André Watts - "Complete" Columbia Recordings

Sony Classical has reissued their "complete" recordings of pianist André Watts.  Well, almost.  Click here to read my review.

Confessions of a Frustrated Republican

My father was a lifelong Republican.  Unlike some who are born into rich Republican families and vote to preserve their inheritance and privilege, and unlike those who are born in limited circumstances, raised as Democrats, but switch to Republican once they’ve attained wealth, my father held to his conservative beliefs and suspicion toward government from a childhood spent in poverty, through an adulthood where he rose through the middle class, and into the relative wealth of his last years.  As with his parents, his Republicanism was rooted in a hatred of Franklin Roosevelt’s policies and the man personally that bordered on the pathological.  Given my admiration for FDR, you can imagine some of the “discussions” we had around that subject.  (My dad had a grudging respect for Harry Truman, and it annoyed him when I pointed out that on many domestic issues Truman was a good deal more liberal than FDR.)

There were times, however, when my father veered from Republican orthodoxy.  He derided the religious right as “Jesus freaks” who had gained too much prominence in the Republican Party, just as Barry Goldwater had complained.  Nor did he care for the party’s recent penchant for immigrant bashing.  As far back as the 1960s, he had great respect for Cesar Chavez, sympathy for migrant farm laborers, and felt if Americans had become unwilling to pick fruit and perform other “menial” tasks for low wages, we should welcome people into the country who would.  As someone who grew up on a farm, my father knew what it was like to have to rise before dawn, pitch hay, pick eggs, and milk cows - only to be kicked by a cow that wasn’t in the mood.  He saw U.S. born Depression-era farm hands treated like dirt and knew it was worse for migrants, even in the best of times.  Between the migrant farm issue and the Vietnam War – which my father came to regard as a mistake – my father decided to support Robert Kennedy in 1968.  He had been very impressed with how RFK’s reaction to Martin Luther King’s assassination helped prevent violence in Indianapolis.  Then RFK was assassinated.  My father told me he decided to sit out the 1968 election because he didn’t like Humphrey and he thought Nixon was “sick” mentally.

The above paragraph, however, should not detract from the fact that the bulk of my father’s political beliefs were conservative.  During the 90s he railed against Bill Clinton’s sexual peccadilloes and delighted in reading the Ken Starr report aloud.  My father was an NRA member and favored their view of the 2^nd Amendment, despite the fact that his own brother accidentally shot himself.  He hated Welfare. 

Two weeks before he died, my father called me to wish me a happy birthday.  During our conversation (which tended to ramble in later years as my father’s hearing deteriorated), he told me he was favoring Kasich in the primaries and that under no circumstances would he vote for Donald Trump if “that asshole with his whore wife” is nominated.  “I’ll just stay at home like I did in ’68.”  I listened to his statement and said little – knowing his decision would hardly make a difference as he lived in California which is certain to vote Democratic.

As it turns out, my father will not vote in the upcoming election – but not for the reasons he outlined.  But I suspect my father’s not the only Republican to view the ascendancy of Donald Trump with disdain and alarm.  And I suspect there are many Republicans who will sit home on November 8^th. 

The Pianos of Vladimir Horowitz

It’s interesting how, in this information age, so much misinformation can proliferate unchecked and uncorrected.  This is as true in Classical Music as it is in politics, and nowhere more than at Google’s Classical Music Recordings Group.  This is, for example, the group with several members who unwittingly perpetuated the Joyce Hatto fraud.  Most of the group’s members are dilettantes who fancy themselves as experts in music, and several of them are unschooled in the basics of social conduct.  A few are actual musicians - some of whom remain as professional musicians and others who've gone on to other professions.  I made a few posts to the group about a decade back, realized what the group was dominated by trolls, and quickly disassociated myself with them.  But I occasionally view posts (“lurking is the Internet term) as there are a few members who occasionally post about upcoming recordings.  A recent post concerned the piano used by Vladimir Horowitz as his 1986 Moscow recital, the recording of which was recently reissued.  One poster complained about the piano’s “tinny” sound, and speculation arose as to whether Horowitz was using a piano supplied by the Moscow Conservatory, as pianos were notoriously poorly maintained in the USSR. 

There is no equivalent to Politifact in Classical Music.  So, in this instance, I will provide the facts - just the facts, and not my own personal opinion on the quality of Horowitz's pianos.  Accurate information about Horowitz’s pianos has been publicly available for decades now.  The pianist's tuner, Franz Mohr, gave a rundown about the pianos used by Horowitz in his book, My Life with the Great Pianists, which was published in the early 1990s.  I expanded on Mohr’s information when I put together the Horowitz FAQ section of the pianist’s informational website, from which the information below is adapted.

The Pianos Used by Vladimir Horowitz

Early in 1934, as a wedding present, Steinway presented Vladimir and Wanda Horowitz with a Steinway Model D, Serial #CD279503 (the "C" denotes for pianos deemed worthy by Steinway for Concert use. The "D" indicates the size of piano, in this case, nine feet long).  This piano was kept in Horowitz’s homes (he moved several times before purchasing a townhouse on Manhattan’s East 94^th Street in 1939) and not used for concerts or recordings.

In the early 1940s, this piano was replaced with CD314503. This is the piano Horowitz kept in his New York townhouse, and used in recitals and recordings from 1974-1981 and 1985-1987.  This is also the piano which has “toured” Steinway dealerships in North America and been used in a few recordings over he past 25 years – although it has been reworked so extensively it bears little resemblance to the piano that Horowitz knew. 

CD186 (Steinway often dropped the first three digits with "CD" pianos) was selected by Horowitz for his return recital in 1965. (He described the tone as "more mellow [than CD314503], more like the human voice.") CD186 was used for subsequent concerts and recording sessions until it suffered catastrophic failure in late 1972 and was retired from professional use.

CD223 was kept at Horowitz’s summer home in New Milford, Connecticut. It replaced CD186 for Horowitz's last Columbia sessions in late 1972/early 1973.

CD75, built in 1911, was found by Franz Mohr, Horowitz's tuner, in Steinway's basement and restored by him. Horowitz used the piano from 1981-1983.

CD443, Horowitz's last piano, was selected by the pianist for home use, to avoid the inconvenience of hauling CD314503 from Horowitz's second floor living room when he went on tour. At first Horowitz had reservations about the piano's action (which was rather heavy) but came to love the instrument so much that, when he briefly considered concertizing in 1989, he planned to take CD443 with him. This piano was used for recording sessions made at Horowitz's home in 1988 and 1989.

Incidentally, for his first four Columbia Masterworks recordings, made between 1962-1964, Horowitz used a piano supplied by Columbia’s 30^th Street Studio. However, when he returned to studio recording in 1969 (all of his 1965-1968 recordings were compiled from live appearances), he found that the piano he’d used for the earlier sessions had been tampered with by Glenn Gould, and was no longer palatable. 

Lisiecki and Wit at Severance Hall

This weekend’s Cleveland Orchestra concerts at Severance featured guest conductor Antoni Wit and pianist Jan Lisiecki.

The concert began with Wagner’s Polonia Overture, one of the composer’s earliest works.  This was the first time the work was being played by the orchestra, which is saying something for a work by a major composer and an orchestra that’s been performing masterworks for 98 years.  Indeed, I’d never heard the piece.  After the initial bars, it was easy to understand why the overture is rarely performed.  It trades in bombast what it lacks in thematic material or development.  After a good night’s sleep, I was unable to recall one “tune”, which has never been the case with any other Wagner work I’ve heard over the last 35 years.  The performance was mainly characterized by loudness.  More on that later.

After a brief break while the Hamburg Steinway was rolled onto the platform, Jan Lisiecki took to the stage for a performance of Chopin’s Piano Concerto in F minor.  Lisiecki is a Canadian pianist of Polish parentage.  Just 21, he has already secured a recording contract with Deutsche Grammophon and is a veteran performer.  One takes for granted that the pianist’s technique was more than up to the task of this finger twisting concerto.  But this performance has a special quality that went beyond that.  Lisiecki brought to the Concerto a metric freedom, sense of rubato, and coloristic sense that reminded me of the pianists of the Golden Age – particularly Benno Moiseiwitsch.  Each episode of the concerto was beautifully characterized, while the work’s overall structure cohered. 

Beethoven’s “Eroica” Symphony occupied the second half of the concert.  The Eroica is one of the most often performed works in the repertoire.  The orchestra could no doubt play it in its sleep.  But the opening was rough: the orchestra was not together in the first of two E-flat major chords that start the work.  In short order, the orchestra was together again, and the movement proceeded at a quick pace.  Zachary Lewis, in his Plain Dealer review of Thursday evening’s concert, complained about the “ponderous” tempo Wit chose for the Funeral March.  Either Lewis is wed to the HiPster school of interpretation, or Wit chose a brisker pace between Thursday’s concert and Saturday’s – as the tempo I heard was dead center normal for Beethoven interpretation – similar to Szell’s tempo in his famous Cleveland recording.  But the performance was problematic nevertheless.  Wit didn’t seem to be interested in such matters as balance, dynamics (aside from the Chopin Concerto, there was little sense of pianissimo and often the music was just plain loud) or tonal beauty.  This was the first, and I hope only, time I’ve heard the Cleveland Orchestra making anything less than a beautiful sound.   It has been a truism over the last dozen years that the Cleveland Orchestra often plays at its best with a guest conductor.  Not this time.         

A Eulogy for my Father

Titus Henry Drake, Jr

August 2, 1929 - April 6, 2016

My father’s father, Titus Henry Drake (from whom my dad & I got our formal names) was part of an established American family that traced their lineage on this continent to 1640 – when Francis Drake moved from the family seat in Colchester, England to New England – when this land was still a British possession.  My father’s mother’s name was Helen Harvey.  Until recently, I didn’t know much about her family except that her father was a state senator in the Michigan legislature. 

Titus Senior married Helen Harvey and my dad was born on August 2, 1929, in Three Rivers, Michigan.  From an early age, my father was referred to as “Junior” by my dad, and “Ty” by everyone else.  Ten weeks after his birth, the stock market crashed and the Great Depression began.  In early 1932, my father’s brother, Jim, was born.

This is the earliest photo I have of my father - he’s standing in the middle in the light colored suit.  Note how skinny he was.  There’s a story behind that.  When my father and uncle were very young, their parents bitterly divorced.  In those days, the mother was automatically granted custody, so they went to live with my grandmother - where my father was forced to answer to the name "David".  I will confess to you, I never knew my grandmother very well - because after spending time with her during my youth, I decided to keep my distance.  She was a troubled woman who married five times.  I learned decades later that her mother died when giving birth to my grandmother and her father blamed her for her mother’s death – and she never grew up experiencing parental love.  She was unable to take adequate care of my father and uncle, and the United States was in the midst of the Great Depression.  The kids lived on onion sandwiches and were malnourished to the extent that they had sores on their skin.  And my grandmother and her new husband would beat them with an electric cord for the slightest infraction.  Eventually, their situation became so dire that my father secretly wrote and mailed a letter to my grandfather, begging for help.  My grandfather showed the letter to the judge, the court intervened, and my dad and uncle were sent to live with my grandfather and his second wife, Florence Cylka.  Flo was of Polish heritage, loved to cook and really knew how to do it.  My dad & Jim filled out from good nutrition and from working on my grandfather’s farm.  My dad applied himself in school - especially in mathematics and sports.  He graduated from Constantine High School, President of the class of 1947.

After graduating from high school, Dad entered Michigan State University and centered his studies on Civil Engineering and Architecture.  While there, he met Joanne Dewey and they married, resulting in a son, Robert.  Around that time, my father enlisted in the Navy and became a draftsman 2^nd class.  He was stationed at the San Diego Naval Base.  The United States was involved in the Korean War at the time, but the Navy was impressed with my dad’s organizational skills and he remained in San Diego.  My dad, who loved ships all his life, was disappointed but applied himself to his duties.  By the time he was discharged he had been awarded the National Defense Service Medal.  It’s a testament to my father’s modesty that he never told me any of this.  Instead, he was fond of regaling me with stories going to the beach and bar hopping with his buddies.  One time, he and his best buddy got quite drunk.  On the way back to base, as my dad was dozing in the passenger seat, his buddy passed out behind the wheel.  The subsequent crash awakened my father from his slumber, and when he pulled himself out of the car, he thought he stepped into a puddle - his shoes were soaked through with his own blood and his knees bore the scars from that incident from the rest of his life.  It was during this period that my Uncle Jim snapped pictures at the beach where my father was a volunteer lifeguard.

By the time my dad had been discharged from the Navy and returned to Michigan, things were not working out between he and Joanne, and they divorced.  On November 22, 1956, Dad - now living in Cleveland - married my mother, Verna Pritchard Stevens, resulting in my sisters Verna (“Pixie”), Sarah, and me.  By that time, his brother Jim had moved out to Los Angeles and was working as a Hollywood extra. 

My father was badly shaken up when his brother died in 1976.  My Uncle Jim shot himself – an accidental death brought about by cleaning his gun while inebriated.  When my parents came home from Uncle Jim’s funeral, my father was a changed man. 

Whatever the merits of my father and my mother as individuals, the truth is that they were not well suited for each other – and at the deepest level, whatever their love for each other, they never truly understood each other.  When my father was in my parents’ basement, building ship models, playing trumpet, or lifting weights,he was giving expression to his creative and physical energies - rather than venting his frustration as my mother often said.  And there were times my father, a stoic, was relatively uncommunicative.  But the sounds of my parents’ arguments still ring in my ears, and their marriage formally ended in 1980.

I’m not going to belabor the particulars of my parents’ divorce.  Those of us in the family have discussed it in private and have our various opinions, although we all agree my mother’s situation was tragic almost from birth.  But let me make it plain that my father’s marriage to Hiede has proven itself through time - it has been a happy, enduring, and productive partnership.  Truly, the third time is the charm.  Hiede took excellent care of my father, in health and sickness.  She knew when to give him focus, and when to give him his own space.  What I think most people don’t grasp about my father is that he was a tremendously creative person (as are all the Drake men I’ve known), and creative people sometimes need their own space.  That creativity lives on in their son, Sean - born in 1982.  

One thing I will always admire about my father is his adaptability.  When he was laid off from his job in 1983 - after working with that company for many years - he didn’t pout, he didn’t sulk.  He got involved in a new industry called cellular communications and traveled the country putting up cell towers.  Twenty years later, at an age when most of us would be long retired, he designed an ecologically sensitive, carbon neutral house in Hawaii.  From the time he graduated college, my father’s work emphasized the principles of structural integrity, clean lines, and holistic layout – whether he was designing a corporate headquarters, a home, or a highway exit.  His standards were very high, he refused to compromise on safety, and he once told me how an argument between he and a bean-counter nearly descended into fisticuffs.  Dad was working on his final masterpiece, the renovation of his own home in Half Moon Bay, when his health began to decline in 2010 – first due to a heart attack, then from an aortic valve replacement from which he never fully recovered.  The project remained unfinished when he died.  

Dad was a conservative and a traditionalist.  But he was flexible enough to accept his gay son’s partner with open arms.  In fact, he was nicer in his first meeting with Daniel than he was with his two future sons-in-law when he met them!  He also had a temper in his younger years which we learned not to cross.  But age mellowed him.  My father, like his brother, enjoyed the occasional tipple.  But there were two differences: my father knew his limits, Jim did not; and when Jim drank, he could become bitter and nasty, my father simply became more convivial.  One of my fondest memories of my dad was when I surprised him for his 80^th birthday in 2009.  While Hiede was out of town working, we grilled hamburgers, mixed some very potent drinks, and swapped stories which, frankly, are not repeatable here.  There was a lot of laughter that night.

Dad believed in productivity, in doing something with your talents.  I hope all who knew and loved him will remember and take heed from that.  So while we mourn his passing, we should also celebrate all he was, and live life to the fullest.  Ty Drake lives on in the work he did, and the memories and love he leaves.

Bracing and Poetic Dvořák and Schumann from Hough

Hyperion has released a splendid new recording by Stephen Hough. Click here to read my review.

Stephen Hough plays Dvořák at Severance

Antonín Dvořák’s Piano Concerto is not well known.  Pianists invariably refer to it as “ungrateful” or “unpianistic”.  In other words, it’s difficult to play but not impressive – the opposite of Liszt’s concertos which require athleticism, are not terribly difficult, yet very impressive.  I was passingly familiar with the Dvořák Concerto by way of Rudolf Firkušný’s old mono recording of the concerto with the Cleveland Orchestra under George Szell.  But that recording, and most performances, used a version substantially rewritten by Vilém Kurz.  Not only is the writing, particularly for the left hand, nearly impossible to play, there are potential pitfalls which challenge the memory – entrances occur at odd places and inconsistently: a pianist begins one passage on the first beat, but when the passage returns, begins the repetition on the second beat, etc.  The piece is a monster to learn and rehearse, which may explain why so few perform it.

Stephen Hough, one of today’s most enterprising pianists, brought the original version (with some very slight emendations) to Severance Hall this past weekend.  Not only is he blessed with great technical gifts and innate musicality, but he has a characteristic sorely lacking in all too many classical musicians: curiosity.  Hough also has the ability to communicate his ideas in a way the average music lover can understand.  (For example, in a discussion of Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Hough described Paganini’s 24^th Caprice as being like “a beautiful, crisp, white, shirt; you can put anything with it: jeans, a tie, evening clothes” – a description which made it easy for the listener to understand why Rachmaninoff, and so many other composers, chose this theme for variations.)

Hough brought to the Dvořák Concerto impeccable technique, sophisticated pedaling (we sat in row K and had an unobstructed view of the pedals) and an unfailing sense of proportionality.  Further, there was a sense of directionality throughout the piece, no small achievement in a work which can all too easily be splintered into unconnected fragments.  Hough played with virtuosity, but never for its own sake – and I never had the impression that Hough was a “soloist”, but truly a collaborative artist.  In short, Hough put his heart and soul into the piece.  As a result, the Concerto’s true self emerged: a work of potent emotions, great themes, and solid construction – particularly in the finale where Dvořák combines the two themes in a Bachian manner.  I would ordinarily express the hope that more pianists take up the Dvořák, but I sense future performances of this piece will be measured against the one I heard Saturday, and will fare poorly in comparison.  The Cleveland Orchestra under Alan Gilbert provided an accompaniment which was hand-in-glove, and the performers were rewarded with a standing ovation.

Hough, noting that Sunday would be Mother’s Day in the UK, offered an encore: his own arrangement of Dvořák’s “Songs My Mother Taught Me”, in a beautifully shaded and pastel colored performance, with lovely pedal effects and tones seeming to float from the piano.