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There have been several studies recently on the affect of music on the psyche, particularly in regard to warding off depression or chasing away the blues. (Depression is of course much worse than “the blues”  and music’s healing powers go back to scripture). Close to home, exceptional work on this has been done by OSU’s own David Huron, including his latest book, Sweet Anticipation (MIT Press) of which more anon.

I asked people what music they use to cheer themselves up. This writer included votes for pizza and chocolate (looking at me, you’d think I was chronically depressed-not so) and here are some responses. It ain’t zoloft and it ain’t food, except for the soul.

Christopher: Monteverdi Vespro della beate virgine (1610)

Linda: Anything by John Rutter (healing), and Nimrod from Elgar’s Enigma Variations (inspiring)…and lots by Rachmaninoff, Mozart Gershwin and Sondheim…and even some McCartney!

Rutter: Praise Ye the Lord (Turtle Creek Chorale/Timothy Seelig)

Elgar: Enigma Variations-Nimrod (Montreal Sym/Dutoit)

Mark: Robert Schumann’s Carnaval, op. 9

R. Schumann: Carnaval: Pierrot, Arlequin (Evgeny Kissin)

Akira: Zerbinetta’s aria from R. Strauss’ Ariadne auf Naxos in the original version sung by Edita Gruberova

Gerald: Some good piano and violin concertos. Also Beethoven and Brahms symphonies

Christine: Beethoven piano concertos…Bach…Oh, and I like the way Dawn Upshaw sings Gorecki

Gorecki: Symphony  3 I. exc. (Dawn Upshaw, London Sinf/Zinman)

Betsy: Bach’s b minor mass, for starters

William: Birgit Nilsson’s Songs of Scandanavia album

Debra: Chris, I know you think I’d rather go shopping at Saks to chase away my blues, but I’d rather play Chopin!

Jeff: The opening movement of Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony; From the trio to the end of Der Rosenkavalier; and Dame Joan Sutherland singing My Hero from The Chocolate Soldier

Prokofiev: Symphony 1 “Classical” I. Allegro (Montreal Sym/Dutoit)

Tim: Strauss-Feierlicher Einzug…What a Feeling from Footloose

Amy: For me, it’s still that (presumably hot) record album I bought at Blakey’s circa 1970, Taj Mahal’s Giant Step/De Ole Folks at Home…from the world of bel canto, it’s Monterrat Caballe’s Casta Diva

Bellini: Norma-Casta diva (Montserrat Caballe)

Jay: Gilbert and Sullivan

G&S: HMS Pinafore, Never mind the why and wherefore (Jean Hindmarsh, John Reed, Jeffrey Skitch;  D’Oyly Carte Opera Co./Nash)

Jeanne: A good dose of Vivaldi, just about anything usually helps; also a California guitarist Nocy.  Am listening also to an Icelandic guy named Jonsi, weird and kinda wonderful! And I just woke up to the fact one of the arrangers on the Jonsi CD is Nico Muhly!

Christopher: Brahms Haydn Variaitons

Brahms: Haydn Variations I. St. Antoni Chorale (Cincinatti Sym/Lopez-Cobos)

Christopher: (again,  but it’s my show,  what the hell) R. Strauss Der Rosenkavalier, opening of Act II

Let’s keep updating this so let us know what works for you!

–Christopher Purdy

PS

Because I can’t bear to leave off  Der Rosenkavalier, here is the exquisite Presentation of the Rose scene from ActII.  Enjoy.

Cathy Berberian could sing anything. And did. She was born in North

Cathy Berberian (1925-1983)

Attleboro, Massachusetts in 1925. By 1950 she was a Fulbright Scholar in Italy and had married composer Luciano Berio. She became Europe’s leading exponent of new vocal music Her curiosity about music all music, seemed to be insatiable. As a child she had studied Armenian folk music and dance. Her career and her life in music were all about variety.

It’s hard to categorize Cathy Berberian. I suspect that was her intent. She had a lovely mezzo soprano voice, but in the era of Callas and Tebaldi it was not a voice to stand out on its own.  Berberianwas  perfectly capable in Bach and Mozart. Her Montevedi was sublime. Listen to the simple beauty of tone mixed with drama in the great Lamento d’Arianna, which she recorded with Nikolaus Harnoncourt

Berberian was a chamber music and an actress. She was a personality who sang. Her voice lacked the amplitude to ride over a large operatic orchestra, but as a recitalist. a chamber musician, a saloniste she had no peers. Her collaboration with Berio was fantastic and survived their 1964 divorce.  Berberian was his muse, for a time his wife and the mother of his daughter Cristina.  On stages and in studios throughout the world Cathy Berberian was a lot more than a composer’s wife.  She recorded Monteverdi operas and Bach cantatas. She wrote her own theater pieces.  Stripsody uses onomatopoeia and reflects her love of comic books.  Her recital programs embraced Purcell, Stravinsky, Villa-Lobos, you name it.  (Elegy for JFK was written for her).  She loved spectacle, costumes,  jewelry and all things theatrical. Here she is with a fearless performance of Xango by Villa-Lobos

Cathy  Berberian died suddenly of a massive heart attack in her hotel room in Rome in 1983. She was preparing for a concert honoring the memory of Karl Marx! (How’s that for variety!) For twenty years in Europe as vocalists go there was Cathy Berberian and there was everybody else.  Her artistic heirs would be  Massillon Ohio’s Jan di Gaetani who was a close contemporary (1933-1989) and today, Dawn Upshaw.  But really there was nobody like Cathy Berberian.

If you’d like to know more, here’s part of a documentary called Music is the Air I Breathe. This clip features interviews with Berio, Harnoncourt, the Swiss tenor Eric Tappy, Cathy’s daughter Cristina, and the lady herself

–Christopher Purdy

John Adams

I recently visited the website of composer John Adams, one of America’s best-known and most-played composers.  In a conversation I had with beloved Columbus Symphony Conductor Albert-George Schram, he said conductors have a certain, well, ego about them.  Some believe that they are privy to how the music SHOULD be performed, regardless of WHAT the score says.  Others are mindful of the composers’ intentions and do their best to bring that mindfulness to the music they conduct.

It seems for John Adams, the difficulty comes when you are a composer, a conductor, and…how shall I put this?…Alive.  Adams recounts sitting through a performance of his music which he found, for lack of a better way to put it, a bit difficult to recognize.  He goes on to tell the story of the couple seated next to him who had no idea he was the composer.  Suffice it to say, be careful how you express your musical opinion…you never know who might be sitting next to you!  The National Endowment for the Arts recently honored John Adams for his work, which you can see below…many others can be found on Adams’ website. — Boyce Lancaster

This is turning out to be a good year for new books on a music. Here are a few that have come across my desk recently. I’ll be coming back with interviews with Norman Lebrecht and Lotfi Mansouri-and all of these books will be discussed in more detail.  Read on, look for these, and enjoy!

Why Mahler Matters: How One Man and Ten Symphonies Changed Our World by Norman Lebrecht-October 5 publication date

Reading Lebrecht’s latest book on Mahler-preceded by Mahler Remembered is a terrific complement to letting this music seep into your life.  Lebrecht’s writing style puts the reader firmly into Mahler’s Vienna, New York, Hamburg, Dresden or Bohemia, and gives a vivid portrait of a brief life of struggle, the highest of highs and the most miserable of sorrows. To me an indication of a book’s success is whether or not I’m compelled to go out and listen, really listen to the music being discussed. Lebrecht had me reaching for the Mahler symphonies and songs anew with each chapter. The book contains a biographical sketch interspersed with conversations and observations from the present day. (The author’s upstairs neighbor in London was a guest at Mahler’s weeding in 1902!) Vivid descriptions of Mahler’s rather grimy birthplace give way to an author’s visit 150 years later.  Lebrecht’s gift for combining a modern sensibility with music written 100 years ago will, I assure you, at least interrupt your life long enough to be buried in this music. Go ahead, wallow. Weep, laugh, rage and wallow.

P.S. Lebrecht particularly admires Klaus Tennstedt’s performances of Mahler’s music:

Lotfi Mansouri: An Operatic Journey (Northeastern University Press) Iran born Lotfi Mansouri came to Southern California-Carol Burnett was a class mate and show-buddy- and went on to direct both the Canadian Opera Comp[any in Toronto and the San Francisco Opera.  He is an unashamed populist. None of the deconstruction  regie-theater here. Mansouri shows what can be done on the operatic stage when the score is respected, and when opera is staged to tell the story. The book is filled with witty and endearing reminiscences of Sutherland, Pavarotti, Scotto, and a host of greats, almost greats and would rather forget ‘ems. I’ve seen a lot of Mansouri’s productions and I can tell you what nobody ever went away bored.  Nor will you with this richly entertaining book about an art form, and a number of people dearly loved by the author.

The Genius of Valhalla, The Life of Reginald Goodall by John Lucas (Boydell PRess)

This is a reprint of a 1993 biography called Reggie: The Life of Reginald Goodall. I write about Goodall elsewhere on this blog. My buddy, the late soprano Rita Hunter had the triumphs of her career as his Brunhilde in the Ring in London and they fell out, one swearing to having nothing ever again to do with the other. This seemed to be a pattern. Goodall (1902-1990) was born in England and raised in Canada and Springfield Massachusetts. He conducted the first performances of Britten’s Peter Grimes and The Rape of Lucretia. The ‘Valhalla’ of Mr. Lucas’s title represents less Wagner deities than the attic lavatory in the Royal Opera House where Goodall meticulously rehearsed his singers. He had rather lowly positions at Covent Garden for many years. His performances of the Ring with the Sadler’s Wells Opera (now the English National Opera) in the mid 1970s made Goodall world famous. This production was issued on CD as were later performances of The Mastersingers, Tristan und Isolde and Parsifal. Goodall was magnificent at the architecture of Wagner, spinning out the long, unbroken lines at slow tempi that threatened to sag and disintegrate but never did.  Listening to a Goodall performance is like watching a treacherous high wire act-with Wagner’s music at its most magnificent.  For all that, Goodall could be a nasty, moody man.  He admired Sir Oswald Mosley and was rumored to have embraced anti -semitism.  I’ll bet it was difficult to be his friend,  much less an artist in his charge. But with other artists and conductors of the time, at least in Wagner, Goodall had many colleagues, but few peers.

Franco Alfano: Transcending Turandot by Konrad Dryden (Scarecrow Press)

Musicologist Dryden has already written biographies of Riccardo Zandonai and Ruggero Leoncavallo. To these he adds a study of Italian composer Franco Alfano (1875-1954) Alfano gets a bad rap. He deserves a lot more acclaim than the grudging footnotes he earned for completing  Turandot after Puccini’s death in 1924. Depending on who you ask,  Alfano was either begged or threatened to complete Turandot, after which re received lttle praise. It was further claimed he was Puccini’s pupil when in fact Alfano was a fifty year old man and well regarded composer in his own right.  His career never really recovered fromTurnadot. European audiences did embrace his operas Cyrano de Bergerac (a recent vehicle for Placido Domingo) and Resurrection, based on Tolstoy’s novel which became a late career triumph for Mary Garden and an early outing for the astonishing Magda Olivero. As he did with Leoncavallo and Zandonai, two other fine composers whose achievements were eaten up by the huge successes of Puccini, Konrad Dryden gives Alfano new stature and new respect.

Frederica von Stade sings Melisande in Debussy’s Pelleas et Melisande, with Richard Stilwell and Jose Van Dam, conducted by Herbert von Karajan, on this week’s Saturday on Stage-Saturday afternoon at 1.30 WOSU 89-7 FM.

(I feel like I’ve written too many obituaries here lately. This is a farewell of a different, happier kind.)

Mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade is ending her performing career later

Frederica von Stade aka "Flicka"

this summer. According to her website (http://www.fredericavonstade.com) after a busy season of concerts,  “Flicka” will give two performances of Despina in Mozart’s Cosi fan tutte at Chicago’s Ravinia Festival as  a high spirited good-bye. This after a forty year career that began with small parts at the Met and went on to collaborations with Solti, Karajan, Bernstein, virtually every important conductor of her time, and appearances in opera and concert…well…everywhere.  Her repertoire ranged from Monteverdi (my favorite Flicka performance, as the abandoned Penelope in Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria) to Kern’s Showboat, to music inspired by and written for her by Jake Heggie and Dave Brubeck to name two. Frederica von Stade was so closely identified with Mozart’s Cherubino-thanks to her big break via Sir Geog Solti in the early 1970s-that productions of Le nozze di Figaro were unthinkable with out her.  See what I mean:

I treasure memories of von Stade (oh, okay-she is universally known as ‘Flicka’ so what the hell) of Flicka’s Cherubino,  likewise her Octavian in Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier-unforgettable performances with Elisabeth Soderstrom and Kathleen Battle on tour in 1983. Likewise her Charlotte in Massenet’s Werther is seared into my brain forever.

Here’s a bit of an interview I did with Flicka back in 2004, as she was preparing to sing with the Columbus Symphony:

What always came through in Flicka’s singing came through chatting as well. Her humanity. “A voice is a person” int0ned the wonderful tenor Peter Pears many years ago. “A violin is a violin played by a person, but a voice is a person.”  Flicka has a sure sense of self-she is well aware of her own gifts-but that awareness is far less important to her than her own exploitation of those gifts to benefit others. This is a completely unselfish-as opposed to selfless-artist.  She spoke with me so enthusiastically about working in schools and day care centers close to her home in California. At her 2004 Columbus visit she brought some young artists with her, eager to give them experience on her nickel. Nobody who has heard Frederica von Stade sing Mozart’s horny Cherubino or the sensual, sophisticated melodies of Poulenc, nobody who has heard her desperate and sex -starved cries of “Torna, deh torna Ulisse!” will accuse this lady of being dull or unworldly. She turns her attention and her luscious voice to the attention of the words and music, hoping to leave the public better off than when they came in.

Many (many!) years ago I had a college roommate who fell madly in love  with Flicka. I bought her very first solo LP, a French aria program .  He stole it and we heard this playing all through the house, day and night

“Nobles Segineurs, salut!” from Les Huguenots by Meyerbeer. This brings back nice memories:

And one more time, Offenbach’s delightfully tipsy Perichole

Vixen or virgin, girlfriend or trollop, saint or sinner, Flicka sang ‘em all. It is her performing career that seems to be ending. I suspect we have not heard the last from this warm and generous lady. Look for her where children need a champion, where the arts need a warrior and where the world needs cheer.

–Christopher Purdy

Conductor Carlo Maria Giulini (1914-2005) is the subject of a new

Serving Genius: Carlo Maria Giulini by Thomas Saler

biography by Thomas D.  Saler called Carlo Maria Giulini: Serving Genius. The book isn’t very long, and it lacks a discography,  but what it does offer is a factual representation of Giulini’s long career and an examination of the man who made such splendid music.

I never heard Giulini conduct “live”.  I could have. He appeared with the Boston Symphony while I was growing up there, and I could have moved around a bit in my college years and after to hear him in Chicago or Los Angeles. It’s  another example of “youth being wasted on the young”.  The Giulini of my youth was the conductor of two splendid recordings of Mozart operas, both for EMI: Don Giovanni with Sutherland, Waechter, Alva and Schwarzkopf, the latter at her least irritating, and Le nozze di Figaro with Moffo, Taddei, Cossotto and Schwarzkopf again (sigh).  In both recordings,  Giulini makes theater. This is the Mozart who hid in the wings during the rehearsals of the Don Giovanni premiere to pinch Zerlina’s fanny. The Figaro recording reminds us that Beaumarchais’s subtitle is Une folle journee (One Crazy Day).  This is the Don Giovanni that must have terrified audiences when the fearful statue of the Commendatore comes to life, demanding repentance.  These performances are opera as drama that never sacrifices musical beauty.

For example,  here’s the finale of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony,  from Los Angeles in the 1970s.  These last few minutes are often played at fever pitch hysteria, robbing Beethoven of the dignity and gravitas written into his music.  Giulini, to me gets the balance just right.  The recording quality is not good (sorry) but deal with it: this is spectacular Beethoven

Among the soloists I recognize the American soprano Carol Neblett and the bass Simon Estes. I think the tenor is the Britisher Robert Tear.

The Beethoven Ninth was  specialty of Giulini’s. But for the world, at least for

Carlo Maria Giulini

me, it was his performances of Verdi’s Requiem that has never been equalled.  It may be a small point but look how he waits until :37 in the following clip, look how he gathers himself before beginning the shattering Dies irae. The pause is not for latecomers and not for audience restlessness, its for him and for Verdi

Saler writes of Giulinis’ deep spirituality, his concern for all of those around him, his devotion to his wife and three sons. (He curtailed his career in the early 1980s when Marcella Giulini became ill and reportedly her death nearly destroyed him) There’s no scandal and no sensationalism in this book . Refreshingly, what we have here is well written and well documented admiration for a deep and important artist.

The most horrifying parts of Giulini’s life came early, during World War II when Italy fell to the allies and Giulini went into hiding-in a cave!-there to try and practise viola by candlelight while trying to remember scores. His early carer was with Rome’s Augusteo Orchestra (later the Accademia di Santa Cecilia) where he played viola under de Sabata, Bohm and Furtwangler. Giulini’s early conducting dates took him to La Scala where he was de facto music director in the early 1950s. Among his best productions was Verdi’s La traviata in 1955,  directed by Luchino Visconti, starring Maria Callas and Giuseppe di Stefano

Europe’s most important recording orchestra in the 1950s and 1960s was the Philharmonia in London. Giulini was music director there, and it was with the Philharmonia that he began the recording career that lasted forty years. In addition to a searing-and beautiful-Verdi Reqiuem his Philharmonia recordings include the symphonies of Beethoven, some of Haydn and Mozart, and another specialty, Brahms:

(OK, the clip is from La Scala, not the Philharmonia, but you get the idea-and do you hear all the inner voices? That balance too, was a Giulini specialty, the product of a superb ear and all those years playing the viola!)

Giulini enjoyed a fascinating co-directorship (with Solti and no two conductors could be any different!) of the Chicago Symphony. His American career ended with the directorship of the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Giulini stayed closer to home (Milan) when his wife became ill in the 1980s, and he continued to appear in Europe after her death in 1995.

Today we have Giulini’s many recordings and performances on DVD. In addition to the aforementioned Mozart operas and La traviata, his recording of Verdi’s Don Carlo is the one to have. I love his Brahms-the Symphonies and by all means the Deutsches Requiem recorded in Vienna in 1988; (N.B. The Brahms Requiem recording goes with me to the proverbial desert island. DGG 423 574-2) the peerless Verdi Requiem with the Philharmonia, Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition also with the Philharmonia, and his sensational  La mer of Debussy with the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, very late in Giulini’s career. If you want to hear great musical Technicolor (and beauty…again, Giulini was all about making it beautiful) than this Debussy -Ravel CD from Sony Classical is for you.

Serving Genius: Carlo Maria Giulini by Thomas D. Saler, is published by the University of Illinois Press.

–Christopher Purdy

The Ohio State University’s 2010 Contemporary Music Festival is this week, with concerts on campus beginning April 7th and culminating in two performances with the Columbus Symphony in the  Ohio Theater Saturday, April 10 at 8 PM and Sunday the 11th at 3. For complete programs and details go to cmf.osu.edu

This year’s Festival focuses on the work of Augusta Read Thomas. Ms.

Augusta Read Thomas

Thomas served as composer in residence for the Chicago Symphony and has held faculty positions at Northwestern University, the Tanglewood Music Center and the Eastman School of Music. Still only in her forties, Thomas is a prolific composer happy to work in a variety of genres: The Chicago Symphony, the Boston Symphony, the London Philharmonic, the Evian Music Festival with Rostropovich and now the Columbus Symphony are only a few of  the people and venues performing her music. Astral Chronicle was one of two finalists for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize in music.

My favorite moment in any piece of music is the moment of maximum risk and striving.

Born in Glen Cove, New York, Augusta Read Thomas is the youngest of ten children. As a young child she immediately “took to” the piano.  In grade school the last name beginning with T had her toward the back of the line when the instruments were handed out. The trumpet was left. Her mother was mortified. But I’ll let Augusta herself tell you the rest of the story, in a phone conversation I had with her a few days ago:

All art that I cherish has an element of love and recklessness and desperation.  I like music that is alive and jumps off the page and out of the instruments as if something big is at stake.

The Columbus Symphony will perform Augusta Read Thomas’s Alleluia (1996) with the Columbus Symphony Chorus and Prayer Bells (2001).  Also on the program is the Firebird Suite by Stravinsky and Poulenc’s Gloria.  Joana Carniero conducts,  with Kendra Colton, soprano. Augusta will join me for pre-concert talks in the Ohio Theater Saturday April 10 at 7 pm and Sunday the 11th at 2 (one hour before performance time). The Saturday night performance will be broadcast live over WOSU  89-7 FM or listen on line at www.wosu.org.

Don’t miss the intriguing work of Augusta Read Thomas with concerts on The Ohio State University campus and at the Ohio Theater for Contemporary Music Festival 2010.  Go to cmf.osu.edu to learn more.

Prayer Bells is, I hope, at once vital, present and immediate on first hearing, while at the same time distinctive and spiritual so that it can withstand multiple hearings. My work , Prayer Bells for Orchestra craves a listener…..

Katherine Borst Jones is the heart and soul of of the School of

Katherine Borst Jones

Music.  Revered by generations of students, she has elevated flute studies at OSU to their highest level ever. She is considered a legend by her colleagues and peers, not just my words but those of Jennifer Higdon, herself an accomplished flutist as well as a most distinguished composer

– Donald Harris, Professor of Music, Dean Emeritus, OSU College of the Arts

KATHERINE BORST JONES recently celebrated twenty- five years on the faculty of The Ohio State University School of Music with a January 25th concert at Weigel Auditorium.

Here’s a little Bach from the January 25 concert, from the Partita in a minor for flute alone, BWV 1031

Katherine Borst Jones has been at The Ohio State University since

1985 and has served as chair of woodwinds, brass and percussion since 1999.  She was awarded the Distinguished Teacher award in 1995, and the Scholar award in 2008.

Kathy represents the heart and soul of the School of Music.  Her singular dedication to her students is legendary, and the reputation of the flute studio at Ohio State, thanks to her, is second to none.  But in addition to her remarkable contributions as professor of flute, Kathy’s devotion to the School in all of its aspects and her singular commitment to all of its students stands a an inspiration to her peers and colleagues.  The School of Music is incalculably richer because of Professor Jones’s presence, and the School’s ability to speak to its educational mission is enhanced greatly by her leadership and devotion.

– Ed Adelson, Interim Director, OSU School of Music

From her January 25, 2010 anniversary concert, listen to music not only performed by Kathy Jones, but written for her: KBJ Variations by Michael Ruszczynski. This is the world premiere performance:

Kathy is a founding member and co-principal flutist of the Pro Musica Chamber Orchestra, a member of the Columbus Symphony, and principal flute of the New Sousa Band, which has toured Japan and the U.S.  In 1976, she created the Annual High School Flute workshop program at OSU. Professor Jones conducts the OSU Flute Troupe, and has served in many roles for the National Flute Association, including president (twice), vice president and 1992 convention program chair. She has performed at eight conventions and was a member of the NFA delegation to the Soviet Union in 1989.

Kathy! The Ever Ready Battery sustaining breath of life for education, music and everyone involved! We have all delighted in her creativity, her generosity and professionalism.  How lucky we are to move with her, watch her, see her and hear her!

– Christine Mortine, Founder, Columbus Bach Ensemble

Weigel Auditorium was  filled with Kathy’s  friends and colleagues on January 25th as we shared in celebration of her gifts.  This is the Meditation of Ardalus by Alan Hovhaness.  “Hovhaness gave this unpublished piece to my teacher, Keith Brion, on the occasion of the premiere of his Suite for Band, which we played when I was at James Caldwell High School in Caldwell, New Jersey.  Mr. Hovhaness was the first live composer I ever met!”

Since coming to OSU, for me, Kathy Jones has been an icon of professionalism, tireless commitment to students and teaching, and collegiality.  She is a total musician, and in every sense of the word, she represents the best of an “Academic”! OSU is fortunate to have enjoyed her talent and energy for 25 years!

–Karen Peeler, Professor of Music, OSU

Kathy was co-founder, teacher and coordinator of the Robert Willoughby Master Classes, held at the University of New Hampshire.  Professor Jones studied with Keith Brion, Robert Willoughby, Kyril Magg, Donald McGinnis, and Julius Baker.

To give you an example of the lady’s skill and versatility, consider that her January 25th concert had music by Bach, Martinu, Hovhaness, Michael Ruszczynski and George Crumb’s monumental Vox Balanae (Voice of the Whale). Vox Balanae was written in 1971, and “ was inspired by the singing of the humpback whale.” Kathy Jones’s colleagues for this concert were Mark Rudoff, cello,  Michael Ruszczynski, piano and Maria Staeblein, piano

George Crumb: Vox Balanae (excerpt)

Dear Kathy, Congratulations on your  “Silver Anniversary” of teaching at OSU.  I has been my pleasure to know and work with you in various venues–mostly with the CSO–these past 25 years.  I wish you all the best for many years to come.

–Jude Mollenhauer, Principal Harp, Columbus Symphony

Kathy is the “Spirit Queen ” of the School of Music.  There isn’t anyone who lives and breathes OSU spirit more than this ladfy!

–Hilary Apfelstadt, Professor of Music and Director of Undergraduate Study, OSU

Katherine Borst Jones performs with symphonies, chamber groups and festivals throughout the world.  She has recorded for CRI, d’Note and Summit recordings, and has commissioned solo and chamber works by Michael Ruszczynski, Mark DeVoto, Tom Duffy, Tom Wells and Rudolfo Bubalo.  Her flute, viola and harp trio, COSMOS, has commissioned works from Libby Larsen, Stephen Paulus, Andrew Boysen and Steven Main.

I always call Kathy ‘the hardest working flutist in show biz’.  She’s that and much more.  Supremely talented, a consummate professional, devoted teacher and a dear friend and colleague.

–Paul Lockwood, OSU School of Music

Meditation de Thais (Massenet) from Paradise with Jeanne Norton,

COSMOS, with Jeanne Norton and M. E. Harris

harp

Kathy Jones has been a beloved colleague ever since we taught together at Capital University over thirty years ago.  As a result of her tireless efforts on behalf of her students at The Ohio State University, she has developed one of the finest university flute classes in the country.  One only has to listen to the recording of her 25th anniversary recital at OSU to appreciate the depth of her artistry on the flute.

–Stephen Secan, Principal Oboe, Columbus Symphony

And from me at WOSU: If you want to guide a young person into the serious study of music with all its joy, and you want them to have an exemplary teacher, mentor and friend, here are three words: Katherine. Borst. Jones.

–Christopher Purdy

see also:

flute.osu.edu

cosmotrio.org

katherineborstjones.com

I’ve been spending some time with a piece new to me, Stravinsky’s

Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments,  preparing for this weekend’s performances by the Columbus Symphony. In my research I was pleased to see a name that has long intrigued me, and the subject of a recent biography by Sylvia Kahan, Winnaretta Singer.

Winne was one of twenty-four children born to Isaac Merritt Singer. That was not a typo and you did not misread it.  Mr. Singer was the heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune, and he was rich enough to raise all of his massive brood in style. Winnaretta was born in 1865 in Yonkers, New York but was raised in London and Paris. The French capital was her home for most of her adult life, though she died in London in 1943.

What’s interesting about this gilded heiress? She was openly lesbian, but in 1893 she married the penniless Prince Edmond de Polignac, who was thirty-five years her senior and who himself preferred same sex partners. The story goes that Winnaretta was captivated at being addressed as “Madame la Princesse” and Prince Polignac needed a roof over his graying and noble head. In fact,  the marriage became one of great mutual devotion and lasted happily until Poliganc’s death in 1901.

The Princesse Edmond de Polignac became one of Europe’s most generous patrons of the arts. Gounod, Faure, Granados, Casals, Ravel and Stravinsky are a few of the artists whose work she supported, both financially and in sponsoring public concerts at her home on the Avenue Henri-Martin-today the Avenue Georges-Mandel, a few doors down from where Maria Callas died in 1977. The Princess’s music room had massive pipe organs installed at either end (for concerts by Saint-Saens and Widor) and comfortably seated 200. Ravel dedicated his Pavane pour une infante defunte to her. The aforementioned Stravinsky concerto was premiered in the princess’s music room in May of 1924.  Her salon inspired Proust, who was a confidante, and the Princesse de Polignac’s patronage extended to Jean Cocteau,  Darius Milhaud,  Erik Satie,  Francis Poulenc,  Serge Diaghilev and Colette.  The lady had taste. Not everyone was enchanted. Virginia Woolf sniffed, “To look at her, you’d never know she’s ravished half the virgins in Paris.”

The Fondation Singer-Polignac was founded in 1928. Its works continues today, in support of the arts and in public housing, the idea of which the Princess pioneered after the effects of the Wall Street crash began to be felt in France.  With all her good works and generosity, the Princess still had time for a busy private life. Romaine Brooks and Ethel Smyth were among her lovers. The story goes that the outraged husband of one of her partners was heard to bellow, “If you are half the man I think you are, you will come out here and fight me!”  That’s too good a line to be made up.

As the twentieth of twenty-four children, can Winnaretta even have met half of her siblings? I don’t know, but one of her brothers, Paris Singer,  fathered a child by Isadora Duncan.  Princess Winne died in London on November 26, 1943. Sylvia Kahan’s biography, Music’s Modern Muse, A Life of Winnaretta Singer, Princesse de Polignac is a bloody good read.

Stravinsky’s Concerto for Piano and Wind Instruments got lost in this story of its dedicatee.  It’s an energetic, jazz influenced work, a lot of fun packed into twenty minutes. It’s on the program this weekend with the Columbus Symphony.  George Manahan conducts, with pianist Aleck Karis. I promise  really interesting pre-concert talks.

–Christopher Purdy

Alondra de la Parra

Barbara Zuck of the Columbus Dispatch and I recently had a conversation about the status of the Columbus Symphony music director search. Specifically, we discussed the recent appearances in the Ohio Theater by conductors Alondra de la Parra and Jean-Marie Zeitouni. A shortened version of our talk was broadcast on WOSU radio. Here’s the whole conversation…don’t forget to visit the Columbus Symphony website, and join me for the CSO’s performance of Mahler’s Symphony 9 conducted by Gunter Herbig on Saturday, November 28 at 8 pm on WOSU 89-7 FM.

–Christopher Purdy

Jean-Marie Zeitouni