Last week, in the process of recommending recordings of Claude Debussy’s Préludes for Piano, I brought up the pianist Roger Woodward, whose recording of the Préludes I adore. The response I received from many of you was not unexpected but still shivered my timbers: “Roger WHO?” Yes: when I introduced Roger Woodward last week, I did so by calling him: “the greatest pianist in the world that you have probably (and sadly) never heard of.” THIS MUST END, at least among those who are discriminating enough to follow me. So here’s my game plan. I’m going to spend the remainder of this post ruminating on the depth of the pianistic talent pool, the fickleness of fame, and yes, something having to do with brassieres. I will return next week to address two recording YOU CANNOT LIVE WITHOUT: Roger Woodward’s recording of Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier, Books 1 and 2 and Dmitri Shostakovich’s Preludes and Fugues. Let us begin by recognizing an almost terrifying truism: when it comes to wonderful pianists, the talent pool is deeper than the Marianas Trench. In last week’s post, I mentioned that – if I have to choose – my all-around favorite pianist is the Milan-born […]
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Robert Greenberg
Historian, Composer, Pianist, Speaker, Author
Author Archive for Robert Greenberg – Page 62
Today we recognize the birth and the death of two musical masters from entirely different times and places who nevertheless, by the most extraordinary of coincidences, share the same nickname: the jazz tenor saxophonist Lester “Prez” Young and the Franco-Flemish composer Josquin “des Prez” Lebloitte. Lester “Prez” Young Lester Willis Young was born on August 27, 1909 – 109 years ago today – in Woodland, Mississippi. He was the consummate jazz hipster, who played “cool” long before “cool jazz” was recognized as a genre of jazz. Known in particular for his long association with Billie Holiday, Lester Young died on March 15, 1959, at the age of 49. Josquin des Prez Josquin des Prez (or “Desprez”; we will talk about the surname Lebloitte in a moment) was born circa 1450 and died on August 27, 1521: 497 years ago today. He was, simply, the greatest and most respected composer of his time. That he is not still a musical household name speaks to the fickleness of history and not to his music, which is superb. Josquin was the first composer to become a legend after his death, the first to have his music widely disseminated thanks to the newly invented […]
Continue ReadingLast week, Patreon Patron Renato inquired: “So, what is Dr. Bob’s prescription for Schubert’s Sonata in B-flat Major D960 (I listen to Richter’s in Praga 1972) and for Debussy’s Prelude Book I (Michelangeli DG is my choice)? Thanks a lot. Cheers.” As we observed last week, both of these works are featured in my Great Courses survey “The 23 Greatest Solo Piano Works.” I dedicated last week’s “Dr. Bob Prescribes” to the Schubert Sonata; let’s now tackle the Debussy Préludes. An even cursory glance at the recordings currently available reveals a lot of highly regarded performances. Thus, a disclaimer: I am not a “collector” of performances (of cocktail shakers, yes, but that’s a conversation for another time). As a non-collector, I tend to stop buying recordings of a given work once I’ve found a satisfactory performance (or two, as in the case of Debussy’s Préludes). So in the end, I can only recommend to you those recordings I’ve been happy with over the years. See the prescription on Patreon
Continue ReadingThere are “firsts” and then there are firsts. The first person to eat sliced bread? No big deal. But the first person to eat an artichoke (which is, let’s be honest, a giant freaking thorn)? That took guts; that’s a first. The first person to moonwalk? (That would be the bandleader Cab Calloway, who invented the move in the mid 1930s and called it “the Buzz.”) Admirable, but really not a particularly big deal. The first person to walk on the moon (Neil Armstrong; July 20, 1969)? One of the most epic firsts in the history of humankind. Let’s discuss another of the most epic firsts in all of human history: the first person to compose a complete opera. That event occurred in the city of Florence in 1600, and that person was the singer, actor, organist and composer Jacopo Peri, who was born in Rome on August 20, 1561, 457 years ago today. Happy birthday, Maestro! Admittedly, there were numerous other composers of theatrical music active in Florence at the time, and the names Giulio Caccini and Emilio de’ Cavalieri have also been bandied about as possible “originators” of opera. But Peri must receive the credit because of his […]
Continue ReadingI have managed to dig up and digitize a television advertisement for the first edition of my Teaching Company/The Great Courses survey “How to Listen to and Understand Great Music” from 1993. It’s a bit painful for me to watch: I weighed 30 pounds less than I do now; I had all my hair (including a very large moustache); and I wore contacts. I looked good, but most painful of all, I looked young. When I recorded that first course in May of 1993, The Teaching Company had four full-time employees, including its founder, Tom Rollins. At the time, the company had just moved to its first “dedicated studio” in Springfield, Virginia, just south of Washington D.C.’s outer loop. Yes, it was a “dedicated studio”, but the company was still in its infancy, and the production values were crude (to put it mildly). I worked in front of a blue screen and a blackboard, read from a sheaf of notes in my hand, and used a small upright piano located on stage. The method by which we mastered the musical examples was particularly primitive. For that first course, our licensing agent sent me music on cassettes. I then dubbed the […]
Continue ReadingEarlier this week, my patron Renato inquired: “So, what is Dr. Bob’s prescription for Schubert’s Sonata in B-flat Major D960 (I listen to Richter’s in Praga 1972) and for Debussy’s Prelude Book I (Michelangeli DG is my choice)? Thanks a lot. Cheers.” These works were featured in my absurdly entitled but well-intentioned Great Courses survey “The 23 Greatest Solo Piano Works.” That they are featured indicates that I love them dearly; generally speaking, I only talk about music I love. (There is the occasional exception because sometimes a piece of music is so very bad that it just has to be discussed, like Beethoven’s Wellington’s Victory, although once heard, such a piece of music cannot be unheard.) I’m going to address Renato’s question in two separate posts: here the Schubert B-flat and next week the Debussy Préludes. The Schubert Sonata No. 21 in B-flat Major is a warm, expansive and lyric piece, composed in September of 1828, just two months before Schubert’s death on November 19. It is filled with long, song-like themes, a particular trademark of Schubert’s instrumental music. The temptation – particularly in its lengthy first movement – to succumb to the “leisurely” can be overwhelming, and succumb […]
Continue ReadingA little inside information about me. Since I was a kid, I have loved architecture and home design magazines: house porn, to be honest. The one constant in my reading has been Architectural Digest, to which I’ve been addicted since I was a teenager. Other mags have floated in and out of my consciousness over the years, including one called “Metropolitan Home”, to which I subscribed for many years (but no more; there’ just so much time for mags, I’m afraid). “Is this going somewhere” you ask? Yes: bear with me… “Metropolitan Home” had a regular feature (perhaps it still does) in which a designer would be asked to identify “the 10 things you cannot live without;” basically “your favorite things”. These good people would vie with each other to come up with the coolest, hippest, most sophisticated things-they-could-not-live-without: the caviar and lobster frittata at the Revo Café in Dubai; “my platinum Faberge cuticle scissors”; vicuna cashmere scarves: “my Swarovski crystal-studded Lixil Satis Smart Toilet” (this can be yours as well for just 130k);“my solar-powered Black & Decker Nose Hair Trimmer”, and so forth. (As best as I can recall, not one of those questioned ever came up with any of […]
Continue ReadingIt has been a week since my roll out at Patreon, and I have been awed and no small bit humbled by the response. I thank each and every one of you who have signed on. As per my listed Patreon benefits I would take this opportunity to list my “Principal” patrons and “Deities”: Principals: Gary Cohn Dr. Judith Davis Leigh O. Harper Ernie McWilliams James Rea William Mark Thompson Deities: Gregg Garbin Bennett Markel Mickey Urdea Lis Young A heads up on what will be appearing on my Patreon page over the course of the next week: I have managed to dig up and digitize a television advertisement for my Teaching Company/The Great Courses survey “How to Listen to and Understand Great Music” from 1993. It’s a bit painful for me to watch: I weighed 30 pounds less than I do now; I had all my hair (including a very large moustache); and I wore contacts. I looked good, but most painful of all, I looked young. The production values back then in the early days of The Teaching Company were, well, let’s say minimal: I’m working from notes without a set, with only a blackboard and an upright […]
Continue ReadingWelcome to my new series, “Dr. Bob Prescribes”, in which I will “prescribe” recordings, books, events, videos, websites, etc. on a weekly basis, with the intention of improving our musical health and thus raising our spirits and making happier our souls. In conversation with my Patreon patrons Jane Varkonyi and Frank Schmidt, I recommended Brahms’ Piano Quintet in F Minor as one of those works that, should we find ourselves stranded on that proverbial desert island, we would have to have for company. I would take the conversation a step further and recommend my numero uno favorite recording of not just the Brahms but Robert Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E-flat, which qualifies as another of my desert island works. (FYI, my desert island will require a large library, an air-conditioned listening room, a great hi-fi rig, and a well-stocked fridge and bar, because I have a lot of desert island works!) My absolutely favorite recording of both the Schumann and Brahms Piano Quintets is: 🤐🤐🤐🤐. Dang, but I hate being a tease! But for the remainder of this post – which names and describes my favorite recording and offers up as well both pertinent and anecdotal information about these extraordinary […]
Continue ReadingOn this day 58 years ago – August 6, 1960 – the 18 year-old singer and dancer Chubby Checker performed The Twist on American TV for the first time on the rock ‘n’ roll variety show American Bandstand. For reasons we will discuss, American Bandstand was, both artistically and socially, one of the most important programs ever broadcast on television. It aired for an incredible 37 seasons, from October 7, 1952 (when Harry Truman was President of the United States) until October 7, 1989 (three years before the election of Bill Clinton). (In case you were wondering, the longest-running television show of any kind, anywhere, is NBC’s Meet the Press, which made its debut on November 6, 1947; it has run continuously for 70 years and 9 months!) In its 37-year run, some 3000 episodes of American Bandstand were produced. From 1952 until 1964, the showwasfilmed in Philadelphia at the studios of WFIL, the local ABC affiliate. (That would have been channel 6; having grown up in South Jersey watching Philadelphia TV, it was one of the three network channels we received, along with WCAU – channel 10, which was then the CBS affiliate – and KYW, channel 3, which was […]
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