am I!” There is so much empty, desolate, and bewitching space in this country and so many people crowded in cities with ancient highways and no room for even more cars. How can we all just spread out a little bit? Turn a patch of desert into a garden of Eden and do some "freelancing” there.
Some of the train blogs I found online while wasting time recently describe the emotional elements of train travel well. I have to admit that I was skeptical. But after a day and a half in the mountains, something bizarre happened. We turned a curve that I didn’t know was the last one until it was too late, and I suddenly saw the Great Plains and the beginning of the Midwest ahead of me. My heart sank a little bit, and it took me a minute or two to understand why: I subconsciously realized that it’s all quite literally downhill from here.
Downtown Denver left a nice impression for the 20 minutes I spent walking around the station. There was a big private party happening in the station itself, and lots of brewpubs and nice-looking restaurants in the very near vicinity, so not all train stations in the US are in bad neighborhoods anymore…
There is less to report about Day 3. As the landscape gets flatter, I have more things to do in order to manage an easy transition back into real life once I’ve disembarked for good. Chapter Two of Playing Schumann Again for the First Time was just returned from my editor and needed one final glance. The score for Sunrise is coming along. Two of the day’s memorable events both involved water. I woke up to witness serious flooding just next to the railway. Houses and cars were submerged and the scene was really pretty shocking to see first-hand. It reminded me of the severe winter this part of the country experienced, and I wondered about how well organized the cargo and passenger rail companies must be at protecting the tracks. In the afternoon, we crossed the mighty Mississippi over a rail-only bridge and by so doing left the Wild West behind us. Time for some culture and city landscapes. 90 minutes to Chicago.
Act Two. I'll start with a couple of statistics this time in order to set the scene on a trip entering its sunset phase. I have now occupied my third and final roomette for about three hours at the time of writing, and am scheduled to arrive at my final destination (well over 3,000 miles or almost 5,000 km away from my starting point) in less than 24 hours from now. In total, the trip will have taken a decent work week, beginning Monday morning and ending just in time to miss happy hour on Friday. When the specials are over, I'll pull in the station at 6PM. You may call me a cheater for shaving three hours off my work week by traveling eastwards - a foolproof way to clock in more hours than I really worked - but I say four nights in a jiggling bed with lots of train whistling justify some stolen time. One other important stat: On the third and final train, I exchanged the dining car for WIFI. No free food but internet access, and I'm very happy to digest four days of sodium-infused recently frozen food with my own picnic, and to have the ability to share that news with the whole world!It becomes very obvious when traveling by train for this amount of time that long-distance train travel is not designed for our historical moment. It’s just not jet-set and glamorous enough. Most fellow travelers seem quiet and resigned and more people than you might imagine mention that they’re traveling "just for fun." Really, if I had done this five-day trip "just for fun," I wouldn't know where to look for the fun. Often grueling and very monotonous, train travel seems better designed to get you from point A to point B – eventually – than for creating any sort of fun, party-like atmosphere. It really is just a way to get somewhere. And had I not had something to do at point B when I do arrive tomorrow (Amtrak willing), I wouldn't have known what to do with the 99.9% of the time I spent in these tiny roomettes. Wondering if there is any fresh oxygen entering this steel tube took about a hundredth of that small percentage of time left over, and the rest was spent enjoying very diverse scenery and talking to strangers. You may think I’m morally bankrupt for feeling grateful that I had work and preparations for the next show to help fill the time. Try it yourself – bring a copy of five great books you’ve always wanted to read and board a train for five days. After about day one, I think you will decide that you could read those books ten times faster at home in an armchair and you could even get some sleep at night, too.
Would I do this again? In fact, having time and the extra cash to make sure I'm in a private room would not be the only two factors assisting me in making that decision. The ultimate issue is whether or not a decaying piece of infrastructure is still optimized for human cargo at all. The necessary available window of time is also not totally out of control - it did only take a mere 100+ hours to cross a very, very large continent. Spending so much time to get from point A to point B taught me many things which I will certainly not forget. For one, I can more or less manage a work week under these travel circumstances, whereas in airports and airplanes I manage to do nothing except look glum, visit the airport bar to see if it will help my mood, and then watch all the movies once I board. Secondly, the North American continent is not infinite (I know this may sound dumb, but bear with me) and there is actually a decent overview when traveling from one coast to the other. Coastal, mountainous, flat, mountainous, coastal. A geographical palindrome. Some of the mountains are bigger than others, fine. Most importantly, to me anyway, I learned that traveling from point A to point B by rail is possible; and, although only train freaks, lost souls, and aimless retirees do it nowadays (in North America anyway), it used to be the one and only way to get somewhere far away. During that funny window in history when the rail system had been built, but there wasn't endless car traffic and cheap gas yet. Not that long ago, really. I wonder if our moment in history will turn out to be any longer or more impactful than that one was.
A new paragraph will now serve to conclusively answer the question I posed at the beginning of the last one. Yes, I would take a transcontinental train trip again if I once again found the time and patience, and next time the time factor will involve stopping and spending a night somewhere that doesn't jiggle at least once during the trip. That will extend the 100 hours to 124+ but it will be worth it. Let's put the time investment into perspective. Within the first six hours of my trip, I had already passed through Donner Pass, where the fated Donner Party was stranded an entire winter long and ended up having to eat remnants of each other in order to survive. Not only does that make my train trip seem speedy: it also makes Amtrak food suddenly seem très excellent.
Sometimes in life, problems pose as their own solution. Train travel is very, very tiring and it is that fact which I perhaps forgot before embarking on this adventure. I'm sure I will be partially refreshed when I arrive at my final destination, and I will certainly be excited about all the normal things one is able to do in normal daily life - like taking a walk or sleeping in a non-jiggly bed. But train travel is actually really exhausting. So much so that I felt quite confused and tired while I was entitled to spend about an hour today in Washington D.C.'s Union Station. I didn't really have an appetite, wasn't thirsty enough to make an impulse purchase, and was really genuinely too tired to go find an adult beverage and talk to strangers at a bar (besides, all I've been doing these last few days is
talking to strangers). In fact, the only solution to my problem of being exhausted and inundated by train travel was the obvious one: board another train and "relax." Put my feet up for awhile. Take my shoes off and stare out of the window. I'll feel better in no time!
Here follows the travelogue portion of this text, for those of you who made it this far.
Two friends in Chicago with whom it was great to be in touch finally weren't able to come downtown and meet me at the time Amtrak allotted me - from about 5:30 to 6:05PM. A 2:50PM arrival in Chicago rolled in casually just in time to take two pictures of Chicago's Union Station, hurriedly visit a men's room, and then make my way to the next train. The so-called Capitol Limited has a more casual approach to evening dining than the California Zephyr - here's your dinner in a box and you don't have to talk to strangers if you don't want to. Early to bed, early to rise was definitely the motto for Night Three. I managed a not very photogenic glimpse of Lake Michigan before throwing in the towel. This morning I was up just before dawn and enjoyed the familiar sights of the Appalachians all day. Not dramatic, definitely not epic, just beautiful. We followed a river through a valley with no road, just rails. I noticed a trend as this reminded me of tailgating the Colorado River a couple days ago.
The scheduled two-hour layover in Washington D.C.'s Union Station was reduced to around 40 minutes, and this time I resigned myself to being just fine with that. I was tired and it's not fun to walk around with all your luggage anyway. A glimpse of the U.S. Capitol reminded me that people in suits have most likely been dismantling something this week and I know nothing about it because my WIFI-less existence has rationed me news-free living since Monday.
The next stop is Raleigh, NC and the sun is going down. Virginia was quick and I think I'll be asleep before South Carolina. Just like Nebraska, I will hopefully just sleep right through it.
Train travel is really similar to camping. As soon as the sun goes down, you get tired and go to bed. Right when the sun rises, you‘re awake. Just like setting up a tent, you first have to prepare your roomette for sleeping. Move all your stuff, pull some levers, and get the bed to emerge. The conductor does help, and it’s all quite fun. And finally: in both cases, you can look at nature a lot.
Just seconds after waking up, I was standing on a platform looking at a palm tree in Jacksonville, FL. Turns out I slept through both South Carolina and Georgia. I will have to get to know magical Savannah next time, and anyway, on this trip I would have hardly even gotten to know the place had I been awake – best-case scenario, I would have been entitled to hang out on one of its train platforms for five minutes watching my fellow passengers smoke while I look silliest of all doing some side planks, mountain climbers, and assorted dorky stretches.
I don’t recommend just doing a two-night train trip because I really slept well on nights three and four!
I haven’t taken one picture today and I don’t plan to. The thrill of pictures made on my iPhone through a dirty window of passing landscapes has worn off, and they all have the same mise en scène. Something landscape-like in the lower half, sky in the top half, no humans in sight…
Thanks to functioning WIFI, I forgot that I was on an eccentric trip and feel more or less like I just spent the whole morning in an office.
Stretching legs in Tampa. It’s sunny and not even that hot! Maybe I nailed it coming to Florida in April.
Another interesting train shower. The best possible use of my time this afternoon.
I was hoping to stare down some alligators in the Everglades, or at least some sandy beaches. The Florida view-from-the-trainscape has been the most boring by far. Parking lots, houses, highways, empty-looking shopping malls.
Miami. Friday afternoon. 6:38PM. Arrived 40 minutes late. For a trip that took over 100 hours to complete, that’s pretty on time as far as I’m concerned!
E - A traveling musician experiences lots of exotic things while on tour, and in some cases may even be the exotic item on offer. I've had my fair share of both, in places far away and strangely close to home.
I once received a phone call with the question of whether I would be willing to get on an airplane that same day and go play Mozart in Amman, the capital of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. Of course, I went straight to the airport in order to find out that the orchestra manager misunderstood when the Royal Jordanian flight was supposed to depart. So I was happy to go back home and do more frantic practicing, and returned to the airport the following day. After arriving very late at night, the guest conductor and I shared a taxi from the airport to our hotel. During the ride, he commented that all of the street signs looked the same, at least at the beginning; and somehow I was able to resist the urge to provide a nasty reply based on scant knowledge. I wanted to say, "if I know anything about the Arabic language, it's that it reads from right to left. So the fact that each street sign starts the same way probably has something to do with the word street." Instead I think I just said "oh, wow, interesting!" and closed my eyes again.
The orchestra was really quite good and many people insisted on talking to me before and after the rehearsals - a true pleasure, and something that doesn't happen often enough. After the performance, I was whisked away before I could say congratulations and thank you to all of my new friends, and after being thrown into a very fancy car I was escorted to a beautiful stucco building with a view of what seemed liked an entire dessert. I wanted to know which direction we were facing so I could orient myself, but had no way of communicating this unnecessary question to anyone. Instead, countless extremely beautiful waiters with cute, small, red hats busily filled the table with plates. What looked like a huge table before we sat down was suddenly covered with various dishes. The conductor and I both seemed really desperate to find a glass of wine, but we were the only ones. The rest of our company passed around a hookah pipe and smoked while eating (two things I myself have never quite managed to combine). Any attempt to choose my own food was futile - as soon as a small corner of my plate was made empty by me, one of the handsome gentlemen in a red hat chose something from the other plates and served me. And another came around with a coffee pot with a remarkably long spout and poured coffee into a glamorously tiny cup. As soon as I drank that sip, another was poured immediately.
The whole time I was in the country I had no idea what time it was - a very luxurious experience indeed. Right before leaving Europe to head there, the time change happened (from daylight savings time to standard winter time). On top of that, none of my clocks in Jordan were set correctly, neither mine nor the ones in the hotel. Then the time change happened in Jordan too! And because I was being chauffeured around in taxis the whole time I got to be very lazy after I realized that they would always call the hotel room and tell me it was time to be somewhere (and then patiently wait for me to descend).
Another exotic occasion comes to mind where I performed and lectured at a well-known university in the American South, just a few hours' drive from where I grew up. I was thrilled to be back in my old neck of the woods, and so I dressed for the occasion. Having been on the road quite a lot in the recent past, I was wearing a well-trimmed winter jacket and a colorful scarf to deal with the cold and the other generally monochromatic aspects of life. I didn't give my outfit much thought, having grown used to it and generally not being the type of person that thinks too much about what I'm wearing and when. Before my Saturday evening performance, I spent the morning walking around campus to get to know the place: I even had hopes of making a new friend or two. It was sunny and cold outside - a happy combination and perfect for a walk. All was well until I found myself on the main drag running through campus. I then suddenly realized why I hadn't encountered any strangers until then - seemingly everyone in town was marching in line, all wearing bright red sweatshirts, and heading to the game. For a moment I thought I was in North Korea! The level of organization was superb, and I certainly stood out wearing my funny coat and scarf. As much as I enjoy sportsmanship and physical activity, I decided to walk the other way and leave the football playing to the professionals. Anyway, I had some piano playing to do.
D - Two examples of what the day-to-day life of a musician can look like (inspired by Robert Schumann's early travelogues where he doesn't really comment on what he saw or did but rather just compiles itemized lists that summarize the day's activities):
alarm - very thirsty - don't like the feeling of being in a hurry - pitch black and freezing outside - four-wheeled suitcase happy with this little downhill stretch - cobblestones! - train is late: black coffee - headache and 16 e-mails - black coffee - still seven years before I have to renew my passport - shoes off and hands up - 9 more e-mails - where's my boarding pass? - small seat, cruddy air - so hardcore that Adorno says "devotion to the text means the constant effort to grasp that which it hides" - black coffee and sandwich - think I might have slept for five minutes - terrible landing - bus to terminal makes unbearable turns - espresso - loud in the vestibule of the train - shoes off - quick shower but no time for soap - walk - windy - clarinet playing funny scales - strings out of tune - piano out of tune - small talk saves the moment - slow and unsure - hand hurts - (bad) black coffee - everything sounds loud - hot fries smell like peanut oil - cold can of beer - have to remember that joke he just told! - best mattress in the world
sunlight - already quite late! - standing in the kitchen - hot water - ground beans and filter - watching the foam as the water hits the surface - bare feet and sunlight - eyes still not completely open - the heat from the concrete below my feet - topaz apple - Bach G Major toccata - open window and fresh, thin air - arpeggios from the Schumann Introduction and Allegro - some of my own arpeggios - open window, thicker air - toothbrush - cold water! - where are my glasses?! - new score - very satisfying contrapuntal descent after the left hand moves here - horizontal for just a minute - flip-flops - can of fish - watching rice cook is strangely dramatic - hot plate in the sun - long nap - black coffee - uphill - huge cones on the chestnut trees - lung capacity - should make two phone calls - the view shrouded by thick, juicy air - tempting to hug a tree - ice cubes, cold coffee - which finger should play that note after the left hand does this - hypnotizing rhythmic energy - concrete cooling off - eight side planks - the bell! - riesling: I will never be thirsty again! - laughter - the smell of hot butter and olive oil right after eggplant is thrown in - pinot noir: I'm hypnotized! - jade hue in the sky - pingy overtones from fork hitting plate - pinot showing some serious true colors - silence - imagining the major chord of the cosmos
sunlight - already quite late! - standing in the kitchen - hot water - ground beans and filter - watching the foam as the water hits the surface - bare feet and sunlight - eyes still not completely open - the heat from the concrete below my feet - topaz apple - Bach G Major toccata - open window and fresh, thin air - arpeggios from the Schumann Introduction and Allegro - some of my own arpeggios - open window, thicker air - toothbrush - cold water! - where are my glasses?! - new score - very satisfying contrapuntal descent after the left hand moves here - horizontal for just a minute - flip-flops - can of fish - watching rice cook is strangely dramatic - hot plate in the sun - long nap - black coffee - uphill - huge cones on the chestnut trees - lung capacity - should make two phone calls - the view shrouded by thick, juicy air - tempting to hug a tree - ice cubes, cold coffee - which finger should play that note after the left hand does this - hypnotizing rhythmic energy - concrete cooling off - eight side planks - the bell! - riesling: I will never be thirsty again! - laughter - the smell of hot butter and olive oil right after eggplant is thrown in - pinot noir: I'm hypnotized! - jade hue in the sky - pingy overtones from fork hitting plate - pinot showing some serious true colors - silence - imagining the major chord of the cosmos
C - Today I considered dedicating this entry to cross-country skiing, because the weather is perfect at the moment. Sunny skies, a more than decent 30 to 35 inches of well-groomed snow, and a rental pair of skating-style cross-country skies accompanied my daily attempt for fresh oxygen and a place to meditate. And it worked! View of the Alps and all. However, this particular sport doesn't accompany me all year round and it is rather weather dependent. If I'm lucky, I manage to do a week or so of skiing each season, and take all of those fresh blood cells straight to the piano after a morning or afternoon out.
But what am I to do when all of this newfound oxygen wears thin? When I've managed to produce as much as productivity may allow on any such given day? When the sun has long set and the spirit yearns for some sort of incarnation of time and space, a reminder of what has been and what can be? Well the answer is wine of course, but that doesn't start with C. And although it is actually not my favorite grape varietal, it is a very special one and has certainly brought me a lot of joy. Burgundy's more infamous half, the grape not currently being hyped by red-wine enthusiasts - not the crème de la crème and non plus ultra of fragile cold-climate red wine but rather it's white sibling... Yes, chardonnay has many incarnations and some of my first encounters were not necessarily positive. I must confess, though, that I probably adored California water bathed in cheap oak the first time I drank it. I didn't know better, and wine is a magical substance and can hypnotize anyone. And I can still enjoy a glass of a-little-bit-too-cheap California Chardonnay if I'm in the mood and in the right time and place and someone puts one in my hand without me asking for it. However, one side effect of a traveling musician's lifestyle is that I have thankfully been put in other times and places where more interesting chardonnays were on offer. Allow me to describe some of my breakthrough experiences.
Traveling in Western Australia, I went wine tasting with a group of relatives mixed in with some unknown thugs and scoundrels and some of them were making big purchases. I happened to be the youngest standing at the bar and asking the most questions, and therefore was handed a taster glass of a relatively old (probably ten years) un-oaked chardonnay from the Margaret River region. (Wineries will remain unnamed in this entry. I maintain the right to remain silent as to whether that's because of a fragile memory or because I'm not working for their marketing team...). This un-oaked, I repeat UN-OAKED chardonnay was obviously completely different than anything else I had put my lips to before. The butter was still present, but no fake vanilla. I experienced a full-bodied, big sip of historic grape juice that left me thirstless for longer than I could have ever expected.
Since then, of course, I've come to understand oak's purpose. I recently was allowed to taste a Meursault (Burgundy) chardonnay from the year 2001. The result of grape juice and oak and a decent life span in the bottle was something that miraculously tasted like leather, figs, and candied ginger all at the same time. The color was enough to get you drunk. It was non-transparent yellow and stuck to the edge of the glass and then to my tongue. In South Africa, I've enjoyed a crispy but concentrated, rather old Chardonnay from the Hermanus region that was too strange to stop drinking. The depth of the wine had some sort of conflict with the sparkling overtones and left you wanting more. A variant from southern Germany (German wine still seems like a well-kept secret) nails the unabashed oak in a way that I've never had in California. Cooler climate but sunny southern German grapes bask in the obnoxious dress of young oak and the result tastes like melted mango ice cream mixed with pineapple juice topped with clarified butter and toasted almonds.
B - Around the time I was seventeen years old, I told a friend of mine that my dream of becoming a concert performer would culminate with a performance of Beethoven's ninth symphony. I was to conduct, and this occasion would mark the pinnacle of my fame and success. Back then, I mainly focused on performing at the piano but I was also interested in conducting. I was taking conducting lessons with the local orchestra director and had the opportunity to direct the group now and then. Nowadays, I still focus on performing at the piano and have more or less completely lost interest in conducting. Interests wax and wane with me just like they do with many people, so I I can't rule out the possibility of becoming a conductor in the future. But it feels unlikely. I have developed the habit of achieving the sounds I want to hear directly at the piano, which is convenient because I don't have to act authoritarian or play the role of the (benevolent?) dictator when telling other musicians how they should play. If I want to hear something a certain way, I'll make it sound that way myself. The politics are much simpler.
Anyway, this week I played through Beethoven's ninth symphony at the piano in the Franz Liszt solo arrangement, and the memory of proclaiming my career aspirations as a young man returned vividly. I had completely forgotten about this ultimate goal of mine, even when I performed the ninth symphony in Liszt's solo transcription years ago in public. I fulfilled my adolescent dream back then, without having even having remembered it, and in a way re-wrote my aspirations to fit my current interests. Performing Beethoven's ninth symphony with your own ten fingers is different than conducting a large group of instrumentalists and singers in some very crucial ways. The parameters that one has at his or her disposal at the piano in order to make Beethoven's score sound interesting today are quite limited: the pitches (Beethoven determines these for you in the score, so you can't really mess around with them too much), dynamics (a fancy word for volume, like loud and soft), timing, and articulation (how long or short notes are played). All piano-playing really does boil down to these four elements, and although Beethoven determines to a pretty large degree how these four parameters are to be dealt with when playing his piece, who is to say that you have to do exactly what he says? And why would you even want to play the piece the same way every time? He might write a little pause in this measure that should only last a certain amount of time, but the way the previous notes were played may have been so exhilarating, or exhausting, or breath-taking, or disappointing, that that little pause needs to be longer today. The chord that follows this chord is more interesting today because I just noticed how uniquely the underlying bass line is composed and that needs to be brought out. Next week I'll bring something else out. Bb-Major after D Major sounds so good today. So simple and yet so good. (These kinds of thoughts that occur while playing the piano inevitably affect the timing...). This line of thinking is much more readily available to a solo pianist than to a conductor, and is one of the reasons why I am hesitant to tell other musicians how they should play. Who am I to usurp that power, and why shouldn't it change from time to time?
I'm sure that my aspirations to conduct Beethoven's ninth were fueled by the myth of Beethoven the Iconic Western Classical Composer of Great Masterpieces. I see that a little bit differently today, too. Music from the past has very important things to tell us. Just as Pete Seeger has taught me about life, joy, and the many beautiful ways of singing a phrase, Beethoven has enlightened me as to how simple and complicated elements work together well. The famous melody from the ninth symphony, as basic and banal as a melody can get, receives interspersed contrapuntal passages that culminate in incredible stretti that leave the listener overwhelmed. The first movement begins with simple musical elements (two-note "chirps") that quickly congregate into an inevitable gesture of recognition. A beginning. Structure and repetition are valuable tools in Beethoven's world. A good friend of mine loves to say that the ninth symphony is populist shlock and a piece of throw-away consumerist entertainment (he also thinks that Beethoven's "deaf-composer" business model is almost too good to really be true...). This particular friend is a well-known composer, by the way, so I suppose he's entitled to his quirky opinions. I'm really tickled by them, and think that it is perhaps the simplicity in Beethoven's music that could leave the question unanswered. Is the Ode to Joy simplistic garbage? Maybe, but not in Beethoven's packaging. And is Schiller's Ode (the text that Beethoven set to music) still capable of catalyzing our society today? No doubt. It may be in need of some minor revisions, just like we now understand that the USA Declaration of Independence doesn't only apply to white land-owning men with European heritage but rather enunciates freedom for all people.
A - The intricacies of planning concert tours can be very...interesting. In this sense, all concert tours are unique. This makes them like snowflakes. Most tours fall into place somehow, usually quite nicely, and there are many people that orchestrate the details of how my schedule unfolds besides myself. In a month or two, I will be embarking on a solo tour of the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, and Northern California. Then, after all of that, there are eleven days until I accompany a silent film with my favorite pianist-colleague-conspirator Ashley Hribar. The cinema is in Miami. The solution to an eleven-day gap in an otherwise hectic concert schedule? What am I to do with this horror vacui of time? An endless expanse of hour after hour with no audience, no acclaim, no standing ovations? Not to mention needing to traverse over 3,000 miles or nearly 5,000 km if I walked the way the crow flies? The solution is more elegant than you might have originally thought. I don't have time to walk (otherwise I certainly would), and taking an airplane is too predictable. If I were doing that, I wouldn't be writing about it. The problem of time and space will be turned into a luxury vacation by the USA's national train service, Amtrak. Amtrak (as of the writing of this text) offers daily, direct service to locations that are very, very, very far away from each other. And contrary to the pioneers as well as some of American history's more suspect figures when it comes to issues of genocide and indigenous rights, I will be going the wrong way. Starting in Emeryville, CA (just across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco) on Monday morning, I will receive three meals a day and plenty of time to look out the window until Wednesday afternoon. For about four hours in Chicago, I'll run around in circles and do as many burpies and mountain climbers as I can before getting in the next train. The next afternoon I'll repeat the desperate attempt for fresh, new-to-my-lungs air in Washington D.C. before continuing onto Miami. The whole experience will span one work week and you will certainly read about it here if you look this way two or three months from now.
Most, but not all, of the music I fixate on when I practice and perform was composed around the time when a continent-wide rail network was being built in Europe. By the time I finish playing Chopin's third sonata and Schumann's Noveletten in Vancouver this March, it will be time to board another airplane. By the time Chopin finished composing his third sonata, he had the option of boarding a steam train rather than the usual horse and carriage set-up if he needed to go somewhere. Though he was a real homebody, and for good reason. That's where composing gets done. Modes of transport and the experience of changing geography certainly inspired and invigorated creative artists in the past, as it does today. Some elements of movement back then must have also been uncomfortable, and in some cases life-threatening, just like they are today! Taking the train across the continent where I was born and raised is sure to be a way to get to know the changing face of the USA anew. And I'll be in the spirit to accompany silent film in Miami after five days on the rails. Time to watch Some Like It Hot again (I'll be taking that stretch from Chicago to Miami that the 'girls' in the film take) and I'd also like to propose a small correction to the motto "live to travel." As someone who has traveled quite a bit already, I prefer to live while travelling.
January 23rd, 2019. A new alphabet is in the works. The vintage A - Z can still be found here below. Expect a letter and some associated thoughts every week or two. My goal is to cover the whole alphabet this year, in order to give you a glimpse of what my brain is currently chewing on. Many musicians have written many a good book, and because I'm in the mood to join their ranks, I will be working out thoughts here and publishing something in the very, very distant future. I thought about calling it "My Young Years," but that title has already been taken. I also considered naming it "Remembrance of Things Past," but that book is long enough already. Anyway, this won't necessarily exclusively just specifically address the past. One other disclaimer before I get started: I am aware that it is the year 2019, and other people share information in other, more updated, more graphic ways. I may yet find the impetus to become a vlogger or Instagramer still, but I'd like to at least start on a rambling body of text first. I love books and have learned to understand our incomprehensible world thanks to their assistance. I share my experience of the world mainly through music, and now I'd like to extend it to writing. The world speaks to me in other ways as well - aside from amazing acoustic phenomena that inspire me, I am also prone to smell and especially taste. Imagery and visual stimulus clearly excite me too, but it's just not my métier. Asking for your forgiveness and hoping that you, dear reader, will still find something here that interests you, I remain, gratefully yours, Bobby
But what am I to do when all of this newfound oxygen wears thin? When I've managed to produce as much as productivity may allow on any such given day? When the sun has long set and the spirit yearns for some sort of incarnation of time and space, a reminder of what has been and what can be? Well the answer is wine of course, but that doesn't start with C. And although it is actually not my favorite grape varietal, it is a very special one and has certainly brought me a lot of joy. Burgundy's more infamous half, the grape not currently being hyped by red-wine enthusiasts - not the crème de la crème and non plus ultra of fragile cold-climate red wine but rather it's white sibling... Yes, chardonnay has many incarnations and some of my first encounters were not necessarily positive. I must confess, though, that I probably adored California water bathed in cheap oak the first time I drank it. I didn't know better, and wine is a magical substance and can hypnotize anyone. And I can still enjoy a glass of a-little-bit-too-cheap California Chardonnay if I'm in the mood and in the right time and place and someone puts one in my hand without me asking for it. However, one side effect of a traveling musician's lifestyle is that I have thankfully been put in other times and places where more interesting chardonnays were on offer. Allow me to describe some of my breakthrough experiences.
Traveling in Western Australia, I went wine tasting with a group of relatives mixed in with some unknown thugs and scoundrels and some of them were making big purchases. I happened to be the youngest standing at the bar and asking the most questions, and therefore was handed a taster glass of a relatively old (probably ten years) un-oaked chardonnay from the Margaret River region. (Wineries will remain unnamed in this entry. I maintain the right to remain silent as to whether that's because of a fragile memory or because I'm not working for their marketing team...). This un-oaked, I repeat UN-OAKED chardonnay was obviously completely different than anything else I had put my lips to before. The butter was still present, but no fake vanilla. I experienced a full-bodied, big sip of historic grape juice that left me thirstless for longer than I could have ever expected.
Since then, of course, I've come to understand oak's purpose. I recently was allowed to taste a Meursault (Burgundy) chardonnay from the year 2001. The result of grape juice and oak and a decent life span in the bottle was something that miraculously tasted like leather, figs, and candied ginger all at the same time. The color was enough to get you drunk. It was non-transparent yellow and stuck to the edge of the glass and then to my tongue. In South Africa, I've enjoyed a crispy but concentrated, rather old Chardonnay from the Hermanus region that was too strange to stop drinking. The depth of the wine had some sort of conflict with the sparkling overtones and left you wanting more. A variant from southern Germany (German wine still seems like a well-kept secret) nails the unabashed oak in a way that I've never had in California. Cooler climate but sunny southern German grapes bask in the obnoxious dress of young oak and the result tastes like melted mango ice cream mixed with pineapple juice topped with clarified butter and toasted almonds.
B - Around the time I was seventeen years old, I told a friend of mine that my dream of becoming a concert performer would culminate with a performance of Beethoven's ninth symphony. I was to conduct, and this occasion would mark the pinnacle of my fame and success. Back then, I mainly focused on performing at the piano but I was also interested in conducting. I was taking conducting lessons with the local orchestra director and had the opportunity to direct the group now and then. Nowadays, I still focus on performing at the piano and have more or less completely lost interest in conducting. Interests wax and wane with me just like they do with many people, so I I can't rule out the possibility of becoming a conductor in the future. But it feels unlikely. I have developed the habit of achieving the sounds I want to hear directly at the piano, which is convenient because I don't have to act authoritarian or play the role of the (benevolent?) dictator when telling other musicians how they should play. If I want to hear something a certain way, I'll make it sound that way myself. The politics are much simpler.
Anyway, this week I played through Beethoven's ninth symphony at the piano in the Franz Liszt solo arrangement, and the memory of proclaiming my career aspirations as a young man returned vividly. I had completely forgotten about this ultimate goal of mine, even when I performed the ninth symphony in Liszt's solo transcription years ago in public. I fulfilled my adolescent dream back then, without having even having remembered it, and in a way re-wrote my aspirations to fit my current interests. Performing Beethoven's ninth symphony with your own ten fingers is different than conducting a large group of instrumentalists and singers in some very crucial ways. The parameters that one has at his or her disposal at the piano in order to make Beethoven's score sound interesting today are quite limited: the pitches (Beethoven determines these for you in the score, so you can't really mess around with them too much), dynamics (a fancy word for volume, like loud and soft), timing, and articulation (how long or short notes are played). All piano-playing really does boil down to these four elements, and although Beethoven determines to a pretty large degree how these four parameters are to be dealt with when playing his piece, who is to say that you have to do exactly what he says? And why would you even want to play the piece the same way every time? He might write a little pause in this measure that should only last a certain amount of time, but the way the previous notes were played may have been so exhilarating, or exhausting, or breath-taking, or disappointing, that that little pause needs to be longer today. The chord that follows this chord is more interesting today because I just noticed how uniquely the underlying bass line is composed and that needs to be brought out. Next week I'll bring something else out. Bb-Major after D Major sounds so good today. So simple and yet so good. (These kinds of thoughts that occur while playing the piano inevitably affect the timing...). This line of thinking is much more readily available to a solo pianist than to a conductor, and is one of the reasons why I am hesitant to tell other musicians how they should play. Who am I to usurp that power, and why shouldn't it change from time to time?
I'm sure that my aspirations to conduct Beethoven's ninth were fueled by the myth of Beethoven the Iconic Western Classical Composer of Great Masterpieces. I see that a little bit differently today, too. Music from the past has very important things to tell us. Just as Pete Seeger has taught me about life, joy, and the many beautiful ways of singing a phrase, Beethoven has enlightened me as to how simple and complicated elements work together well. The famous melody from the ninth symphony, as basic and banal as a melody can get, receives interspersed contrapuntal passages that culminate in incredible stretti that leave the listener overwhelmed. The first movement begins with simple musical elements (two-note "chirps") that quickly congregate into an inevitable gesture of recognition. A beginning. Structure and repetition are valuable tools in Beethoven's world. A good friend of mine loves to say that the ninth symphony is populist shlock and a piece of throw-away consumerist entertainment (he also thinks that Beethoven's "deaf-composer" business model is almost too good to really be true...). This particular friend is a well-known composer, by the way, so I suppose he's entitled to his quirky opinions. I'm really tickled by them, and think that it is perhaps the simplicity in Beethoven's music that could leave the question unanswered. Is the Ode to Joy simplistic garbage? Maybe, but not in Beethoven's packaging. And is Schiller's Ode (the text that Beethoven set to music) still capable of catalyzing our society today? No doubt. It may be in need of some minor revisions, just like we now understand that the USA Declaration of Independence doesn't only apply to white land-owning men with European heritage but rather enunciates freedom for all people.
A - The intricacies of planning concert tours can be very...interesting. In this sense, all concert tours are unique. This makes them like snowflakes. Most tours fall into place somehow, usually quite nicely, and there are many people that orchestrate the details of how my schedule unfolds besides myself. In a month or two, I will be embarking on a solo tour of the Pacific Northwest, British Columbia, and Northern California. Then, after all of that, there are eleven days until I accompany a silent film with my favorite pianist-colleague-conspirator Ashley Hribar. The cinema is in Miami. The solution to an eleven-day gap in an otherwise hectic concert schedule? What am I to do with this horror vacui of time? An endless expanse of hour after hour with no audience, no acclaim, no standing ovations? Not to mention needing to traverse over 3,000 miles or nearly 5,000 km if I walked the way the crow flies? The solution is more elegant than you might have originally thought. I don't have time to walk (otherwise I certainly would), and taking an airplane is too predictable. If I were doing that, I wouldn't be writing about it. The problem of time and space will be turned into a luxury vacation by the USA's national train service, Amtrak. Amtrak (as of the writing of this text) offers daily, direct service to locations that are very, very, very far away from each other. And contrary to the pioneers as well as some of American history's more suspect figures when it comes to issues of genocide and indigenous rights, I will be going the wrong way. Starting in Emeryville, CA (just across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco) on Monday morning, I will receive three meals a day and plenty of time to look out the window until Wednesday afternoon. For about four hours in Chicago, I'll run around in circles and do as many burpies and mountain climbers as I can before getting in the next train. The next afternoon I'll repeat the desperate attempt for fresh, new-to-my-lungs air in Washington D.C. before continuing onto Miami. The whole experience will span one work week and you will certainly read about it here if you look this way two or three months from now.
Most, but not all, of the music I fixate on when I practice and perform was composed around the time when a continent-wide rail network was being built in Europe. By the time I finish playing Chopin's third sonata and Schumann's Noveletten in Vancouver this March, it will be time to board another airplane. By the time Chopin finished composing his third sonata, he had the option of boarding a steam train rather than the usual horse and carriage set-up if he needed to go somewhere. Though he was a real homebody, and for good reason. That's where composing gets done. Modes of transport and the experience of changing geography certainly inspired and invigorated creative artists in the past, as it does today. Some elements of movement back then must have also been uncomfortable, and in some cases life-threatening, just like they are today! Taking the train across the continent where I was born and raised is sure to be a way to get to know the changing face of the USA anew. And I'll be in the spirit to accompany silent film in Miami after five days on the rails. Time to watch Some Like It Hot again (I'll be taking that stretch from Chicago to Miami that the 'girls' in the film take) and I'd also like to propose a small correction to the motto "live to travel." As someone who has traveled quite a bit already, I prefer to live while travelling.
January 23rd, 2019. A new alphabet is in the works. The vintage A - Z can still be found here below. Expect a letter and some associated thoughts every week or two. My goal is to cover the whole alphabet this year, in order to give you a glimpse of what my brain is currently chewing on. Many musicians have written many a good book, and because I'm in the mood to join their ranks, I will be working out thoughts here and publishing something in the very, very distant future. I thought about calling it "My Young Years," but that title has already been taken. I also considered naming it "Remembrance of Things Past," but that book is long enough already. Anyway, this won't necessarily exclusively just specifically address the past. One other disclaimer before I get started: I am aware that it is the year 2019, and other people share information in other, more updated, more graphic ways. I may yet find the impetus to become a vlogger or Instagramer still, but I'd like to at least start on a rambling body of text first. I love books and have learned to understand our incomprehensible world thanks to their assistance. I share my experience of the world mainly through music, and now I'd like to extend it to writing. The world speaks to me in other ways as well - aside from amazing acoustic phenomena that inspire me, I am also prone to smell and especially taste. Imagery and visual stimulus clearly excite me too, but it's just not my métier. Asking for your forgiveness and hoping that you, dear reader, will still find something here that interests you, I remain, gratefully yours, Bobby
A - Haydn pianoforte sonatas, Adagio in F, and Andante con variazioni was released on the Alpha Music Label in June 2014. I am wholly charmed by Philip Renaigle's cover art for the album, a contemporary of Haydn's in London in the 1790s.
B - This is one of my favorite moments from this particular performance of late Beethoven on a beautiful 1897 Bechstein piano:
C - This video of John Cage's fifth Sonata for prepared piano went viral at some point:
D - Ashley Hribar and I performing Matan Porat's 'Metropolis' as guests of the Dranoff International 2 Piano Foundation in Miami, USA:
E - Ecstacy is the only word capable of describing how it was to perform with my old friends Eugene Feygelson and Michael Dylan Ferrara at the i=u Festival in London in September 2013. Look for more happenings from this exciting organization.
F - Discussing music and life with Frederic Rzewski is always enlightening. Here are the two of us at the November Music Festival in Den Bosch, the Netherlands:
G - A compelling piece that Liszt wrote upon Richard Wagner's death in Venice: Am Grabe Richard Wagners (at Wagner's grave):
H - A chapter from Hans Otte's Büch der Klänge (Book of Sounds). The audio here was recorded in a cathedral in northern Italy, and the video filmed in suburban Holland:
I - If you are feeling introspective, you'll connect with the music of Robert Schumann - at least some of it anyway. Listen to this passage he describes as innig (introspectively) from the Humoreske, Op. 23 (composed in 1838). The piano here is a remarkable Rosenberger from Vienna, built in 1835:
J - Ok, enough about me. Isn't it fascinating that we have direct access to recordings made well over one hundred years ago? What an extreme and unique luxury. Listen to these three minutes of violinist Joseph Joachim to enjoy a true glimpse into a past era. Joachim was well acquainted with both Brahms and Schumann.
K - This year's busy schedule includes recording some ensemble music of György Kurtág with the Asko|Schönberg Ensemble with Reinbert de Leeuw conducting.
L - I spent years playing Franz Liszt's piano music before I decided to perform his b-minor Sonata (1849) in public. It's his largest scale piano work, therefore to be included in the category of most significant piano music by one of history's most significant pianists. Here is a performance of mine on an Erard 1849 piano, recorded live in Utrecht, the Netherlands (including an improvised prelude to introduce the work):
M - A deep sense of pride surged within me last Fall for being one of the many in the Mitchell diaspora - After a concert in Durban, South Africa I spent a weekend in Cape Town where I discovered the Mitchell's Brewery at the V&A Waterfont, the oldest house brewery in Africa.
N - Here's an excerpt of a performance of mine of Beethoven's Ninth arranged by Liszt for solo piano:
O - Oscar Wilde's text fills the stage in this segment of Frederic Rzewski's De Profundis for speaking pianist, a work based on text Oscar Wilde wrote while in prison:
P - This piece has become Frederic Rzewski's most famous work: The epic 36 variations on the Chilean protest song ¡El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido! - "The People Will Never Be Defeated!":
Q - pianist meets quokka, on Rottnest Island in Western Australia:
R - Rzewski Piano Piece No. IV:
S - T- U - Sometimes traveling on four continents as a freelance musician leaves one feeling utterly ubiquitous. One of the best treatments for this strange ailment is to get out in the wilderness.
Facing the Drakensberg Mountains at Tugela Falls in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa
This was taken on a rocky beach near Margaret River, Western Australia.
The best beach I found on the southern coast of Crete, Greece - Gialiskari Beach, near Paleochora on the hiking trail towards Sougia
Looking (down!) at the Rockies, standing at Electric Pass near Aspen, Colorado, USA
V - A picture of one of my favorite beverages being grown near Stellenbosch, South Africa - vino!
W - X- Y - One of the most exciting long-term projects I'm involved with involves videography by Carlin Wing, new piano études by Martin Scherzinger - sometimes somewhat xylophonic as well as pianistic in nature due to Martin's expertise in sub-Saharan African musical traditions - and the excellent recording and sound work of Ryan Streber in Yonkers, New York. Check out this demo video we've produced from the second étude in Martin's Catalogue - The Horse is Not Mine, a Hobby Horse:
Z - This is a sort of silly video I put together of Niel van Zyl and I bungee jumping to the Shostakovich piano trio that we played together ages ago:
