2022 in Review

2022 saw a continuation of the return to normalcy that began in 2021.  I continued my quest to get into better shape that began with my COVID vaccination and return to working out in 2021.  Since May of that year, I have lost over 30 pounds through a combination of diet and exercise – mostly the former.  I didn’t do anything radical: just reduced carbohydrates and sugar, which in turn reduced cravings for food.  That, along with just 30 minutes of exercise six times a week brought my weight down to its lowest point since 2006.  Although I remain overweight, I feel much better and, without wanting to boast, I look better as well.  Being able to work from home, only occasionally going to my employer’s campus, has been a great help to me in my fitness quest: not having to commute saves me over 40 minutes of each day.

Daniel and I continued our travel adventures with an autumn trip to Canada and New England in place of an originally planned trip to Europe.  Travelling by car enabled us to avoid the air travel meltdown that continues to plague North America and Europe, and we saw much that we would have missed. 

On the musical front, after tentatively dipping our toes back into the musical waters of Cleveland in 2021, Daniel and I began regularly attending concerts again.  There were too many concerts to mention comprehensively, but standouts were  Behzod Abduraimov’s fearless performance of Prokofiev’s Second Piano Concerto and Igor Levit’s effervescent Brahms Second Concerto. 

 

Aside from that, my musical activities have mostly been focused on composing several short works for piano and administrating my Vladimir Horowitz Facebook group.

 

Speaking of COVID, I experienced it in late-May.  At first, it seemed like an ordinary sinus infection, which is common for me as summer approaches.  Then my palms and the soles of my feet turned beet red, prompting me to get tested.  As I had been vaccinated, the symptoms were mild and I lost only one day of work – although it would have been more if I didn’t work from home.  I felt better in short order, but two weeks later the skin on my palms and feet suddenly began peeling off – evidently rejected by my immune system.   

 

In the wider world, Vladimir Putin’s chest-thumping led to Russian’s brutal and illegal occupation of the sovereign nation of Ukraine.  The war has not gone as Putin has expected, thanks to fearless Ukrainian soldiers assisted by weapons from the West, especially the United States.  Further, Western sanctions have nearly crippled the Russian economy, leading to domestic unrest.  I’ve been doing my small part to help but won’t disclose exactly how on this blog.

 

Democrats performed better than expected in the 2022 midterm elections.  They would have held the House if not for aggressive gerrymandering in Republican led states, including Ohio.  Also, too many Americans have become spoiled, entitled brats who decided to whine about inflation while forgetting that the economy was at a dead standstill just two short years ago.  The inflation of the last year is not the result of Democratic or Biden Administration policies, it’s due to the law of supply and demand which is the centerpiece of capitalism: coming out of COVID, there was a sharp increase in demand without the resources to meet those demands due, in part, to a lack of imports from China.  The increased desire for both road and air travel drove fuel prices, which drove up prices for everything else.  Instead of taking logical actions, like driving less or getting more fuel efficient cars, too many Americans decided to crab about it while ignoring our own history: The economic situation in 2021-22 has a parallel with that of 1946-1947, where the conversion from a wartime to a peacetime economy and a generation of servicemen returning home to start families drove not only inflation but a housing shortage.  But while countries like China and Russia are struggling economically, and while Europe and the UK struggle with inflation far more serious than occurred in the United States, the American economy remains relatively sturdy and resistant to attempts by the Federal Reserve Bank to slow it down.  At this point, it’s an open question as to whether President Biden should run again.  Personally, I think he should not.  Biden can decline another nomination and go down in history as among the most successful one-term Presidents, and having done his duty, retire like Cincinnatus, clearing the way for a new generation of leadership.  But anyone who doubts that we’re much better off than we were two years ago needs a reminder of the lockdowns, how hospitals were overrun, and stores and restaurants were closed – and President Biden’s steady leadership is a major factor in changing that. 

 

On a very personal note, 2022 saw the blossoming of a friendship with a person whom I’d known peripherally for years.  The result has been a new perspective on the arc of my life, a renewed sense of purpose, and the slow opening of a heart that’s closed for all but those truly close to me.  My greatest hope is that this friendship continues for as long as I do. 

Petrenko and Abduraimov at Severance

This past Thursday I received the first of two doses of the Shingrix vaccine.  Although I experienced some unpleasant side effects Friday, by Saturday they were mostly resolved so, despite a slightly sore shoulder, I was able to attend the Cleveland Orchestra’s concert of 20^th Century music at Severance Hall featuring guest conductor Vasily Petrenko.  Unfortunately, Daniel has been fighting an annoying sinus infection, so he was unable to join me. 

The first work on the program was Edward Elgar’s concert overture, Cockaigne “In London Town,” a musical tribute to Edwardian era London and a reminder to this listener that he needs to book his flight for a planned spring trip there.  The work’s jaunty rhythms were delivered with crispness and a lack of pomposity, its massive orchestration never overpowering.

Petrenko was joined by pianist Behzod Abduraimov for the concert’s next work: Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 2, Op. 16.  Originally premiered in 1913, the work’s score was lost in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, reconstructed and revised by the composer, and received a second premiere in 1924.  The work is easily the most demanding of Prokofiev’s five piano concertos:  Four sprawling movements, harmonically pungent, truly knuckle-busting in terms of dexterity and stamina required.  The work has grown in popularity over the last few decades, although the contrarian composer seems to have had mixed feelings about it (he advised Vladimir Horowitz to not bother learning the piece, saying “it has too many notes and I don’t like it myself”).

Within two minutes of the work’s quiet, brooding opening, Abduraimov was demonstrating that he was the work’s master, not the other way around.  One must always remember that, despite the pseudo-servile statements made by numerous musicians, one must truly master the music to serve the composer’s vision.  Abduraimov’s technique was truly stunning, not merely in dexterity but in the balancing of notes and lines so that Prokofiev’s dense piano writing was more than merely loud, but made musical sense – thus, the technique served musical ends.  This was combined with a narrative sweep usually lacking in performances of this monster of a concerto – which too often ends up sounding like a jumble of scrambled notes.  Of the many performances, both recorded and live, I’ve heard of this work, this was the most memorable, and far more convincing than the one I heard in here four years ago. 

It has become commonplace to describe staggering feats of virtuosity such as what was heard last night as “effortless”, a term that can devalue the achievement and allow the audience to forget that the marvel came at the expense of countless hours of arduous work.  Last night’s performance was certainly not “effortless”, as witnessed by the pianist mopping his brow with a handkerchief during the rare moments of rest that the concerto allowed.  Abduraimov gave the last ounce of himself and the virtuosity was earned. 

In the end, it was a fearless, convincing, and compelling performance which did more than bring the audience to its feet, but also remained in the mind’s ear for hours afterward.  Petrenko and the orchestra matched the pianist note for note.  Despite the concerto’s exhausting demands, Abduraimov gave a charming encore: an arrangement of the Neapolitan Dance from Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake.

The concert’s second half was devoted to William Walton’s Symphony No. 1, a work that the composer struggled to complete.  Walton was a more eclectic composer than Elgar, his music less obviously British, and it’s clear he was a strong influence on the film compositions of John Williams, both harmonically and in orchestration.  Petrenko and the orchestra delivered the work with brisk tempos, transparent balances, and a lack of unnecessary rhetoric.  But it seemed a bit anti-climactic.  Not that the work itself or the performance were lacking, simply that the Prokofiev was so astonishing.  The audience awarded Petrenko and the orchestra with a hearty ovation, but it was the Prokofiev which lingered for the rest of the evening, as attested by several conversations I overheard while leaving Severance Hall. 

Vladimir Horowitz's approach to concert programming

Vladimir Horowitz was a canny program builder.  He once compared building a great program to planning a fine meal: a light appetizer, a heavier main course, a sweet dessert.  The notion of programming the last three Beethoven Sonatas or the last two Schubert Sonatas was anathema to him.  In fact, single-composer programs were a rare occurrence for Horowitz, with exceptions such as the May 1978 international concert at Carnegie Hall where fans the world over were enticed to hear Horowitz as part of a tourist package.  

Horowitz’s programs demonstrate his desire to thread the needle between musical profundity and entertainment.  The latter principle has taken on a dirty meaning over the decades, but it’s worth noting that the word “entertainment” derives from the Greek word “entrata” which means “to hold” – in this case, the audience’s attention.  But Horowitz would never have stooped to recording an album of Disney tunes, and angrily rejected RCA’s proposal that he record Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue or an album of marches.  He wanted to do things his own way, a principle which extended to his concert programs. 

Almost invariably, Horowitz programmed his concerts around one or two larger works, and with rare exceptions (Rachmaninoff’s Sonata in B-flat minor, Op. 36 or his own arrangement of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition) the large works were performed during the first half of the concert. 

Three concerts played within two months at Carnegie Hall in 1946.  

After his 1965 comeback, Horowitz generally had one program that he mostly stuck with for an entire season, sometimes having additional pieces at the ready in case he played twice in the same city.  For example, during the 1985-1986 season, he alternated between Schumann’s Kreisleriana, Op. 16 and Mozart’s Sonata in C major, K. 330 (with a few additional works to balance out the timing). 

Driven by a dual desire to keep himself musically fresh and give his audiences something new, his programs generally feature at least one work either entirely new to his repertoire or something he had not played in many years.   Here is a partial listing of new/revived solo works, starting in 1951, with (n) indicating a work new to his public repertoire and (t) indicating a work he hadn’t performed publicly in over ten years.  Shorter works including Etudes, Mazurkas, Songs without Words, and the like are not included here.

1951: Mozart: Sonata in B-flat minor, K. 333 (n)

1952-1953: Schubert: Sonata in B-flat major, D.960 (n); Scriabin: Sonata No.9, Op.68 (n);  Liszt/Horowitz: Hungarian Rhapsody No.2 in C-sharp minor (n)

1965: As this was Horowitz’s first concert since 1953, none of the works had been performed within the previous ten years.

1966: Haydn: Sonata in F major, Hob. XVI:23 (n); Schumann: Blumenstück, Op.19 (t); Chopin: Sonata No.2 in B-flat minor, Op.35 (t); Debussy: Preludes & L'Isle Joyeuse (t); Liszt: Vallée d'Obermann (t); Scriabin: Sonata No.10, Op.70 (n)

1967-1968: Scarlatti: Various Sonatas (n); Beethoven: Sonata in A major, Op.101 (t); Chopin: Barcarolle in F-sharp major, Op.60 (t); Polonaise in F-sharp minor, Op.44 (n)

1968: Haydn: Sonata in C major, Hob. XVI:48 (n); Schumann: Kreisleriana, Op. 16 (n); Rachmaninoff: Sonata in B-flat minor, Op. 35 (t)

1969: Scriabin: selected Etudes (r & t); Liszt: Hungarian Rhapsody No. 13 (arr. Horowitz) (n)

1974: Clementi: Sonata in F-sharp minor, Op.26 No.2 (n); Schumann: Kinderszenen, Op.15 (t); Chopin: Introduction & Rondo, Op.16 (n)

1975-1976: Schumann: Sonata in F minor, Op. 14 (Concerto without Orchestra) (n)

1976-1977: Clementi: Sonata in C major, Op.33 No.3 (n); Liszt: Sonata in B minor (t)

1977-1978: Mozart: Sonata in C major, K.330 (n)

Fauré: Nocturne in B minor, Op.119;  Fauré: Impromptu in F-sharp minor, Op.102 (n)

1978-1979: Schumann: Humoreske, Op.20 (t) (VH had played selections from this work in the 1934-1935 season.)

1979-1980: Rachmaninoff/Horowitz: Sonata No.2 in B-flat minor, Op.36 (t)

1981-1982: Scarlatti: Various Sonatas (n); Liszt: Ballade in B minor

1982-1983: Schumann: Carnaval, Op. 9 (t)

1985-1986: Schumann: Kreisleriana, Op. 16 (t); Liszt: Soirees de Vienne No. 6 (after Schubert) (n)

1987: Mozart: Sonata in B-flat major, K. 333 (t)

 

Visit the Vladimir Horowitz appreciation society on Facebook for curated discussion and tributes to the Maestro.