I’m so used to writing about musicians of the past that when dealing with one from the present I am given pause. I try to be especially mindful about intruding on someone else’s privacy, particularly when it concerns a medical matter. But this was posted on social media over a week ago, by the subject himself, so it’s had plenty of time to circulate.
Kile Smith is a hell of a nice guy. He’s generous, he’s insightful, he’s clever, he’s funny, and he’s real. And he’s so damn talented – as a composer, a writer, a photographer, and probably a lot else I don’t even know about.
Of course, he also has a great voice. Those of you who’ve listened to Philadelphia’s WRTI surely remember him as the founding host of “Discoveries from the Fleisher Collection,” which eventually he spun off into a podcast. Whenever he covered a live air shift, it always made my day. I am wishing him a speedy recovery, and I know you are too.
To add insult to injury, I missed his birthday on Sunday!
On Leonard Bernstein’s birthday, in line with all the Martinů posts that have appeared on this page over the past weeks, I’m sharing a link to this live concert performance from 1963 – unearthed by my most recent Bard Music Festival acquaintance, Mather Pfeiffenberger – of Bernstein conducting Martinů’s Concerto for String Quartet and Orchestra, featuring the Juilliard String Quartet. This is a work Bernstein never recorded commercially. How cool is that?
The program and notes have been archived on the New York Philharmonic website. The concert also included Peter Mennin’s “Concertato for Orchestra: Moby Dick.”
Bernstein took a master class with Martinů at Tanglewood in 1942.
Martinů not your bag? In 1965, Bernstein reunited with the Juilliard Quartet, this time as pianist, for my favorite recording of Schumann’s Piano Quintet in E-flat Major.
Happy birthday, Leonard Bernstein!
PHOTOS (clockwise from left): Signed photo of Bohuslav Martinů; Bernstein recording at the piano; Julliard String Quartet in 1962
One more post to mop up a few things I’d been meaning to address about the Bard Music Festival, and then I promise to try to find other things to talk about until next year’s schedule is announced in February.
One of the great challenges at Bard, when the only time one really seems to have to sit and focus is while actually attending concerts, is that there is very little opportunity to write while the festival itself is actually in progress. The rest of the time is taken up by travel and eating and sleeping and socializing. I lament all the observations and clever turns of phrases and natural flow between ideas that have been lost for the simple matter of not being able to drive and type at the same time. And no, despite any evidence to the contrary, I am not a great dictator. By that I mean, I am not the greatest extemporizer. For me, writing is more like sculpting. I am forever building up and chiseling away at the raw material. To converse with the actual Classic Ross Amico is a very different experience from reading him. You might say I am a life student of the Jimmy Stewart School of Articulation.
Then, of course, I also have other things I have to write about. I like to promote my radio shows, for instance, so that knocks out a couple of days a week. Occasionally I’ll even have an article due. I don’t know how I did it, back in the days when I had a weekly column, on top of sometimes multiple radio jobs.
At any rate – and thanks for hanging in there, as I am finally about to get around to the meat of the matter – there are just a few more details about my experiences at this year’s festival, “Martinů and His World,” I would like to share. These include a few photos of festival merch, which as I commented elsewhere, for whatever reason, was much diminished from previous years, when Rhinebeck’s Oblong Books offered tables of recordings for attendees to peruse and purchase. And despite the proliferation of streaming options, yes, people did buy. Classical music people are a breed apart; many of us still love physical media. By the end of the second weekend, the tables were always fairly well picked over.
This year, no Oblong, but there was still the tie-in volume of essays, “Martinů and His World,” edited by festival scholars-in-residence Michael Beckerman and Aleš Březina. Some of the unusual attractions include a section devoted Martinů’s operas, a recently discovered Martinů diary, and recollections from some who knew the composer during his years in the United States. The book is still available for order from University of Chicago Press and other fine booksellers (likely online).
Of course, there was also the festival t-shirt, which I’ve already mentioned, this year sporting one of the composer’s amusing self-caricatures, with his hedgehog-headed alter ego seated at the piano. A lavishly-illustrated 70-page festival program (free with ticket) is chock full of information and always a valued keepsake.
Attempting to fill the vacuum left by Oblong, in its more modest way, was the Bohuslav Martinů Foundation and Institute. There was a table of paraphernalia laid out to entice one to join the Martinů Society, along with some attractive books and, all too briefly, some of their in-house-produced CDs. I purchased one that includes “The Epic of Gilgamesh,” dating from 1959, the year of the work’s first performance. The recording features Marilyn Horne and Walter Berry (in great voice) and is conducted by Martinů champion Paul Sacher. Later, I googled this to learn that it is not available anywhere else. Nor were many of the other recordings, so now I regret not buying more. I would have loved to have heard some of the other historic material, a lot of which hasn’t even been uploaded to YouTube, and some of which is now, sadly, sold out even on the Martinu Foundation website.
I am saving the best for last, as I often meet interesting people at the festival, but none more compatible than Mather Pfeiffenberger, next to whom fate seated me while I was shoveling down a wan Bard wrap outside one of the venues in my desperation for some sustenance between events. Mather is extraordinarily knowledgeable. It’s rare that I meet anyone with whom I can communicate so freely, on every level, about music. We share a language of refined geekdom that, in my experience, is quite beyond the capacity of your average classical music weirdo.
In two years, Bard will be tackling “Gershwin and His World,” so somehow he and I got to talking about American music. It turns out that Mather has done quite a bit of radio work himself, at WHRB, Harvard. I’ve looked at some of his playlists, and I assure you he is first-rate. In fact, there was plenty of stuff I wasn’t familiar with, especially some of the historic recordings I didn’t even know existed, that I wouldn’t mind checking out myself. Furthermore, the guy’s interviewed Aaron Copland and harassed Walter Piston for autographs (twice).
In the words of Rick Blaine, this looks like the beginning of a beautiful friendship. A lively correspondence began almost immediately and has been full of enlightening information and links to, again, audio files I didn’t even know existed. I don’t think I flatter myself in saying I have held my own in reciprocation. I’ve been very busy in the week since my return from Bard – in fact the reason I wasn’t able to finish writing this and get it posted this morning was because I had to be on the road yet again – but I look forward to learning and listening to more.
Next year at Bard: “Mozart and His World” – and as I say, in 2027, Gershwin!
BONUS: I’d been sitting on this video for many months, hoping to share, but then forgot all about it. It’s a performance of Martinů’s vigorous and optimistic “Bergerettes,” presented, incongruously, film noir style. Enjoy!
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