A Long Summer ...full of work and memories

I am just finishing up six months at home without any trips anywhere! I had to admit it
was the very first time in 50 years that I had spent the entire summer in Columbia. I guess that makes me practically a native son. I did this by choice. Since retiring I have added up almost 20 trips to Europe, and almost all have included stays in the UK. After coming home from Holland and England in March 2014, I felt it was time to pay attention to my house and garden, and to go through personal items I want to pass on to family and friends. Its very liberating getting rid of things...or should I say "treasures", as everything I have in this house brings a memory. About half my music library has been passed on, and another section of it has been sorted, and it is ready to depart. I have kept a basic library, but I have to admit I had to buy new copies of Bach and Beethoven, as mine were in a fragile state. I love passing on music, much of which was passed on to me over the years.

We had a lush early summer, and only in late August did it offer a few oppressive days near 100 degrees...just enough to remind us what it is like. I often think of all the summers I taught the first summer term. It always seemed to be the hottest when I would offer a workshop for pianists. Many times we faced high temperatures going to and fro, but thankfully the AC always functioned, so we were comfortable. I often had a group of teachers from the upstate, and that was nice, as most people from the upstate thought of USC in those days as a Den of Iniquity. I remember one day during class I was demonstrating the use of arm weight, going into all sorts of contortions to get the idea across. One nice lady from Greenville offered to be the guinea pig, so she sat at the piano, and obviously had a lot of good solid knowledge, as she played with complete physical freedom and made a gorgeous sound. I was thrilled, and said "Virginia, you are the LOOSEST WOMAN in South Carolina!" I was the perfect example of speak first and think later. To this day I still get a Christmas Card signed "the Loosest Woman in S.C. Love, Virginia."

Jan Luyken Straat - Amsterdam

Being in Amsterdam recently after 45 years away was both a shock and familiar
at the same time. I was impressed with the fact that the Dutch character is unchanged, a mixture of love of place, value for value, and wry humor. Its obvious the Dutch love their country, and live outdoors as much as possible. Bicycles are still everywhere, and one learns quickly to not step into a bike lane with an absent mind. The renovated Rijks Museum, closed for ten years, is open again, and greets the public with fabulous public spaces, tasteful displays of art, and the feeling of being in an extremely well run and loved place.

All this brought back a clear memory of playing in the Concertgebouw Recital Room in 1969. I was staying with a very supportive family in Eindhoven for a few days, and then
moved up to Amsterdam into a very strange hotel not far from the hall. The room I was given turned out to be under a staircase, and all night long I heard footsteps over my head, making for very little sleep. The next morning I walked around the neighborhood, and came upon a very small hotel in a row of houses on Jan Luyken Straat. There was only a very small plaque by the door, and after I rang the bell, the door opened, but
as is the case in most houses like this in Amsterdam, the person opening the door was
standing at the top of a rather steep set of stairs. The door was opened by pulling a lever, which opened the door below. I asked if there was a free room, and she said yes, come on up and see for yourself. I said I was up the street in a terrible room, and needed absolute quiet. We went to the attic room on the back side, and there I found the most wonderful atmosphere, with a double window looking down on the gardens below.
No one would walk over my head in this room.

The lady who ran this place lived in a small apartment on the first floor, and in the late afternoon, early evening, she kept her door open to greet guests, and offer a glass of sherry. She was interested in my career, and I gave her two free tickets for my "show". She came with a friend, and afterwards she served small sandwiches and wine as we sat around and went over the evening.

I stayed there a couple of more times, before she left to retire on the Costa del Sol
in Spain. She had a devoted clientele, many being business men and women from Hungary, Romania and Austria.

When I was leaving the Rijks Museum, the streetcar passed Jan Luyken Straat, and I
could see the gardens I use to gaze down on from my attic room. Today the old place is a very posh boutique hotel with steep prices. I wonder what my lady would think of that!

What I Learned from Pete Seeger

How curious can life be? Just Monday my nephew called wanting info on Howard Hanson.
He was going to introduce one of the Air Force bands on a concert swing this week, and
wanted to know if I had any bit of musical information that might make his comments on
Hanson"s "Romantic Symphony" more interesting for his audiences. Somehow I made a comparison between Howard Hanson and Thomas Hart Benton, the great artist from Missouri. I said they were part of the group that put a face on the Arts in mid- 20th Century America. By that I meant Howard Hanson had enormous reach as both composer and educator, much the same as Tom Benton, who taught at the Kansas City Art Institute, but also became an internationally revered artist.

Thinking about Thomas Hart Benton, I reached back in memory to the early 1950's when I
knew his daughter Jessie, mostly through a madrigal group formed at the University of Kansas City by my teacher Virginia French Mackie. Jessie was still in high school, but
Mrs. Mackie was a great friend on her mother and father, and suggested Jessie might like a bit more musical exposure. Jessie was quite clever with the guitar, and she conned me into being part of her backup group for a performance of folk songs at the River Club, a very posh KC club of wealthy business leaders. I was pretty woeful in this role, but Jessie was so charming and talented, so I went along with it.

We went to rehearse at her home, and Tom was in the living room with his guest Pete Seeger. Seeper was sprawled on the floor with his five string banjo, letting loose with the most wonderful songs, and Tom had his big glass of bourbon, looking very much the master at home. Rita Benton insisted we see the house, and Tom's studio in the back yard. Its now a museum run by the Missouri Division of Parks and Recreation.

Jessie had no fear of anything, and before we knew it, we were singing "Across the Wide Missouri", and Pete joined in, but being such a gentleman, didn't try to hog the show. When we got to the famous line, singing "Mis sou RI " so prettily, there suddenly was this huge interruption from Tom, who bellowed at the top of his voice, "damn it, it's MIS-SOU-RAH!!" I had always heard Tom Benton was a rugged individualist, and this proved the point.

A dear friend from high school and college posed for Tom as Laurie, when he illustrated "Green Grow the Lilacs" with his wonderful etchings. Most of you will recognize this work as the basis for "Oklahoma!" by Rogers and Hammerstein. His murals were all around Kansas City, including the USC Campus, Helxberg's Department Store, and later, the Truman Libraty. Next year the Metropolitan Museum of Art with display their new acquisition of one of his most famous murals.

To come back to my theme of co-incidence, just this past Monday Pete Seeger died in New York City at the age of 94. His mother was the fine American composer Ruth Crawford Seeger, and I often taught a suite of piano pieces by her, and always told the student about Pete Seeger. You must read his obits, as they are wonderfully written, and tell a great American Story.

So what did I learn from Pete Seeger? I heard the most wonderfully direct type of singing, by someone who lived every note and believed every word. He was a Great American.

THE PIGEON STEINWAY

When I first came to the University of South Carolina in 1964 I auditioned in the old
recital room on the third floor of McMaster College. I have few clear memories of that
day, but I remember that the windows were wide open, as there was no air conditioning, and it was a very warm day in late April. The stage was tiny, but there was a rather sedate old Steinway piano, plus the organ console, and a lectern for classes. All those Steinways of a certain vintage had firm actions, so I was streaming with sweat when I finished, of course dressed in coat and tie. Everyone but me was use to the heat, and I particularly remember Dr. Hugh Williamson in his grey striped seersucker coat and bow tie, looking dapper and completely unfazed by me or the weather.

This memory set me to thinking about how all our Steinways came to roost in the(then) USC Department of Music. There had not been any new Steinways in a long time by 1964. I can visually see 6 grands in my mind's eye, all already vintage. I remember I inherited Dr. Williamson's studio, and he had a decent old Steinway, again very stiff in action, and another one that was rather battered. Dr.Williamson and Madame Trembly-Baker were the two piano professors at that time, and Dr. David (Dode) Phillips was teaching class piano.Fufure piano professors Charles Fugo, Max Camp, John Williams and Raymond Dudley were not to begin appearing until much later. I had accepted my new job with the offer of a brand new Steinway, but it took about two years before it appeared. Not long after that, yet another one came, and I absolutely loved it, and kept it until we moved into the new school some 30 years later. By the time we moved out of the old building we had built up to about 17 Steinway grands, and 2 upright Steinways. Some were so old and worn they were sold in a sale, and the choir room Steinway, which figures in this story, brought the highest price. I could not make myself go to the sale...too many memories.

It seems we were always moving pianos around, and I even let my nicest Steinway be moved a couple of times for special events. Eventually Fraser Hall was built, and we had two Steinway concert grands there. Can you imagine maintaining these instruments with the antique heating system in McMaster, to say nothing of the inadequate air conditioning, at that time all window units, except for Fraser Hall. One day not long after I arrived, I was driving down Devine Street and saw a small air conditioner in a display window, a new type unit for casement windows. I had a very tall, narrow window in one corner of my room, and it fit snugly into it, and could not have been any bigger than 15'by 15'. I let it run year round, and it did the trick of cooling my studio, which had enormously high ceiling and was large enough to hold classes. My Steinways started to settle in, and the only real bumps were the seasonal changes from heat to air conditioning,the heat from ancient radiators being especially variable. I remember Robyn Gibson came to visit and brought a humidity gauge, and my room proved to be 0 humidity on a cold winter day. "Just like the desert", I remember her saying.

During the summer of 1985 I was building my home in Hopkins, so I had moved into an apartment near the university for the duration. I had to practice at school, as my Steinway was in storage at Rice Music House. So, I suddenly was at school hours on end, almost everyday for six months. I would often be there on the weekend, when no else was particularly about. The building was always open until late, and even then hard to secure. I would go about closing windows in classrooms, and particularly seemed to be forever closing windows in the choir room, which had many, many tall ones. There was in the choir room a very nice old Steinway grand, and it never seemed to go badly out of tune. Sometimes I would practice on it. Grant Johanneson came to play, and he discovered it also, and inquired if it might be possible to acquire it! So a real seal of approval was awarded to it.

Imagine my dismay when I came into the room one hot July night and found a PIGEON nesting in the Steinway. I thought the term was "Pigeons on the Grass, Alas, Alas", but it turned out to be "Pigeon on the Steinway, Alas, Alas", apologies to Gertrude Stein...no pun intended. Too bad her name was not Gertrude Steinway. Alas. Alas.

Update all this to the planning stages of the USC School of Music around 1992. After so many years of striving to preserve our pianos, I was determined to get as full a quota of new Steinways as possible. I remember the piano faculty were all in agreement, but Charles Fugo, the piano coordinator at that time, sent me to talk to the Purchasing Office, to make the pitch. I remember his laughing about it and saying, "John, you know how to talk to those people". So off I went, presenting my request for two new Steinway concert grands, 9 Steinway 7' pianos for the four piano studios, and one for the pedagogy studio. Other pianos were also needed for classrooms and studios. "Pie in the Sky" was the comment from the budget director. He told me we had to divide the piano order into various companies, and go for the lowest bids; no way could we purchase all those Steinways.

I went back to the piano faculty, and we were rather at loose ends over the whole situation. Be as it may, particularly when dealing with The State of South Carolina, an
event came to past that reversed that decision. USC had just invested millions in a huge new system wide computer system. We were in the midst of registration the following year, when suddenly the whole new system crashed. There was all the faculty once again registering thousands of students by hand, a long, tedious operation. The South Carolina Legislature changed the state's bidding process, and allowed the purchase of top of the line products under certain situations. I am sure there was great consternation that second rate computers had been purchased. The heavens parted, and I received a call from the USC Purchasing Office to come back again. I did, original request in hand, and suddenly it was a whole new ballgame. We could have all our Steinways, and also several Baldwin 7' grands, plus (at first) a whole platoon of uprights from Mason and Hamlin, a small studio piano that both Charles Fugo and I went to play and found to be a very nice instrument. Unfortunately, the company suddenly went into bankruptcy, and we had to scramble, settling on Yamaha uprights. We still had
to divide the order between several piano makers, but it was a triumph to get all
those Steinway pianos.

Bids were sent out, and Charles and John Williams went to Arkansas to pick out the
Baldwins, and then I joined them for the trip to New York City to pick out all the
Steinways, at the factory on Long Island, and the showroom on W.57th Street in Mannhattan. Sadly, Max Camp was very ill at the time, and unable to travel. He trusted us to pick the three that he would need. The bid was won by Fox Music in Charleston, and Mr.Fox and his charming wife joined us for the weekend. He provided limos with drivers to take us everywhere, and we did feel like VIP's. Steinway personnel had some good laughs over "John William and John Adams" gracing their showrooms...!

Once selected, the pianos were placed in storage, I believe in Kentucky, for the wait until the new building was ready. I have a vivid memory of playing the Steinway I selected on the first round of selecting. It had the rich sound I loved, and the action was not so light. It was in a corner, next to a portrait of Rachmaninoff. I felt he
approved, and it only took a few notes for me to make the final decision. I was pleased when Joe Rackers mentioned to me how much he loves that piano, so I told him the Rachmaninoff bit. Unfortunately Max Camp died shortly after we moved in, so he never
got to experience his pianos. The last time I spoke with him, he asked if we were holding his pianos until he could come back. A very sad note. indeed.

Inquiring recently about the current number of Steinways currently in the USC School of Music, the total was 28 grands and 2 uprights. No new Steinways have arrived since I left in 2004, but a friend of mine did donate her wonderful vintage Steinway in 2000 to the school, and of course, there is the Women's Symphony Steinway, purchased in the early years of the S.C. Philharmonic. I played the Dedication Recital on this Steinway. I must not fail to mention my own magnificent Steinway concert grand, a former CD piano reserved for Steinway Artists, that I purchased from Rice Music House around 1980. It actually came from Fox Music House and was housed in Galliard Auditorium. Arthur Rubinstein was one of the immortals who played it. I am proud to have spurred on this great collection, and hope USC will continue to make wise choices.

What Ever Happened to.....POISE!

It is hard to pick up a music magazine
or visit a musical website today and
not be confronted with an article about
various types of remedies for pain free
performance, no matter what the instrument.
This is a phenomenon of modern times,
perhaps aggravated by the pace of living
we must adapt to today, and by
demands of ever increasing displays of
virtuosity, speed and volume, at least for some.

So much stress does lead to physical meltdowns, both physically and mentally.
Musical stress usually creeps up slowly over a period of time, only becoming noticeable
when it has already formed into a habit. Everyone knows bad habits are hard to change, but first you have to recognize the particular habits that need attention.

The great detector in playing the piano is the EAR. The ear judges the quality of
sound you are making and makes countless assessments of tonal color, attack, duration,
volume, and endless other components in the total picture. Certainly the aesthetics of
sound lie at the heart of most physical problems that result in poor judgments and
lack of musical direction while practicing.If you have no tonal ideal in your inner hearing, then you have no direction in just what you might need to apply to get a musical result. In other words, you are probably looking for a cure before trying to identify the disease.

I think the underlying cause of so much tension in musical performance today results from failing to differentiate musical tension from physical tension. Musical tension is the result of endless study of the ebb and flow of the harmonic structures and formal considerations that give the music at hand its very life.Translating all this information to the actual execution of the music is a long process, and one that most are unwilling to go through. Many times pianists get so caught up in the music emotionally they fail to address the physical side properly, and this leads eventually to real physical problems. I have often observed still wrists, stiff arms, and stiff shoulders, yet students can be bound and dtermined to play the most demanding music at any cost. Often they are so use to that tense state of being, the introduction of any new information about relataton techniques can be viewed with suspicion.

Physical tension is the initiating of effort to physically bring force (weight) to bear upon the action of the keys. As in all things physical, tension has to be immediately followed by a release of tension. Injury and distress results from misdirecting the timing of basic motor impluses in trying to bring the musical ideas to life.In basic piano technique this can be noted when one fails to aim for the "tone Spot" in the key, resulting in continuing to press against the bottom of the key...a fault commonly referred to as "keybedding". It is important to discover that nothing happens after the initial contact of the hammer with the string (other than a slow decaying of the sound).. hence the ability to time one's attack to just that initial point of sound means that a physical cessation of impluse must occur the split second the intended sound is heard. All it takes to keep the key down is just the smallest amount of finger pressure.

Learning to listen to oneself is a lifelong project. In musical terms it means the most exact attention to connecting one sound to the next sound, and making sure what you are hearing fits into the overall direction of the musical phrase.


Real life teaches us the basics of tension and release with our every waking moments. Just to breathe means you let the lungs tense to inhale and relax to exhale. The foot has to make the effort to move forward and make contact with the ground, yet automatically relax instantly after impact, ready to strike again. There is no going forward without the joint effort of tension and resolution.

Preparation is the key to good habits at the keyboard. This means one will need to go
through the process of continually sorting out just what actions will result in a good result, and vice versa, just what actions will lead to distress. This is where taste and discrimination enter the scene. What are the demands of the score? What decisions about mood, character and tonal effects have to be considered? What technical challenges leap off the page, whetting your appetite to find a way to conquer them? What physical endurance questions need to be sorted through? Indeed the challenges are great, and a road map might get you where you want to go, rather than just ambling along, hoping for miracles en route.

What is so disappointing today is that so much information about developing a stress free,resilient and lasting technique has been around for a long time. Tobias Matthay was a genius, no doubt, in that he made great discoveries in the theories of relaxation. His problem in getting his ideas down concisely was partly the result of a rather stilted Victorian style of writing, so tangled and confusing for many readers today. I made an intense study of Matthay's "The Act of Touch" many years ago when I first started teaching. Under the thickets of dense language with many repetitions was the bones of
a deep understandment of the laws of tension and resolution in all their many forms. He later successfully condensced all this into the more concise "The Visible and Invisible in Piano Technique", one of the touchstones of piano pedagogy.

It is unfortunate that so many teachers and performers distrusted Matthay's ideas, somehow not able to bridge the gap between understanding the laws of tension and resolution and their application. Just like the study of ballet, or anything thing related to physical effort, you have to place yourself under the guidance of a teacher who knows how to transmit all this information into practical solutions. The transmitting
of these ideas is based on the absorption of the SENSATIONS felt physically when one does them correctly, as judged by the highest laws for musical taste and feeling. In other words, Word has to be made Flesh.

I personally remember vividly when I returned to the USA after two years of study with Hilda Dederich, who went to Matthay when she was eight years old and remained with him until his death half a century later. When I mentioned Matthay, pianists would say things like "I suppose you play with the floating elbow", or "How do you find the energy to play if you are supposedly so relaxed?" What they failed to recognize was the
fact that relaxation is a BASIS, not a movement superficially applied. What ever happened to that wonderful word "POISED". Once you start your car motor, it is poised for action. You don't have to restart it at every street corner (unless it is a clunker!). Relaxation is a state of being poised for action. I guess if I said the snake is poised to strike I might get your attention! If I said I was POISED to play DOUBLE FORTISSIMO you might jump back is anticipation of the blow. IN sum, you must be poised
physically to do anything correctly at the keys, and it is this state of poise that allows you to apply just that amount of energy you need to bring your musical vision to light.

Having taught my share of talent the past decades, I can say that few students arrive with any organized way of thinking about how they are going about their craft. That is not to say they are not musical, or lack a sense of direction. The most talented have drive, practice for hours and without doubt want to play the hardest pieces right away. They have PASSION in other words. Such zeal is often the culprit unfortunately. It drives one to only play with all systems on full steam ahead. I fell into this category
just as I entered high school. It took a long time to realize I had to learn how to separate my head and heart, otherwise I spent all my energy going in circles. One revered teacher told me quite pointedly that I must learn to practice part of the time UNEMOTIONALLY! At first I thought that was a terrible piece of advice. Time has taught me the wisdom of it, and it changed my whole approach.

With the door opening on a whole new vista, I realized i could spend quite a lot of time playing at a greatly reduced volume and speed. This allowed me more space, and I could begin to attend to so many musical details. I began to plan instead of just reacting to my gut emotions all the time. I think real listening begins at this stage. You begin to notice the smallest details, and how they fit into the whole. You learn also how to feel your way into difficulties that need to be sorted through. I found sound became something
mallable in my hands, arms, and back. I began to sit up at the keyboard, which also helped me to have a sense of taking everything in, instead of sitting with my head in the keys. I remember vividly something Myra Hess said in a conversation with me in 1960. She said if I played a chord with great force, there was a reaction not only towards the keyboard, but an EQUAL one coming back towards me. I had to learn to deal with that. She illustrated this by having me push against the piano as if I wanted to move it. I felt what she wanted immediately. It was a big effort, and I had to release my tension
immediately or just fall over half paralyzed. She ended up saying that she always felt the piano key as an extension of her body, and not just an obstacle to overcome.

Archimedes said, "Give me the proper leverage and I can lift the world". Perhaps in the final result, piano playing is all about the correct use of leverage, doling out just the proper amount of energy to do the job at hand. If you fill your lessons with observations of what we do naturally with our bodies all day long, perhaps you will find just the right kind of descriptive language to make it clear to your students how to play the piano.

Playing for Chedworth August 2013

It had been sixteen years since I played in the old Norman village of Chedworth, Gloucestershire.The beautiful Saint Andrew's Church was the setting for a benefit concert for the recently established Chedworh Society, raising funds for the fabric of the church and other preservation goals of this ancient village. I played a program of Brahms, Schubert Debussy and Jerome Kern for a full house of very appreciative listeners. Afterwards a reception was held in the garden of the Manor House, in full mid-summer bloom. I had quite a few friends from London and one couple from Scotland,recently relocating to Cirencester, just a few miles away.

I first came to Chedworth in 1969 as a guest of Ruth Croome, a longtime London friend. I dedicated the concert to her memory, and tried to select music I knew she would love. Ruth was a great friend of the village, and took a particular interest in the local school, knowing well it was important to keep such a good school going in such a small place. Now the Cotswolds are world famous, and much of the property is owned by people who come down for the weekend. But it is still basically a farming area, and when I was there they were just beginning to harvest the huge grain fields on the surrounding hills. The village has a wonderful community hall, and supports a choir, a brass ensemble and a bell ringing group at the church. Although just an hour and a half from London by car,the area seems far more remote, and rather lost in time...a valued virtue in this day and age.

A local resident remarked that I had been coming to Chedworth longer than many in the audience, which gave me rather a start. I managed to raise 1200 British Pounds for the
Chedwoth Society, much to the delight of the organizers. It was my great pleasure to do so. Ruth would have been proud.

PHTO: Christine Matthews, Copyright by permission

Carolina Spring 2013

If you garden in this climate one thing is certain: UNCERTAINY! This has been a double barreled spring this year. A rather damaging frost in early April did more damage than at first ascertained. The result was many small trees and shrubs had to gather forces and produce a second wave of leaves. Natural pruning was the result, and Japanese maples seem to have thicker foliage than normal, plus a much darker leaf color. Azaleas bloomed here on Horrell Hill at unusual times, one bush blooming twice, making for May azaleas. My rhododendrums were spectacular, the best in 25 years. They take some care in this area, our being just outside their zone. But wilh regular watering they can and do survive. We are also about 450 feet up, so we are a micro climate that tolerates plants like this.

I found the spring to be just as erratic on a visit to London this May. When I arrived on May 15 the trees in Green Park were just coming out, and lilac trees were in full bloom. London parks are always feasts of color whatever the season, and flower beds aong the paths were particularly colorful this year. The Chelsea Flower Show finished this past Saturday, and I saw people carrying home plants of all sizes down Kings Road, one lady carrying a rose bush of huge porportions onto a bus. No doubt the passengers ducked. London always amazes me in the sense that it is a collection of villages, and village life in one of the largest cities on earth is thriving.