The Fine Line Between Depression and Genius Where have we heard this before? A beloved, supremely gifted performing artist appears to be at the top of his game and on top of the world. However, unbeknownst to all but a few friends and relatives, he harbors a great darkness within him, a despair that motivates and inspires his art. He is then diagnosed with a progressive and incurable disease, one that will eventually destroy his ability to perform. In his anguish, his mind turns to the most extreme option: suicide. It sounds awfully familiar in light of Robin Williams’ recent passing. But I am referring here to another performing artist, Ludwig (“my friends call me Louis”) van Beethoven. The parallels between Louis van Beethoven and Robin McLaurin Williams are striking, even extraordinary, although in the end the manner in which they dealt with their respective catastrophes were entirely different. Beethoven grew up hard and fast in the backwater German city of Bonn. His astonishing musical talent landed him in Vienna – the capital city of Euro-music – a few days shy of his 22nd birthday.He built his initial fame and fortune on his spectacular improvisations at the piano. Williams grew […]
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Robert Greenberg
Historian, Composer, Pianist, Speaker, Author
OraTV – Page 2
Conspiracy Theories Pssst! Did you know that Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld knowingly allowed Mossad to blow up the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001? Did you know that the fluoridation of our water is a communist conspiracy meant to contaminate our precious bodily fluids? Are you aware that global warming is fake, the moon landing was staged, vaccinations cause autism, Paul McCartney is dead (that’s why he’s barefoot on the Abbey Road cover) and has been portrayed by a double since 1966? Are we all cognizant of the fact that — along with Queen Elizabeth II and most other world leaders — Obama is a shape-shifting space lizard, a blood-sucking repto-humanoid alien from the Alpha Dragonis star system?(Check out the oeuvre of journalist David Ickes, who has made a career writing and lecturing on just that topic.) Oh those whacky conspiracy theories and the Internet that proliferates them. And yet, so desperate are some people to perceive logical narrative in the chaos of everyday events, so desperate are some people to see government as representative of evil, so desperate are some people to have something or someone to blame for their own misfortunes that they […]
Continue ReadingRobert Greenberg discusses his new OraTV show “Scandalous Overtures” on Larry King‘s “King’s Things” and William Shatner‘s “Brown Bag Wine Tasting.” Watch both of the interviews with these highly engaging hosts below: King’s Things: Brown Bag Wine Tasting: Scandalous Overtures
Continue ReadingWhy would anyone want to hack the head off of Joseph Haydn’s corpse, scoop out its eyes and brain, boil off its hair and skin, bleach the skull, and then mount it on a black velvet pillow? This strikes us as gross and more than a little weird, like preserving and mounting Kim Kardashian’s buttocks for permanent display at the Mutter Museum of human abnormalities in Philly. But happen it did; at least, the part about Haydn. Some context is called for. Souvenirs, keepsakes, and mementoes: we’ve all got them. Most of them sit quietly in drawers or closet shelves gathering dust, like the memories they presumably represent. The important ones, though, go on permanent display somewhere in our homes, there to become constant reminders of a person or an experience: a memory in concrete form. Among the many such objects in my home (I’m not a hoarder, but I am, admittedly, an accumulator who attaches great sentimental meaning to objects inanimate) is a hubcap from my first car, a 1957 Ford. When we scrapped “The Bomb” (as we called it) in 1972, it was nothing but a rust bucket held together with dental floss and chewing gum, a rolling […]
Continue ReadingPeter Ilyich Tchaikovsky and William Bruce Jenner: really, can we imagine a more unlikely pair? Tchaikovsky was a nineteenth century Russian composer of exquisitely lyric music; a shy and sensitive man, fastidious in his habits and Victorian in his manners and bearing. Bruce Jenner is a dyslexic jock from Westchester County in New York. When his football career was cut short by a knee injury he went on to track and field and won a gold medal at the 1976 summer Olympics in Montreal. He has been squarely in the public eye since, as an athlete, actor, racecar driver, businessman and, since 2007, a reality TV star. Their differences aside, both Tchaikovsky and Jenner led secret lives of remarkable similarity. That Tchaikovsky’s secret killed him while Jenner’s has inspired fascination and no small degree of public support has much to tell us about the environments in which they lived. Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky was a deeply neurotic man. His neurosis sprang from a personality so over-sensitive that his governess called him a “porcelain child”; from his inferiority complex as a composer; and from his sexuality. Tchaikovsky was a died-in-the-wool homosexual living and working in one of the most homophobic cultures of […]
Continue ReadingSizzle for schizzle! So would have spoken the late, great Tupac Shakur, had he the opportunity to share among his friends (and enemas) the following promotional video, created by OraTV to publicize my new show, a promotional video called in the trade a “sizzle”. Regarding the show. I had originally entitled the show “Conspiracies, Peccadilloes, and Dirty Little Secrets: Fun and Games with the Great Composers”. As titles go, well, where do I begin? I’m really good (or so I believe I am) at entitling musical compositions; from such myriad titles as “Child’s Play” and “By Various Means” to “Among Friends” and “Invasive Species”, I (arrogantly) believe I have a knack for finding a title that reflects the expressive content of a given piece. But. When it comes to entitling lectures and other such exercises in verbal over-rectitude, I tend to be . . . well . . . bloviated. Wanting – always – to say more than less, I end up indulging in the “colon game”. This has nothing to do with the GI tract but, rather, is an attempt to say more-than-less by inserting a colon between two separate phrases which (presumably) allows me to double-up on my […]
Continue ReadingA most interesting interview with Jon Housman, the CEO of OraTV who brought me into the Ora family after reading a blog about Mozart on this very Facebook page. Check it out below:
Continue ReadingI swear, I promise, I guarantee (as best as I can guarantee anything): after today, there will be no more gratuitous references to my trip to SoCal yesterday, where I appeared on talk shows already named. Having said all of that, I would offer up one more photo that my wife found on her iPhone today. While I was doing my interview with Larry King, she (my wife Nanci) was cooling her well-clad heels in the so-called “Green Room”, the waiting room one finds in every concert hall, opera house and TV studio across our planet. Among those in the Green Room was Larry King’s next guest, an actor/comedian named Simon Helberg who is best know for playing a character named Howard Wolowitz on the sitcom “The Big Bang Theory”. He and I chatted for a while before I went on; it turns out that he’s a serious jazz pianist and thus we had something of substance to talk about. Anyway, my wife took a bunch of pictures of the monitor in the Green Room, most of which feature young Mr. Helberg who, according to my wife, seriously enjoyed my interview. Since I have learned (the hard way) NEVER to […]
Continue ReadingMonday was a fantastic day. I would beg your indulgence as I describe it. I will be forgiven upfront for namedropping as yesterday was about meeting some very special people. First things first. My wife Nanci was my boon companion from moment one. Nanci’s presence was a wise choice for any number of reasons, aside from the simple joy having my life-mate on my arm. Number one: I needed a built-in cheering squad. Number two: I needed a personal photographer who would document the events of the day. Number three: if I HADN’T asked Nanci to join me I would likely never heard the end of it, so . . . join me she did. We took a 7:55 flight out of Oakland (Oaktown) California, which put us in Burbank at 9 AM. We were picked up by Danielle, who was our driver-tour-guide-confidante-escort for the day. From the airport it was a hop-skip-and-jump to the Ora TV studios in Glendale. Once we arrived, I was “made up” and – when the time came – I sat down with Larry King and did my interview. A word, please. I have been interviewed many times: by the New York Times; by The […]
Continue ReadingI spent the better part of last week working on background materials for my OraTV show “Conspiracies, Peccadilloes, and Dirty Little Secrets: Fun and Games With the Great Composers.” A chunk of time was spent finding and scanning visual images appropriate for the shows, images that will be projected behind me. The bulk of the week was spent planning for and video recording musical examples that will “accompany” the shows. For this we hired the superb pianist Lino Rivera and the indomitable (and inexhaustible) Alexander String Quartet. We recorded Lino at my house on my studio piano and the Alexander Quartet in Knuth Hall at San Francisco State University. The recordings were supervised by my producer Jason Rovou and my director Scott Brown, who flew up from SoCal to supervise a locally hired recording crew. Total pros, all. I’ve posted a few photos below of the Alexander String Quartet in action; I’ll post a few pix of Lino Rivera’s recording session in a few days. The programs themselves will be on-line at OraTV and on Hulu within a few weeks. I will keep you posted re: when and where. Tomorrow will be a most exciting day. In preparation for joining […]
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