Election results still got you down? Have you tried thinking about the quantity of shrimp consumed in Las Vegas? (Part 2)

Part 2: Bring on the shrimp!

That's right, it's about time we talked shrimp.

"Since the election, I sometimes wake up at three or four in the morning, disturbed by dark thoughts, and when that happens I try my best to think of the surprising amount of shrimp consumed in Las Vegas every day. We all have our own way of dealing with this thing."

-- Calvin Trillin, in "Counting Shrimp," in the Jan. 16 New Yorker

by Ken

Okay, it's time to talk shrimp.

Last night we tried one way of dealing with the reality of that, you know, gentleman with the orange hair who is scheduled to swear an incredible oath before the week is over to become the leader of the, you know, Free World. We tried Google's proffered solution of denial, at least insofar as it can be managed via the Chrome browser, through the substitution of pictures of kittens for those of, well, you-know-who.

Well enough for those for whom the trick works. But some of us were left in need, and to plug the need we turned to that paragon of wisdom, Calvin Trillin, who in his New Yorker "Shouts and Murmurs" piece "Counting Shrimp" described his strategy -- what I would tend to call "changing the subject" -- as "what might be called replacement denial":

In order to avoid dwelling on a depressing or disturbing subject -- the sort of subject that can keep you from falling back asleep -- you concentrate on a subject that is so engrossing that it can drive the depressing subject from your mind.

SO WHAT'S THE DEAL WITH THE SHRIMP?

You're probably thinking that it quickly came to Calvin T, in a blinding flash: shrimp consumption in Las Vegas. Not so, however. First he went through a number of other "replacement denial" candidates:

• "the ramifications of a similarly surprising fact: the largest state east of the Mississippi, in land area, is Georgia"



But alas, "diverting ramifications were not forthcoming." He came up with just one: "that people who are asked to name the largest state east of the Mississippi tend to say that it’s Pennsylvania or Florida -- both states won by the man I was trying to put out of my mind."

• "the fact that Edna St. Vincent Millay's middle name is not an old family name, as people tend to assume; she was named for St. Vincent's Hospital, in Greenwich Village"



This worked for "a moment or two," but then left him search[ing] my mind for other poets with buildings in their names."


The poet's family would presumably have known this view (though it presumably looked better in 1892, when young Edna was born), but while a number of the buildings of the former St. Vincent's Hospital and Medical Center have been repurposed, the hospital itself is history.

• "a few more geographical surprises"



The one example we're given: "that the second most populous city in Illinois is Aurora."

Aurora, a suburb of Chicago, is a city predominantly in Kane County and DuPage County, with portions extending into Kendall and Will counties. It is located in the outer region of Greater Chicago in the U.S. state of Illinois. It is the second most populous city in the state,[3] and the 114th most populous city in the country.[4] The population was 197,899 at the 2010 census, and was estimated to have increased to 199,963 by July 2013.[5]

Once a mid-sized manufacturing city, Aurora has grown tremendously since the 1960s. Founded within Kane County, Aurora's city limits and population have since expanded into DuPage, Will, and Kendall counties. Between 2000 and 2003, the U.S. Census Bureau ranked Aurora as the 34th fastest growing city in the United States.[6] From 2000 to 2009, the U.S. Census Bureau ranked the city as the 46th fastest growing city with a population of over 100,000.[7]

In 1908, Aurora officially adopted the nickname "City of Lights," because it was one of the first cities in the United States to implement an all-electric street lighting system in 1881.[8] Aurora's historic downtown is located on the Fox River, and centered on Stolp Island. The city is divided into three regions, The West Side, located on the west side of the Fox River, The East Side, located between the eastern bank of the Fox River and the Kane/DuPage County line, and the Far East Side/Fox Valley, which is from the County Line to the city's eastern border with Naperville.

The Aurora area is home to an impressive collection of architecture, including structures by Frank Lloyd Wright, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Bruce Goff and George Grant Elmslie. The Hollywood Casino Aurora, a dockside gaming facility with 53,000 square feet (4,900 m2) and 1,200 gaming positions, is located on the river in downtown Aurora. Aurora is also home to a large collection of Sears Catalog Homes (over 50 homes) and Lustron all-steel homes (seven homes). . . .

-- Wikipedia (links onsite)

Frank Lloyd Wright? Mies van der Rohe? Designed stuff built right there in Aurora, IL? Wow! Who knew? Perhaps people from Illinois's Second City.

It's at this point that he "settled on shrimp consumption in Las Vegas." And I think you'll see why this quickly eclipsed Georgia, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and even Illinois's renowned City of Lights.


ALL RIGHT ALREADY, LAS VEGAS? SHRIMP?

Okay, okay. "I had acquired my knowledge of Las Vegas shrimp consumption," Calvin T explains,

from one of those interstitial statements that “PBS NewsHour” flashes on the screen to give viewers a sort of bonus fact about the segment they’ve just seen. What had flashed on the screen, after a segment that took place in Las Vegas but had nothing to do with shrimp, was this: “60,000 pounds of shrimp are consumed per day in Las Vegas, more than the rest of the country combined.”

On the first night I put that fact to use, I’d awakened at about 4 a.m., thinking, Could it really be that American children are going to be raised to look up to a coarse blowhard who has boasted about assaulting women?

“According to no less a source than PBS,” I replied to myself, “Las Vegas consumes more shrimp every day than the rest of the country combined.”

There was a slight delay. Was it working? Not yet, because this thought came into my mind: His appointments so far—people who are opposed to the mission of the departments they’re supposed to lead—seem to indicate an attempt to find a fox for every henhouse.

I countered with: “Where did that figure, sixty thousand pounds of shrimp, come from? It was confirmed, in an Internetish sort of way, by some sites with names like Fun Facts About Las Vegas.”

Maybe it's just as well to go with NewsHour for Vegas fun facts. PBS's may not be as much fun, but at least they don't have to do with "prostition," or the "Cirque Du Soliel."


CLOSE, BUT STILL NO SLEEP RESTORER



"Had I chased away the depressing thoughts?" Calvin T asks. "Not quite."

I could still envision him as President, giving out the Medal of Freedom to some beloved old television star. Instead of a few graceful remarks of the sort we came to expect on such occasions from, say, Obama or Reagan, he’s boasting that the ratings of the star’s show were nothing compared with the ratings of “The Apprentice,” which, he explains at length, was shafted by the Emmy Awards because the Emmy Awards are definitely rigged.

But, he says, he "was ready for that."

“Saying that more shrimp is consumed in Las Vegas than in the rest of the country is not like saying that more toasted ravioli is consumed in St. Louis than in the rest of the country,” I said to myself. “St. Louis is about the only place where people actually eat toasted ravioli, so that would make sense. But think of all the shrimp consumed in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Aurora.”

"BUT IMAGINING THAT MEDAL OF FREEDOM
CEREMONY HAD STARTED SOMETHING"

At this point Calvin T takes a step back, and then he's ready for the final sprint.

Now I could envision a state dinner for the President of France, during which, in the room where the cellist Pablo Casals played so memorably for the Kennedys, the guests are being entertained by a tag-team exhibition from World Wrestling Entertainment.

“And consider the shells,” I said to myself, even before the thump of huge men hitting the canvas faded. “There must be mountains of shrimp shells, piled on the desert like slag heaps in a played-out coal county. Let’s say that there are thirty or so shrimp to a pound. That means peeling two million shrimp every day.” I could envision the shrimp-peelers, probably paid by the shell, peeling and counting: “One million four hundred and eighty-six thousand five hundred and eleven . . . one million four hundred and eighty-six thousand five hundred and twelve . . .” Long before they got to two million, I was asleep.

Yes, once upon a time the great cellist, conductor, and humanitarian Pablo Casals -- seen here whispering to President Kennedy, with Mrs. Kennedy looking on -- played at the White House.

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Sunday Classics: Encores, part 1 -- Three legendary pianists

It makes a nifty encore too! Leonard Bernstein conducts his Overture to Candide, kicking off this December 1989 concert performance of the complete musical with the London Symphony Orchestra.

by Ken

As you may have guessed from Friday's preview ("Encore, encore!"), when we heard the great cellist János Starker play three prime encore pieces -- all, as it happened, arranged for cello and piano from other instrumental configurations. I didn't have a very clear idea Friday where exactly this post was headed, except that it would be all encores.

Okay, we're stretching a little with the above video clip, in which Leonard Bernstein conducts his Candide Overture at the start of a concert performance of the piece. But for easily understandable reasons, countless conductors -- including Lenny himself, as memory serves -- used the Candide Overture as a peerlessly rousing encore.

The thing about encores is that they often represent the artist at his/her most personal, whether they're designed to rouse, seduce, charm, or just plain ravish. It's such a large subject, however, that after initially deciding that we would deal only with instrumental encores, leaving the vast subject of vocal ones for another time, I decided to narrow it down even further, to piano encores, at least once we get to the click-through, where we're going to hear sets of encores from three of the 20th's century's greatest pianists-- two of them actual sets of encores from actual concerts, the third a selection of favorite encores of his made by the artist to fill out an LP side.

Before we go there, though, I though we might hear another encore-suitable piece, an arrangement of a traditional Catalan carol for cello and orchestra, which aims to stir listeners in a very different way.

CASALS (arr.): El Cant dels ocells (The Song of the Birds)


Prades Festival Orchestra, Pablo Casals, cello and cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded 1950


TO HEAR TODAY'S SELECTION OF ENCORES FROM
OUR THREE LEGENDARY PIANISTS, CLICK HERE

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Sunday Classics preview: Beethoven the spell-casting introducer

In the piano reduction we can see just how short the magical introduction to Beethoven's First Symphony really is. The performance is by the Cleveland Orchestra conducted by its then-music director, our old friend Christoph von Dohnányi.* (Our immediate interest is just the introduction, but feel free to listen to the whole first movement. It's a neat performance.)

*We've heard Dohnányi conducting, as I recall, Brahms's Double Concerto, Richard Strauss's Salome, Berg's Wozzeck, and his grandfather Ernst von Dohnányi's Variations on a Nursery Song.

by Ken

I'll explain tomorrow how I came to be thinking once again about the slow introductions Beethoven wrote for four of his nine symphonies. But they're some of his most treasurable music. As we've had frequent occasion to note, the great composers of the classical era loved every now and then to seize the opportunity to preface a typical symphonic allegro with a slow introduction.

It's an adorable bit of misdirection, for one thing, playing with the listener's expectations -- even outright teasing, as Beethoven did when he finally ventured a symphony, having already produced a substantial body of music in a wide range of forms. But it's also an opportunity to create an episode of special lyrical beauty in its own right.

I thought it would be fun to listen just to those four amazing introductions, so that's what we're going to do in the click-through.


TO HEAR BEETHOVEN CAST HIS INTRODUCTORY
SPELLS, CLICK HERE

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Sunday Classics: "Brandenburg"s for the holidays, Part 1

The Freiburg Baroque Orchestra gives a now-fashionably lickety-split but still quite nice performance of the final movement (Menuetto and Polacca) of Bach's First Brandenburg Concerto. Listen particularly for the second Trio -- not the first Trio, of the Menuetto, written for, literally, a trio of two oboes and bassoon, at 1:12, but the second Trio, of the Polacca (which begins at 3:14), written for a "trio" of two horns plus a trio of oboes, at 5:17.

by Ken

I expect you're thinking, haven't we had enough music this week with our Christmas specials, Handel's Messiah for Christmas Eve and Berlioz's L'Enfance du Christ for Christmas Day? Obviously, you already have my answer.

One pleasant tradition that's developed around the holidays is performing the entire set of Bach's six Brandenburg Concertos. In a sense it's easier now that we think of the concertos as chamber rather than orchestral music, but it really tests the mettle of the presenting chamber music group. The six concertos are so different, and scored for such different instrumental combinations, that just figuring out who's to play what and then managing the logistics of having the correct players available, first for rehearsal (today's musicians racing from job to job to keep their heads above water can hardly be asked to sit through rehearsals in which they have nothing to do, but at the same time you can't rehearse a concerto if you don't have all the necessary performers on hand) and then for onstage at the right time for the right pieces -- the logistics are exhaustive and exhausting, and for obvious reasons it's not easy to get all six pieces prepared to the degree of thoroughness that most of those musicians might wish.

Nevertheless, performing the complete set of Brandenburgs can be an exhilarating experience for both performers and audiences, and the holidays just seem like a natural time to undertake it. I thought that we might join in this particular celebration, only we're not going to do it in all-in-one fashion. We'll get through the first three concertos today, and then the remaining three (probably) next week.

In the only all-Bach post I've written to date, devoted to the unusually personal world of his arias, I wrote:

If I were setting out to "sell" Bach, or even to try to sketch the Bach who most matters to me, I would start with the secular music -- with, say, the Brandenburg Concertos and the solo-cello suites. But the cantatas may be the place where one comes closest to encountering the soul of Bach.

WE COME AT LAST TO THE BRANDENBURGS

Not quite for the first time, though. Shortly after, I wrote a post built about extraordinary surprises composers may bury in larger works, offering as examples the totally unexpected and totally wonderful methodically galloping rhythmic figure that breaks out suddenly in the cello then works its way up the string-quartet membership in the theme-and-variations slow movement of Mozart's String Quartet No. 18, and the tiny bit -- a mere minute in our performance -- known innocently enough as "Trio II" in the final movement of Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No. 1.

Here's the bit we're talking about, in the best performance I've heard of it, or at any rate the one that really made me sit up and take notice. It still sounds awfully good to me. (Note: You can click to enlarge the score page, but you won't be able to hear the music at the same time. Sorry!)


CBC Vancouver Orchestra, Mario Bernardi, cond. CBC Records, recorded 1983
[I'm sorry not to be able to identify the soloists of this performance, but my copy of the CD booklet has gone missing!]


TO HEAR THE WHOLE BRANDENBURG NO. 1
(TWO WAYS!) AND NOS. 2 AND 3, CLICK HERE

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[12/26/2010] "Brandenburg"s for the holidays, Part 1 (continued)

The Freiburgers give a highly adrenalized performance of the dazzling opening movement of the Second Brandenburg Concerto.


Before we proceed to the whole of the First Brandenburg, I thought we'd pause to listen one more time to the Menuet and Polacca. It's this last movement, by the way, that sets the First Concerto apart from the rest of this set of six Concerts avec plusieurs instruments (Concertos with several instruments) that Bach dedicated and sent to the Margrave of Brandenburg, clearly with the thought of showing off what he could do. (You never knew what a prosperous man of evident good musical taste might wish to make of to make of "what Bach could do." As it is, just by dedicating these concertos to the Margrave, Bach immortalized him.) As the opening work in the set, No. 1 was "supersized" for "wow" effect with this (extra) fourth movement.

One thing to remember in listening to this movement is the Baroque era habit of repeating individual sections and for building structures in A-B-A fashion, which is to say establishing a musical statement, providing a contrasting section, and repeating the original section. This is how a "normal" minuet-and-trio was structured: minuet, trio, repeat of minuet (with all the individual sections repeated). Here Bach expands the idea by working in the polacca with its trio, meanwhile continuing to repeat the minuet section.

In this performance, conducted by the fine violinist Josef Suk (who plays the violin solos in the earlier movements, the ones we're not hearing [ah, breaking development: check the "bonus" section below!]), Trio II -- taken at a deliciously, tantalizingly held-back pace -- comes at 6:05.

Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F, BWV 1046:
iv. Menuetto (with Trio I); Polacca (with Trio II)

Ivan Séquardt, Liběna Séquardtová, and Jiří Vodňanský, oboes; Rudolf Beránek and Zdeněk Pok, horns; Suk Chamber Orchestra, Josef Suk, cond. Vanguard, recorded November 1989


NOW WITH A MINIMUM OF FURTHER ADO LET'S
PROCEED TO OUR HALF-BRANDENBURG SET

Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F, BWV 1046

For modern ears, trained to take their Baroque music quaintified into wisps of trivial nothingness, the Casals Brandenburgs probably sound stodgy and heavy-handed. But then, those modern tastes have no use for musical breadth and depth, wisdom and joy and reflection.

i. Allegro
ii. Adagio; iii. Allegro
iv. Menuetto (with Trio I); Polacca (with Trio II)

John Mack, Ronald Richards, and Peter Christ, oboes; Myron Bloom and Robert Johnson, horns; Donald MacCourt, bassoon; Alexander Schneider, violin; Rudolf Serkin, piano; Marlboro Festival Orchestra, Pablo Casals, cond. Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded 1964


Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F, BWV 1047

If we had popularity ratings for the Brandenburgs, I expect that the Fifth would be a clear winner, and the Second would be runner-up. It's especially known for the heady high-trumpet part. There's so much sensational music packed in that I'm always startled to be reminded how short the piece actually is.

The Britten-conducted set of Brandenburgs, very different from the Casals, also seems to me one of the glories of recording history.

i. Allegro
ii. Andante
iii. Allegro assai

Richard Adeney, flute; Peter Graeme, oboe; David Mason, trumpet; Emanuel Hurwitz, violin; English Chamber Orchestra, Benjamin Britten, cond. Decca, recorded in The Maltings, Snape, December 1968

Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 in G, BWV 1048

One of life's great mysteries is why the Third Brandenburg has no middle movement, not even in the autograph manuscript, which has just two chords, marked "Adagio." All manner of theories have been advanced, and performance solutions attempted (often involving interpolation of a seemingly compatible Bach movement). It's possible that the composer intended some sort of keyboard improvisation here, or that he simply didn't intend there to be a "middle" movement.

I mentioned in connection with our hearing of Vivaldi that was crazy for Italian music generally (and Vivaldi in particular). I thought we might hear an Italian performance of this strings-only concerto -- written with three violin, viola, and cello parts in the first movement, but only violins and violas in the last, where the cellos are assigned to churn along with the continuo part.

i. Allegro
ii. Adagio (two embellished chords); iii.Allegro

I Musici. Philips, recorded c1964


BONUS: A MORE "AUTHENTIC" FIRST BRANDENBURG

I don't think there's a "right" answer to the question of "authenticity" in Baroque performance. I do feel pretty strongly, though, that the notion that "more authentic," in terms of instruments and performance practices, automatically means "musically superior" is far more ridiculously untrue than any of its proponents imagine -- but then, these are people who tend not to be start with a great deal of imagination. That said, I think it's certainly valuable, especially in music of this inexhaustible richness, to hear a variety of approaches.

Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F, BWV 1046

i. Allegro
ii. Adagio
iii. Allegro
iv. Menuetto (with Trio I); Polacca (with Trio II)

Boston Baroque, Martin Pearlman, dir. Telarc, recorded Jan. 3-5, 1994


WELL, MAYBE ONE LAST FIRST BRANDENBURG

Okay, well, maybe one more performance of the First Brandenburg. I tantalized you above by pointing out that conductor Josef Suk plays the violin solos in the earlier movements, the ones we didn't hear, so I thought it would be only fair to let you hear the whole concerto.

Brandenburg Concerto No. 1 in F, BWV 1046

i. Allegro; ii. Adagio; iii. Allegro; iv. Menuetto (with Trio I); Polacca (with Trio II)

Ivan Séquardt, Liběna Séquardtová, and Jiří Vodňanský, oboes; Rudolf Beránek and Zdeněk Pok, horns; Suk Chamber Orchestra, Josef Suk, violin and cond. Vanguard, recorded November 1989


NEXT WEEK (PROBABLY) IN SUNDAY CLASSICS

We'll get there eventually, if not next week. Obviously we need to cover the remaining three Brandenburg Concertos, and I'm thinking that at that time perhaps it would be interesting to dip into the world of still-older-style Bach performance.


RETURN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE POST

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[8/27/2011] Sunday Classics preview: Beethoven the spell-casting introducer (continued)

Pablo Casals (1876-1973)

Again as I'll explain tomorrow, it was a performance conducted by the legendary cellist-conductor Pablo Casals that set me thinking -- once again -- about these Beethoven symphonic introductions, but not one of the ones we're sampling here, which all date from the 1969 Marlboro Festival, when the maestro conducted all but the most grandiose of the Beethoven symphonies (Nos. 3, 5, and 9). No, the performance I was listening to is a live one from ten years earlier, when Don Pablo was a mere 82.

No, that's not a typo. When our recordings were made, he was 92. And while the performances sometimes may leave certain things to be desired, they're still pretty extraordinary for their intensity and singing quality. Both the reduced-orchestra format (about 50 players, the usual Marlboro mix of chamber-music-loving veterans and rising professionals -- the rosters are all identified in the booklets, and they're kind of jaw-dropping) and Casals's impassioned shaping allow the music to open up and breathe, with a special radiance in the wind lines (again, those parts were manned by some of the best wind players in the country.

For comparison, to remind ourselves that Beethoven could equally well get right down to symphonic work, I've included with the complete first movements below those of the two other symphonies Casals recorded, the Pastoral, No. 6, which we heard not that long ago, and No. 8. Finally, to simplify the credits, let's stipulate at the outset that all the performances here are by the Marlboro Festival Orchestra conducted by Pablo Casals, recorded in 1969 except for 8 was recorded earlier (and issued around the time of the maestro's 90th birthday), released in various forms on the sequential Columbia/CBS/Sony labels. They seem to be all obtainble, at least in downloadable form: Nos. 1 and 6, No. 2 (with the Egmont Overture and Brahms's Haydn Variations), No. 4 (with Schubert's Fifth Symphony), and Nos. 7 and 8.


LET'S PROCEED WITH THE FOUR FORMAL
INTRODUCTIONS TO BEETHOVEN SYMPHONIES

Symphony No. 1 in C, Op. 21:
i. Adagio molto (introduction only)


Symphony No. 2 in D, Op. 36:
i. Adagio molto (introduction only)


Symphony No. 4 in B-flat, Op. 60:
i. Adagio (introduction only)


Symphony No. 7 in A, Op. 92:
i. Poco sostenuto (introduction only)



THE COMPLETE FIRST MOVEMENTS
OF THE ABOVE SYMPHONIES

The purpose of this preview truly was to hear these four symphonic introductions as a group, to set us up for tomorrow's main post. But the idea isn't to tease you mercilessly. A good part of the function of these introductions, after all, is to set us up -- and here I mean set us up in multiple senses -- for the main bodies of the movements they introduce, and this purpose is defeated if we don't actually get to hear those movements.

So, at the risk of bursting the reasonable bounds of a "preview," and understanding that this is a listening option that oversteps tonight's official agenda, I feel obliged to furnish the full first movements, sticking with the Casals-Marlboro performances.

Symphony No. 1 in C, Op. 21:
i. Adagio molto . . . Allegro con brio


Symphony No. 2 in D, Op. 36:
i. Adagio molto . . . Allegro con brio


Symphony No. 4 in B-flat, Op. 60:
i. Adagio . . . Allegro vivace


Symphony No. 7 in A, Op. 92:
i. Poco sostenuto . . . Vivace



NOW FOR THE SYMPHONIES IN OUR GROUP
WITHOUT FORMAL INTRODUCTIONS

We start with the Pastoral, which may briefly sound as if the first phrase is a "slow introduction," but it becomes clear quickly enough that in fact it's part of the main theme.

Symphony No. 6 in F, Op. 68:
i. Allegro ma non troppo


And finally --

Symphony No. 8 in F, Op. 93:
i. Allegro vivace e con brio
ii. Allegretto scherzando
iii. Tempo di Menuetto
iv. Allegro vivace

You've probably noticed that I've slipped in not just the whole of the first movement but the darned whole of the Eighth Symphony. It was like this: I had to dub the first movement from LP anyway (I don't have the CD of Casals's Nos. 7 and 8, and while I'd saved myself the hassle by spending the two bucks to download the first movement of No. 7, I was damned if I was going to shelling out even more for the first movement of No. 8), and once I'd started the transfer going, I kind of didn't feel like stoping it. Special treat: the horns in the Trio at 2:19 of the Tempo di Menuetto. (Note, by the way, that this movement is a clear throwback on Beethoven's part, since by the Eighth Symphony he had clearly switched from the older-fashioned minuet to scherzos. Among his symphonies only No. 1 has a minuet; all the others have scherzos.)


IN TOMORROW'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST

You'll hear why, specifically, we've been listening to these spellbinding introductions.


RETURN TO THE BEGINNING OF THE POST

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Encores, part 1 -- Three legendary pianists (continued)

SVIATOSLAV RICHTER (1915-1997)
(45 at the time of this December 1960 recital)

There haven't been many cases of a musician taking the U.S. by storm the way Sviatoslav Richter did when he finally arrived in 1960, with an elaborate series of solo recitals at Carnegie Hall. Columbia Masterworks recorded a number of those concerts live, for some reason in mono, and released a bunch of LPs drawn from them, which became among the most coveted piano records of all time -- though the artist himself doesn't seem to have been so thrilled, which is apparently why they've never been issued.

It happens that Columbia's chief U.S. rival, RCA Red Seal, also recorded (in stereo!) one of the Carnegie Hall recitals, and one in Newark as well, with the same program but different encores. Some selections from the Carnegie Hall program were released, but otherwise those precious tapes languished in the vaults until the Carnegie Hall recital (with the separate Newark encores thrown in) was issued in 2001 in BMG's invaluable "reDISCOVERED" series.

At Carnegie Hall the encores consisted of 10 of Sergei Prokofiev's Op. 22 Visions fugitives. We're going to hear the Newark encores.

1. PROKOFIEV: Cinderella Suite, Op. 95, No. 2, Gavotte
2. Visions fugitives, Op. 22: No. 4, Animato

3. DEBUSSY: Preludes, Book I: No. 5, "Les Collines d'Anacapri" ("The Hills of Anacapri")

CHOPIN: Études, Op. 10:
4. No. 10 in A-flat;
5. No. 12 in C minor (Revolutionary)
.
6. Mazurka in C, Op. 24, No. 2


Sviatoslav Richter, piano. RCA/BMG, recorded live in the Mosque Theater, Newark, Dec. 28, 1960

VLADIMIR HOROWITZ (1903-1989)
(72 at the time of this November 1975 recital)

Producer Jon Samuels explains in a note for the 2003 "reDISCOVERED" release of this November 1975 recital at Carnegie Hall, when Horowitz returned to his old record company, RCA, in 1975, the company undertook a whole host of recordings of live performances all over the place, concerned about being able to get him to make enough studio recordings. Those tapes went unreleased, though, and Samuels provides a vivid account of the difficulty of, first, finding the separated tapes of this concert, and then getting them into releasable condition.

We've already heard Horowitz play Schumann's "Träumerei," possibly his favorite encore piece, and a favorite of many other soloists -- and not just pianists. (Arrangements have been made for just about every instrument under the sun.) This is one of his less dragged-out accounts, but it's still cast in the rhythmically tortured form the pianist clearly thought was the way to play this lovely little "dream" piece. Not much to my taste, but I find the unfussy strength of the Debussy "Serenade" utterly irresistible, and the Moszkowski and Rachmaninoff -- well,

1. DEBUSSY: Children's Corner: No. 3, "Serenade of the Doll"

2. SCHUMANN: Kinderszenen (Scenes of Childhood), Op. 15: No. 7, "Träumerei"

3. MOSZKOWSKI: Morceaux caracteristiques (Characteristic Pieces), Op. 36: No. 6, "Étincelles" ("Sparks")

4. RACHMANINOFF: Étude-Tableau in D, Op. 39, No. 9


Vladimir Horowitz, piano. RCA/BMG, recorded live in Carnegie Hall, Nov. 16, 1975

ARTHUR RUBINSTEIN (1887-1982)
(74 in 1961, when most of these recordings were made)

With his 1961 remake of the Grieg Piano Concerto spilling over onto a second LP side, Arthur Rubinstein filled out that side with a selection of five of his favorite encores. The artist's tribute to the concerto recording reproduced on the jacket front (you can click to enlarge) was of particular interest to me for the signature, in which he clearly spelled his name "Arthur," the original Polish spelling (though the "h" didn't figure in the pronunciation). It was the first indication I was aware of that Rubinstein disliked the Germanized spelling adopted by his international managements, an especially touchy issue in the wake of the Third Reich for a Polish Jew. (I'm still mystified by the continued use of the "Artur" spelling.)

Even though these five pieces were clearly conceived as a group, the powers that be decided to split them up when it came to the massive Rubinstein Collection. I've got only the Falla and Prokofiev on CD, and my LP isn't on the shelf. (I think I once took it down intending to dub the encores, and I have vague recollections of the unrefiled LP suffering disintegration, possibly due to my misimpression that this was a duplicate copy I had acquired at one point. For the Liszt and Villa-Lobos I've substituted different CD performances that I do have (dipping back to 1950 for the former), and I believe this Schumann Romance is the one from this set. I don't recall the sequence of the LP; I've followed that of the jacket front.

Note that in this particular selection, some of my favorite Rubinstein recordings, the choices are weighted toward the upbeat and virtuosic. Of course Rubinstein could ravish the listener as few pianists have ever been able to, as he shows in the Schumann Romance.

1. FALLA: El Amor brujo (Love the Magician): "Ritual Fire Dance"
2. LISZT: Valse oubliée No. 1
3. SCHUMANN: Romance in F-sharp, Op. 28, No. 2
4. PROKOFIEV: The Love for Three Oranges, Op. 33: March
5. VILLA-LOBOS: Prole do bebê (Baby's Family), Vol. I: No. 7, "O Polichinelo" ("Polichinelle," or "Punch")


Arthur Rubinstein, piano. RCA/BMG, recorded in New York, Mar. 23, 1961 (except Liszt, recorded Dec. 1950; Villa-Lobos, recorded live in Carnegie Hall, Oct. 30, 1961)


STILL TO COME IN OUR ENCORE SERIES . . .

As noted, even apart from the fascinating (and vast) subject of vocal encores, we've still got a lot of other instruments to scope out encore-wise. Schedule to be determined.


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