jwg

I went to a great private school - Dalton School in NYC - 1st through 8th grades. There were lots of music activities there - singing and dancing mostly but some playing too. I got to try out a violin a few times. I remember there were Rhythms classes where we moved to music. In about 6th grade they hired a very dynamic choral director, Harold Aks, and that was lots of fun - I still remember singing It's a me o Lord - very loudly. And we did square dancing. I remember in 3rd and 4th grade going on week long trips to a farm/camp in Otis, Massachusetts and we did square dancing there. Among other things I got to milk a cow there. By a strange coincidence that camp is where Robert rsc went during summers - it is no longer operational. At Dalton we had what was called Assembly every week in the auditorium and someone got to play the piano while people were entering the hall. I got to do it a few times.

My parents weren't very interested in classical music but wanted to support me. We had a record changer that played albums of '78s - strange having breaks in the middle of a symphony movement. They took me to occasional concerts. And I remember once when I was quite young going on my own to Carnegie Hall to hear Walter Gieseking, a well-known pianist of the times. And he played about 10 encores at the end! When LPs started becoing popular I had a record player/changer in my room. I remember going to Sam Goody's, a discount record store with huge collections, many times to buy records.

I got interested in playing the piano and started in about 3rd grade at Dalton. And soon after I took some piano lessons - I remember the teacher's name: Mrs. Stretch. And my parents bought a piano - a Sohmer spinet. Sixty Progressive Piano Pieces You Like to Play was the book I used in early days - and I still have my copy! The picture above is a couple of pages with my artwork.

Later I had a new teacher, Richard Willens. He was really good - he had aspired to be a concert pianist but found it too much pressure to perform in front of audiences. I still have some of the music books - Schumann, Haydn (paper in the Haydn too dried out to actually use), and others. I don't remember when I started but stayed with him through high school. Once when he thought I was losing interest in music we worked on Carmen - playing some of the parts and then he took me to the Met (the Old Met) to see it). And he took me back stage to meet Zinka Milanov, who was Carmen. Carmen remains my favorite Opera - paetly because I worked on learning so much of it. We've seen it 4 times in the past year in the MetOpera nightly shows. I still have my ancient recording of Carmen with Rise Stevens at the Met - she sung the role there many times for many years.

And coincidentally we usually have classical music radio on and the thing being played while typing part of this was Schumann's Arabeske - one of the pieces I used to play.

rsc and I had a wonderful trip to NYC. We went down by Amtrak on Wednesday, stayed in the Fairfield Inn and Suites - right next to Penn Station, and returned by Amtrak on Sunday.

On Wednesday night we went to the Met to see Aida. What a wonderful production: great sets, staging, and costumes - and fine singing as well. There were no elephants on stage, but there were some horses including one that was very overactive. (There were a couple of elephant tusks).


On Thursday we went to MOMA to see the Henri Matisse; The Cut-Outs exhibit. I hadn't known about his technique: he painted bright colored gouache onto to white paper, cut out shapes with scissors and pinned them on the background which gave him opportunity to adjust the composition. It is rare that an artist can use a helper like that.Then when he liked it, he glued the shapes onto the background material - very clever. There was lots of explanation and a short film of him doing it. At one point he was sitting in a chair and pointing to his assistant as to where to pin the shape. It is there until Feb 8 next year.


That evening we went to see Gone Girl, an interesting movie.

On Friday we walked down the entire High Line - starting at the newly opened Interim Walkway at 34th st. The High LIne is such a brilliant reuse of an old structure - lots of people were there and the plantings were in excellent shape. It seems to be well funded - we saw lots of works there tending the plantings. And then lunch with a classmate of Robert's. In the evening we went to Village Contra, the NYC gender free contra dance (that for the moment isn't in the village while the LGBT Center is being reconstructed). I'd forgotten to bring a skirt - but a quick trip to Goodwill earlier in the day found a nice one - although a bit too big so it will need some adjustments. And a bunch of us met up afterward at the Stage Door Deli (almost next door to our hotel) and 2 blocks from the dance.

On Saturday we went to the Frick Museum and to the Central Park Zoo. Although I lived about 3 blocks from the Frick for many years - middle and high school - I had never been there. It is a mansion turned into a museum with a number of very fine works. I used to go to the Zoo with my mother when I was little kid. It was different then - I think there was a smelly monkey house and lions, etc. in small cages. It is much more humane now. There was a snow leopard exhibit outdoors but we never did see any of the snow leopards. Dinner was at Paulo's, a fine italian restaurant near the concert hall. And for the evening we went to see Jeremy Denk, a most excellent pianist, at the 92St Y auditorium. The program Haydn sonata, a potpourri of Schubert intermixed with Janáček where parts of the Janáček themes were related/suggested by the Schubert; the second half was Mozart's K511 Rondo (which we had heard Richard Goode playing a week before) and Schumann's Carnivale.

We returned on Sunday.

I just saw a FaceBook post by a friend about the demolition of the original Metropolitan Opera House.



I recall going to my first opera there and saw Carmen - probably about 1955. (The Opera House was torn down in 1966). Zinka Milanov was the Carmen. After the opera my piano teacher took me backstage to see her.

I wasn't absolutely sure that it was Milanov but I googled my piano teacher and found this: The Community Concert Association presents Zinka Milanov, prima donna soprano, Metropolitan Opera Association ; assisted by Richard Wilens at the piano : [programme]. So they clearly knew each other - and now I am sure it was Milanov. My piano teacher had given up concertizing because he said it was too nerve-racking.

Tonight we went to the Boston Lyric Opera production of Der Kaiser von Atlantis (BLO called it The Emperor of Atlantis or Death Quits and sung it in English).

It was written by Viktor Ullman in 1943 while he was a prisoner in Teresienstadt. Apparently lots of musicians were sent there - there were two symphony orchestras. It was never performed there. In 1944 Ullman and many others who were working on the performance were sent to Auschwitz and killed several days after. The score was found many years later.

It is a rather terrifying opera done in a very avant guard fashion which includes how you are greeted when you arrive and what the theatre looks like inside. We went to a talk-back after it and it was clear that the Director, David Schweizer, is quite brilliant and there was an interesting process of interaction between him, the actors and the set/sound/lighting designers. The acting was really superb.

There is a good writeup about the opera here.
It's being repeated the 4, 5, and 6th. I don't know if this production will be done anywhere else.