Mr. Beeson's Piano

Composer Jack Beeson at his piano

One of my absolute favorite musical memories of all times was running into composer Jack Beeson in front of what used to be called the New York State Theater at Lincoln Center.  I had just been to an excellent performance of Mr. Beeson’s opera “Lizzie Borden” at the New York City Opera.  He was in a frame of mind I can only call transcendent.  He was floating on a cloud of joy and satisfaction and gratitude.  It gives me great pleasure just remembering the occasion now as I write.  

That encounter with Mr. Beeson was a magnificent way to cap a Sunday afternoon performance of a great opera. Lizzie Borden was everything you would expect from an opera that celebrates a woman who murders her mother and father with an ax.  It also had its own set of values, including some very dark humor. Mr. Beeson’s music always seemed perfect for whatever purpose he was composing.  The music for Lizzie Borden is powerful and energetic, brittle at times, exquisitely lyrical at times.  Like Benjamin Britten, Mr. Beeson captured the interior emotional drama that consumes his characters.  Unlike Benjamin Britten, Mr. Beeson was an American composer, born in Muncie, Indiana, and his music reflects American aesthetics and values without being self conscious in any way.  He was a part of the generation after Copland and Ives who wrote music that has distinctly American themes (Lizzie Borden takes place in Falls River, Massachusetts) without trying to write “American” music.

Nora Beeson, a former member of our Board of Directors, a devoted tireless worker for the school, and a very good friend to me personally was also the wife of Jack Beeson.  Nora and Jack attended many many concerts at Bloomingdale and contributed immeasurably to the school.  Sadly, Mr. Beeson passed away in June of 2010 at the age of 88.

Now, through the generosity of Nora Beeson and Miranda Beeson (Nora and Jack’s wonderful daughter), Bloomingdale School of Music has received Mr. Beeson’s beautiful Baldwin piano. which is now in our library on the second floor.  Through an earlier gift, arranged with Nora’s help, we already own composer Douglas Moore’s Mason and Hamlin piano.  What an honor it is to now have two of America’s foremost opera composers’ pianos in use at Bloomingdale.

I am a little intimidated by composers and the magic they create with their musical scores.  I can only imagine the alchemy involved with combining Mr. Beeson and his beloved piano.  The results speak for themselves—a legacy of wonderful music.  Now it’s up to us at Bloomingdale to continue the work of making music worthy of the gift.

Trusting Your Talent

Just what is talent, anyway?  The dictionary defines it as a “natural aptitude or skill.”  The idea of talent permeates the study of the arts at all levels.  It’s one of those ideas that some people use to pigeon-hole others, or, even worse, it’s an idea that some people use to limit themselves. All manner of achievement is attributed to having talent and any number of short comings are blamed on the lack of talent.

I have been working with young talented people since 1973.  Some of them were more talented than others, of course. A few who thought they were talented, were surprisingly limited. Others were amazingly talented, yet completely unconvinced that they could achieve as an artist.  Others have been incredibly talented but it meant nothing to them.  Something inside of them kept them from fully understanding what talent really is and the importance of making the most out of it.

How much talent do you have and how much do you need?  I love the quotation attritbuted to Samuel Goldwyn, “The harder I work, the luckier I get.”  With a very small  change, that idea sums up my feeling about talent.  “The harder I work, the more talented I become.”

Two years ago I worked with a young string player named Robert (not his real name).  Robert was a hard worker, very musical (lyrical player), he also worked beautifully with other players. Being a good collaborator is quite a gift.  One day I asked him if he was considering making music a career.  He told me, with some sadness, he wished he had that ability. I was stunned. If any student had that ability it was he, yet his own vision of himself was not big enough to include his talent.

The biggest mistake I have seen young artists make is to censor their own talent.  An artist's life is about hard work and also about expectations.  When a player asks me if they are sharp or flat on a given note, I always turn the question back to them.  90% of the time, when I make them answer, they are correct.  They have the ability but they are not fully aware they have it.

If you have a powerful motivation to be a musician, trust that. Something about it resonates within you. Listen to that.  Believe in your ability to master your craft and then work really hard at it.  No time will be wasted. Every bit of work you put into it you will get back ten-fold.

That's it.  That's my pitch.  I hope you will forgive my presumption in offering it to you.  I hope your journey of self-discovery offers abundant personal rewards and satisfaction.

Playing Bach

The Bloomingdale Chamber Orchestra has been rehearsing the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 and we are having a tough time with it.  Modern orchestras don’t do as much Bach as they do other composers.  Bach’s music wasn’t really written for the modern orchestra.  It doesn’t quite fit.  The Fifth Brandenburg, for example, has no second violin part.  

What it does have is a lot of notes.  In Baroque music, the flow of a piece is governed by the musical line.  A line is a self-propelled musical entity, usually based on one or two short musical segments called motives which are transformed during the course of the piece.  Every line has its own kinetic energy which ebbs and flows, creating the expressive potential of the line.  The interaction of two or more lines is what creates the tension and release that both propel the piece forward and which lead to the overall drama in a piece of Baroque music.  The interaction creates a kind of polarity—equal and opposite forces trying to unite.  The whole process is called fortspinnung in German—spinning forth.  Its part of what makes Baroque music seem so restless and energetic.  Bach represents the epitome of this kind of Baroque music and the Brandenburg concerti represent some of his very best secular instrumental compositions.  

What Bach’s music doesn’t have much of are rests, which is one of the reasons it’s so challenging.  While lines are built of two or three simple motives, “development” consists mostly of transforming those motives--reshaping them, altering them with accidentals, moving them to new keys, playing them upside down, playing them backward, among other things. It means players need to be aware of the notes every moment they are playing, while at the same time musically shaping the line and being aware of how the line interacts with the other performers. 

A few years ago, I was given a book titled Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid by Douglas Hofstadter.  I am not going to pretend I understood much of that book, but what I loved about it was the idea that three magnificent creative thinkers in mathematics, art, and music could be linked through an understanding of thinking and awareness.  I love the idea that Bach’s musical lines have energy contained within them, just the the way the sweeping lines of a sculptor like Bernini contain energy, and those lines can uplift those who experience them.

For the performer, playing Bach is one of music’s extreme sports and one of music’s most completely satisfying experiences.  After you have finished performing the piece, you know you have done something special.
                                                                             Lawrence Davis

The Reality of Conducting

There are few jobs in the world of the arts that are more Romanticized than that of the conductor.  Egomaniacal, omniscient, tyrannical, pompous, short-tempered autocrats might be a general description from the mythology of conductors.  Carefully-cultivated conducting heros like Arturo Toscanini, Leopold Stokowski, and even Leonard Bernstein have helped perpetuate this vision of the genius/tyrant that exists even today.

I have been conducting for nearly 40 years and I want to spend a few minutes sharing with you the reality of conducting. I conduct the Bloomingdale Chamber Orchestra and right now we are working on two amazing and very different pieces.  The first is the Egmont Overture by Ludwig van Beethoven and the second is Elegy for Orchestra by John Corrigliano.  

The music for these two pieces is contained on the printed page—the conductor’s score and every instrumentalist’s part.  As I start every new piece with the orchestra, we begin a journey of discovery together.  I have conducted the Beethoven at least four times before, with four different orchestras, and four different performances and each time I have discovered new things with the ensemble with which I am working.  Having conducted a lot of Beethoven over the years, I have developed some insights into his orchestra writing.  For example, Beethoven’s crescendos frequently occur over many measure of music.  In the Egmont, there is a passage that begins as follows:

Over a period of eight full measures we go from pianissimo to fortissimo, but the actual crescendo begins on the fourth measure.  It is very tempting to start that crescendo earlier and get to the fortissimo too soon.  So I alert the players of this pitfall and we work on it in advance. 

Notice the first violin part has a quarter note tied to the first of a group of four sixteenths. It is very easy to be late with those 16ths after holding the first note for one and a quarter beats.  Then of course those 16ths need to be clearly articulated so that everybody is playing exactly together, else it just sounds sloppy.

Beneath that line, the second violinists and violists are playing very fast sixteenth notes and they have to be perfectly even and coordinated within the sections.

That is just a few measures of music!  There are 347 measures in the Egmont alone and 16 different instrumental lines going on at once.

Vytautas Marijosius, my conducting professor, used to call the conductor primus inter pares--first among equals.  What I have discovered in my years with all kinds of ensembles is that a conductor is problem solver and orchestra is a group of people who want to make music together. They want to create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.  It is the ultimate collaboration built on faith and trust, to create something beautiful that goes beyond our expectations.

I once heard a leader described as someone who convinces you to do what you already knew should be done.  That’s my vision of a conductor, a musical sherpa--someone who trusts his or her players and in turn earns their trust.  It’s a far cry from the prevailing mythology of conducting.  I can’t think of anything more satisfying than revisiting a piece I thought I knew and hearing something totally fresh and new within.  No huge ego called for in that kind of transaction—more a large dose of humility!

                                                                                             Lawrence Davis