Dogday Thursday
Some interesting fodder for conversation in this month’s Gramophone. Item #1, there are more than 4,000 one-handed piano pieces for the left hand but no more than 75 for the right. Jeremy Nichols reckons that it’s because when great pianists are injured it is invaribly their right arm. His evidence is purely anecdotal, but convincing.
Item #2 is related to this week’s big Focus on Death meme. We all know that cigarette smoking killed Webern but did you know that Enrique Granados died after the ship he was on was torpedoed by a U-boat and he jumped out of a lifeboat to try and save his wife who was in the water? Gramophone’s list is pretty well-known. How about some contemporary updates?
Anybody do Tanglewood? Give us a report.
It’s nice to see Dennis Eberhard remembered here. He was a fine composer and an excellent, inspiring teacher.
Especially since you wrote about here:
http://www.sequenza21.com/2006/07/mp3-blog-12-claude-vivier.html
“And how could anyone forget about Vivier…”
Man, I can’t believe I forgot to mention Vivier and his grizzly murder of his final unfinished composition found on the desk in the apartment he was murdered that almost virtually describes his own death.
Speaking of composer suicides, Donatoni once attempted suicide with a handgun and changed his mind and pulled the gun away at the moment he fired. However, the bullet grazed his temple and left a horrible scar that stayed there for the rest of his life. Although, on the other hand, Donatoni’s scar wasn’t as nearly as bad as Xenakis’s scar.
Then there’s Lully and Scriabin, who, like Alban Berg, developed blood poisoning. Lully struck his foot with his rather heavy conducting stick (which he would beat time by tapping it on the floor). Scriabin had a carbunkle on his face, which got worse after he tried to get it lanced.
It seems rather sad about BA Zimmermann’s death was that he finished his piece “I Looked Around and Saw All the Injustices under the Sun” (Ich wandte mich um und sah alles Unrecht das geschah unter der Sonne), which has on its last page a portion of the JS Bach chorale “Es ist genug” (the same one that Berg used in his Violin Concerto), and shot himself a few days later.
(Note to DT: I got some tunes on Classical Lounge when you get around to it.)
And how could anyone forget about Vivier…
If cigarettes killed Webern, then office work killed thousands on 9/11.
Dennis Eberhard had a machine that helped him breathe at night (he’d had polio in his childhood), and it malfunctioned. One version of the story claims that he couldn’t afford to get it fixed. The more likely version says that he was going to take it in the next day — which was a little late.
Donal Michalsky died in a house fire after a New Year’s party where somebody forgot to put the screen in front of the fireplace.
Perhaps the reason there are so many more left hand pieces has to do with, aside from that famous trio of 1 hand pianists mentioned by CZ, is that most pianists are right handed and, therefore, their left hand needs some more work. Besides, the audience is also primarily right handed and would think a left hand piece more impressive.
I do remember Graffman once telling me that what makes left hand pieces tough is that the thumb has to do so much melodic stuff. After years of piano playing, a pianist is used to finger 4 and 5 carying the tune.
Another unfortunate composer’s death was Ravel. If I’m not mistaken, he awoke in the middle of brain tumor surgery.
I haven’t seen the Gramophone piece, so I don’t know if they covered this one. In January of 1964, Marc Blitzstein was beaten to death in Martinique by three Portuguese sailors. Apparently, Blitzstein remained conscious long enough to identify them before he died, and they were later convicted for his death.
I knew Chausson died after running his bicycle into a wall, but I’d never heard that particular gruesome detail.
Among composer suicides, I don’t think for sheer melodrama anyone beats Bernd Alois Zimmermann in 1970.
Concerning repertoire for the piano left hand, pianists such as Paul Wittgenstein, Leon Fleisher, and Gary Grafman were instrumental in getting composers to contribute to the left hand repertoire by writing pieces specifically for them. Had they not been able to use the left hand but the right, there would have been more pieces for the right hand written.
Another grisly composer death–
Chausson, who was bicycling, lost control of the bike somehow, and ran into a wall with metal spikes on top of it, and was run through his head by one.
Another reason that most one-handed piano pieces are written for the left hand, rather than the right is due to the most common arpeggiation of chords. When one “rolls” chords, they are rolled from bottom to top, a progression which is easily followed using the left hand. To do the same with the right hand would feel backwards, because one must move their arm closer to their body before beginning the roll, which restricts free motion. Rolled chords are found frequently in one-handed pieces, because, without both hands, only up to 5 notes can be played at a time without rolling.
Wallingford Reigger was walking his dog, which got into a fight with another dog. Their leashes got tangled in his legs and caused him to fall and hit his head on the sidewalk. He died of a concussion.
The lay out of the hand is wrong for right hand pieces. In a left hand piece the the tune can easily be on the top of the texture and played by the thumb, which has a natural advantage volume wise.
Trying to make it work the other way around is much harder.
(This seems almost apocryphal as well, but interesting still) Arnold Schoenberg was obsessed with the number 13, being born on Friday September 13, 1874. So the story goes, Schoenberg was convinced that his 76th year would be most fateful. Sure enough, he died on Friday July 13, 1951 at 11:47 PM.
Though also not contemporary nor strickingly bizarre, I’ve always been moved that when British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor — “the Black Mahler” — died from overwork at the age of 37, in 1912, King George V granted his widow and two young, one-quarter ‘African’ children, Hiawatha and Avril, a pension of 100 pounds a year. Perhaps due to this early security, the son Hiawatha lived to be 80, and the daughter Avril lived to be 95.
(100 English pounds in 1912 was worth more than $50,000 in today’s value.)
While not contemporary, the composer’s death I always found most bizarre: Charles-Valentin Alkan’s. An awesome composer and pianist, he kept an animal menagerie in his home that would make many zoos jealous, but that’s just an interesting aside. He supposedly died when he was looking to take down a volume of Talmud to study, and his heavy bookcase with all the books fell on him, crushing him instantly.
Another example of how religion can be deadly 😎
As it turns out, the story is actually apocryphal, although the reality is also bizarre: he was apparently crushed by a heavy coat rack.
Berg’s death from sepsis was interesting in that he apparently predicted it, since the number 23 was particularly significant for him and he was stated on his death bed that December 23rd, 1935 would be a “decisive” day. As it turns out, he died just after midnight, which makes it technically the 24th, but interesting nonetheless.