music

Spohr’s Quintet, Opus 52

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Louis Spohr is among my favorite obscure composers, and I wish I could make his music better known. One way to do this might be to write analyses of some of his works. It’s possible that someday a musical organization will look for information on a Spohr piece and come across my posts. In case it happens, I’ll make this article available under a Creative Commons BY-NC license. That says you can use it however you want — for instance, in program notes — provided you give me credit by name and aren’t making money off it. (If you are making money, that’s fine, but I expect a cut. Talk to me. Handouts in a concert run by a non-profit organization are non-commercial for this purpose, even if admission is charged.)

I’m no musicologist, just a music lover. Take this article accordingly.
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Silent movie update

This entry was posted in Movies and tagged Internet music silent movies on by

Presenting and accompanying a silent movie a month on Twitch hasn’t worked out as well as I’d hoped, so I’m making a couple of changes. I’ve also added a silent movie schedule to this website. Feel free to bookmark it or link to it.

First, I’m moving to YouTube. While I’m not thrilled with attaching myself too much to Google, it looks like a better choice than Twitch. There’s little live music anymore on Twitch; it’s mostly gaming, DJs, and talk. It pushes content creators toward a weekly schedule, which isn’t practical for the stuff I do. YouTube is a more popular choice for live concerts, not to mention Ben Model’s silent film watch parties. In experimenting on YouTube, I’ve found some other advantages. Twitch doesn’t support private test runs; I’ve already done one on YouTube to work out the details of streaming with OBS Studio. YouTube lets you post links to events in advance, which I find very nice. Finally, YouTube livestreams stay up indefinitely if I want them to.
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Elbphilharmonie concert, May 5, 2024

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Another “off-topic” post, this one about a wonderful concert I attended while I was in Germany. It was at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg on May 5. That’s a significant date, just two days short of the 200th anniversary of the first performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

The two pieces were Schoenberg’s A Survivor from Warsaw and the Ninth. Alan Gilbert conducted the NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchestra and the Runfunkchor Berlin. Soloists were Susanna Phillips (soprano), Gerhild Romberger (alto), Maximilian Schmitt (tenor), and Michael Nagy (baritone).
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The numbering of musical works

This entry was posted in Music Writing and tagged music writing on by

The other day while driving, I heard a familiar-sounding piano sonata on WCRB. It was one I’d heard before, in fact one I was familiar with. I could accurately anticipate the music, which was obviously Mozart’s, in some spots. But I couldn’t place the damn thing! When I reached my destination, I stayed in the parking lot and kept the radio on to the end. The announcer said only that it was Mozart’s “Piano Sonata No. 2.” This wasn’t very helpful, since there are different numberings in different editions.

The numbering of musical works is tricky in general. For many composers, there are generally accepted numbers, but Mozart’s sonatas aren’t the only case where there’s confusion. Schubert’s symphonies are usually numbered 1 to 9, even though No. 7 is just a sketch. The “Unfinished” is No.8 and the “Great C major” the 9th in this scheme. Some lists, though, have just eight symphonies. They make the “Unfinished” the seventh and the C major symphony the eighth, or vice versa.
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Peer Gynt at Symphony Hall

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What’s a concert review doing in this blog on writing? Well, it’s increasingly become a blog on whatever I think people will enjoy reading about, so why not? I’ve blogged about accompanying silent movies, and incidental music for a play isn’t that far removed.

Symphony Hall in Boston has been the site of a lot of great experiences for me. Some are faded in my memory. It’s likely that there’s one which, if you could remind me of it, would make me say, “Of course! Nothing could top that!” Right now, though, I can’t name one that was more breathtaking than last night’s presentation of Peer Gynt.
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The Lost World and Gertie the Dinosaur

This entry was posted in Movies and tagged Internet music silent movies on by

My next silent movie night will be on Wednesday, March 13, at 8:00 PM Eastern US time. Once again, I’ll provide live, improvised keyboard accompaniment. Live accompaniment is what makes silent movies special to me. You can react in real time in chat and even (gently!) criticize my playing.

The main feature will be the 1925 The Lost World. It’s based on the Conan Doyle novel of the same title, and he makes a brief appearance at the start, effectively putting his stamp of approval on the movie. The main character, Professor Challenger, is as smart as Sherlock Holmes but his opposite in temperament. Holmes is always calm and analytical, but Challenger has an explosive temper, especially when anyone doubts his claims. His present claim is hard to believe; he says he’s discovered a land in the upper Amazon basin with living dinosaurs. He organizes an expedition to go back there with two aims: to bring back proof and to find the missing member of the earlier party.
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“Too many notes, Mozart”

This entry was posted in Commentary History and tagged history Mozart music on by

Upon hearing Mozart’s Singspiel The Abduction from the Seraglio, Emperor Joseph II is alleged to have said, “Too many notes.” The claim increased in popularity when Peter Schaffer put those words in his mouth in the travesty Amadeus. Quotations are tricky things, though. If I gratuitously claim someone said something, how do you know they didn’t? It’s the old issue of proving a negative.

The quotation, or something like it, has a source that long predates Schaffer. It’s the 1798 biography of Mozart by Franz Xaver Niemetschek. The full title is Leben des K.K. Kapellmeisters Wolfgang Gottlieb Mozart nach Originalquellen beschrieben (life of the music director Wolfgang Gottlieb Mozart, written based on original sources). The attribution given there is:
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Frankenstein (1910) with fresh accompaniment

This entry was posted in Movies Personal and tagged music science fiction silent movies on by

This week I added an ART USBMIX mixer to the audio gear I use to accompany silent movies on Twitch. The 1910 Frankenstein from Edison Studios was one of the movies I showed in January; I redid it with the mixer, hoping to improve the sound quality by eliminating the microphone and the keyboard and room noise along with it. I’m happy with the result and plan to use this setup in my February 14 movie. The proof of concept is now up on YouTube.
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Accompanying Son of the Sheik

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The next silent movie which I’ll accompany on Twitch will be the 1926 Son of the Sheik on February 14, “Valentino’s Day,” at 8 PM Eastern US time. Following an old tradition, I’ll precede it with a short, Young Mr. Jazz, starring Harold Lloyd. If all goes well, I’ll have some new equipment to improve the sound.

Son of the Sheik was Rudolf Valentino’s last movie. He died shortly after its first, limited public showings. It was based on a novel that had no connection to his earlier movie, The Sheik, but was retrofitted to be a sequel. Valentino plays two title roles. He’s the Sheik as well as his son Ahmed. They sometimes appear in the same shot thanks to double photography.

Spoilers ahead.

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Accompanying Phantom of the Opera

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Today I accompanied the 1925 Phantom of the Opera at the Plaistow Public Library. It got a good audience for a small-town library, and I got a lot of compliments. I really want to write down some of the musical tricks I used to improvise the music. It may lose everyone reading this; if you’re confused, just skip it and go on to the next post. I’m going to dive into technical musical language, because it’s the only way to explain some of the points.

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