Filmmaker Michael Lawrence tells me a field of wheat played Bach for Steve Jobs

Music-loving American filmmaker Michael Lawrence sent me a note this afternoon about a tribute to Steve Jobs he has put together, in which Jobs calls the computer the greatest tool ever devised by humans, "a bicycle for our minds."

Here is Lawrence's note to me, followed by the video.

Like so many people around the world, I have been thinking of Steve Jobs since his passing. The outpouring has been almost surreal. 

I could not have made BACH & friends without his computers and software.

In 1989, I filmed an interview with Steve for my Library of Congress film and what a special day that was.   I remember very fondly every minute of the time I spent with him.  I still have the NeXT coffee mug he gave me.

A few years back, I put up a clip from the interview on YouTube and it has been viewed over 400,000 times - 34,000 views just yesterday alone.  

I didn't know Steve Jobs loved Bach until Mike Hawley asked me to send Steve and his wife Laurene a copy of BACH & friends.  Mike shared that Steve was one of his closest personal friends.  I found this quote of Steve talking of Bach:

"I had been listening to a lot of Bach. All of a sudden the wheat field was playing Bach. It was the most wonderful experience of my life up to that point. I felt like the conductor of this symphony with Bach coming through the wheat field.”  Quote from "Return to the Little Kingdom: How Apple and Steve Jobs Changed the World" by Michael Moritz

 

DVD Review: The magic of late conductor Carlos Kleiber eludes two different made-for-TV documentaries

This blog is back -- temporarily and not in a new format. Hopefully, that's better than a blank window.

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One of the recurring points of lively debate is what makes a conductor great. As Lorin Maazel said to me a couple of months ago, it's hard to put one's finger on specific characteristics, "but you know one when you see one."

Last month, German conductor Carlos Kleiber (1930-2004) was voted the top conductor of all time in a public poll published in BBC Magazine. He conducted a much less than most of the great conductors and his repertoire was especially narrow, rarely venturing out of the 19th century core of European repertoire.

Whatever you and I might think of polls, this must mean he was pretty special.

Coincidentally, two TV documentaries made about Kleiber since his death have recently been issued on DVD: Carlos Kleiber: Traces to Nowhere by Eric Schultz (ArtHaus Musik), which is the strongest of the two; and Carlos Kleiber: I Am Lost to the World, by Georg Wübbolt (C Major).

After watching both, I could only think of one thing: History only matters -- in the real sense of being deeply, viscerally important -- to those who have lived it. It's why each new generation needs its own heroes and villains and why we can't jsut write or say that so-and-so was great, we have to keep proving it over and over.

That's a roundabout way of saying that neither bio-doc really got to the heart of what made Kleiber so special -- more special that Leonard Bernstein or Riccardo Muti or Herbert von Karajan, or the hundred other greats listed in the BBC's poll.

Kleiber is said to have refused to give in-depth interviews, so both documentaries rely on friends and collaborators and colleagues. The most personal is Schultz's film, which includes Kleiber's older sister, Veronica.

Both documentaries use the same film clips of Kleiber in rehearsal and in performance, showing off a highly expressive, engaged conducting style of the type we see with someone like Canadian Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Both make the point that this is at the heart of what made orchestras respond to his instructions.

As has been the case so many times throughout history, the person behind the artist is a lot less impressive: Kleiber would frequently walk out of rehearsals and cancel performances. He wanted to be well-paid for what he did. Despite clear devotion to his wife, he was a compulsive womanizer. It appears he might have been borderline manic-depressive.

We don't need to know more about Kleiber's drinking habits. But we do need to see and hear more of his work. What both films lack, for me, is a complete performance of any one work, because that is, ultimately, what bound both listeners and musicians to him.

I love Kleiber's recording of Brahms' Symphony No. 4 with the Vienna Philharmonic from 1981 -- and there is a fine, if slightly less endearing one, available on video from a 1996 concert given by the Bavarian State Orchestra. This would have made an excellent companion to either documentary.

There is an excellent website that has nicely gathered up everything we need to know and hear about Kleiber here.

Here's a rare opportunity to see a bit of Kleiber at work in opera, while also being able to see what is happening on stage, in a Vienna State Opera production Richard Strauss's Der Rosenkavalier. it really is special.

Singing are Felicity Lott, Barbara Bonney and Anne Sofie von Otter in the Act III Trio:

 

If you'd like to watch the final duet (without a Kleiber inset), click here.

The Necessary 100: Even choosing 8 pieces doesn't begin to do Beethoven justice

I've spent the last week agonizing over which pieces of Ludwig van Beethoven's (1770-1827) should be on the Necessary 100 list of pieces of music that we cannot live without.

One day, my list skews this way. Then, the next day, I change my mind. All in the name of my little game. Surely I have better things to do with my time (and yours).

Well, to mix clichés, I have to stop waffling and draw a line in the sand.

I'm going to distill matters to the point of oversimplification (as is my wont). Beyond writing a library-full of impressive music, Beethoven accomplished three great things, which need to be reflected in the Necessary 100:

Symphonies
Beethoven helped shape the modern symphony and there is something special in each of Nos 5 to 9 that makes it a valid candidate for inclusion on the list. I'm choosing three:
-Symphony Nos 5 & 6: It's hard to believe Beethoven premiered these two pieces on the same night -- Dec. 22, 1808. The Fifth is angst-filled and mocks all sorts of Classical-era musical conventions. The Pastoral is a gorgeous example of thematic development joined with an evocation of mood and landscape. Together, these two works encapsulate everything that's important to the Romantics, in terms of self-expression and worship of nature, and beloved by 21st century classical music listeners. Like many other pieces I've put on the Necessary 100 list, these symphonies are over-played and over-recorded. But that doesn't take away from their value.
-Symphony No. 9: The Fifth and Sixth only hint at what was to come in the Ninth, which had its premiere in 1824. Everyone thinks of the final-movement vocal/choral setting of Schiller's Ode to Joy, but there are three complex and challenging instrumental movements before that. There isn't a dull moment here for anyone on stage -- or anyone listening.

Piano
Beethoven's piano sonatas really pushed the boundaries of the instrument as well as playing technique. The piano concertos do the same. I'm picking three pieces covering the span of Beethoven's lifetime:
-Sonata No. 8 (C minor, Op. 13). The publisher called it the Pathétique in 1799. The minor-key opening heralds drama that takes the music well beyond the Classical-era sonata form.
-Piano Concerto No. 5 (E-flat Major, Op. 73). The Emperor (also named by the publisher) appeared in 1809 and was premiered in 1811. This is a concerto on a symphonic scale.
-Sonata No. 32 (C minor, Op. 111). Oh gosh, it's 1823 and we're still in C minor. Or is it C Major? No, it's C minor. No, it's C Major.... Two movements contain a world of difficuties -- and a wealth of rewards. 

Strings
There are many chamber pieces that should be on the list. I've chosen one of the string quartets and, changing my mind, joining Larry Beckwith in putting forward the violin concerto. 
-String Quartet Op. 132 (No. 15, in A minor). This piece is titled "Heiliger dankgesang" because Beethoven wrote it while recovering from from illness in 1825. There is an intense intimacy to much of this quartet, which also offers layers and layers of musical structure to appreciate. It's my favourite of a fantastic collection of string quartets.
-Violin Concerto (D Major, Op. 61). Here's another work from the composer's rich middle period (1806, in this case). The piece is a microcosm of everything Beethoven does best: unexpected drama, masterful development of themes, quiet lyricism and, even, dancing.

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Rather than posting video clips from all of these well-known pieces, I thought I'd post something truly special: a 7-minute section from a three-year-old Beethoven-heavy film, Lesson 21, by Italian director Alessandro Barrico. We are hearing the third of five movements (Molto adagio; Andante) from the Op. 132 String Quartet, as played by Marco Rizzi, Danilo Rossi, Fabio Paggioro, Mario Brunello:

Documentary film Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould available for free streaming until Jan. 11

PBS has made its American Masters (!) broadcast of Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould available for free streaming on the web until Jan. 11. Incredibly, they've even made the HTML code for available for embedding elsewhere, so you don't have to leave the comfort of my blog to watch. Plus, there are several extras on the PBS site, including interviews with the filmmakers, Peter Raymont and Michèle Hozer.

Watch the full episode. See more American Masters.

 

Simone Dinnerstein: Listening to Bach's Goldberg Variations is like looking up at all the stars in the night sky

American documentary filmmaker Michael Lawrence sent me a note this morning, after reading my interview with Simone Dinnerstein, who is in Toronto tomorrow to play Bach's Goldberg Variations at Koerner Hall. He wanted to fill me in on the next steps in a monumental, ongoing labour of love and obsession he calls the Bach Project.

Lawrence's note reminded me of a beautiful segment in the project that features Dinnerstein. She plays the Aria (followed by a short clip of a variation), while talking about Bach and the Goldbergs and her feelings about the music.

Her description of listening to Bach being like looking at all the stars in a clear night sky is particularly apt. Even if you have no idea what it all means, you can't help but admire the view. What Dinnerstein doen't add, but implies, I'm sure, is if you do eventually begin to figure out what it means, and discern the patterns and interrelationships between the notes/stars, the view only becomes more beautiful.

I've followed Lawrence's Goldberg clip with the promotional video from Dinnerstein's new Bach album for Sony Classical, which gets released in a few weeks, where she says more about what Bach means to her, and the importance of capturing multi-dimensionality in music. (The piano she is playing in the video is the Hamburg Steinway she fell in love with while recording in Berlin. It was delivered to her home in Brooklyn a couple of weeks ago.)

Kinshasa children's brass band an eloquent example of music's ability to empower the powerless

Photo: The Guardian

I was deeply touched by a documentary video posted by the Guardian about a brass band made up of children who had all found themselves living in the streets of Kinshasa, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The personal histories of these children are heartbreaking, but their joy and sense of newfound community and hope, as found in literally banding together, is a testament to how collaborative musicmaking can overcome the most seemingly insurmountable of obstacles.

The documentary lasts only 10 minutes, but it made my whole weekend. You can view it here.

Now that we have opera at the movies, it's time for movies with opera in them

Yesterday's Observer magazine in the Guardian reported that there's a February premiere coming for a British movie that contains large chunks of Mozart's opera Così fan tutte. Richard E. Grant stars in First Night as a wealthy man who invites a troupe over to perform the opera at his house.

The article suggests that this may be the Next Big Thing in movies, not mentioning Kenneth Branagh's endearingly strange World War I-set Magic Flute feature film from four years ago, which came and went with barely a ripple, despite some very fine singing.

But now that operas are Saturday-afternoon sellouts at movie theatres, perhaps the time has come for opera in movies, as well.

In case you missed Branagh's movie, here is an early scene that includes Canadian Joseph Kaiser, who plays Tamino, followed by a clip of René Pape as Sarastro:

Opera and film director Franco Zeffirelli grants candid at-home interview to author Jasper Rees

This past weekend, the London Sunday Times ran a wonderful profile by Jasper Rees of opera and film director Franco Zeffirelli "visibly in the deep winter of a lifespan that began in 1923."

Zeffirelli is a classic combination of fruitful creator and not-so-nice human being. He is magnetic and repulsive, awe-inspiring and frustrating. In other words, he is absolutely compelling.

It's a great read.

If you don't have an online subscription to the London Times, you can find the article republished today in The Australian.

The rich biographical soil of Glenn Gould's life and art is quickly being depleted by over-farming

There's a book launch tomorrow night at the Royal Ontario Museum for Partita for Glenn Gould, by Montrealer Georges Leroux. (Click on the title for publication details.)

In its original French, the book won the Grand Prix du Livre de Montréal and was a finalist for the Governor General's Literary Award for Nonfiction. Given that the work is by a veteran University de Québec à Montreal philosophy professor with a lifelong love of Glenn Gould's playing, this should be a welcome addition to the huge-and-growing catalogue of biographies, meditations and appreciations of an artist who touched the lives of millions of listeners around the world.

Before I weigh in on the book, you should know that my predecessor as Star classical music critic, William Littler, is going to moderate a chat with Leroux as well as Michèle Hozer and Peter Raymont (the makers of the film Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould) tomorrow, starting at 7 p.m., at the ROM's Signy and Cléophée Eaton Theatre (level 1B). The evening includes the screening of the film. Tickets are $25 ($20 for ROM members), and can be reserved here.

As for my impressions of the book, the first thing you should know is that I repeatedly wanted to fling it across the room in frustration.

Early in his book, Leroux quotes from "Let's Ban Applause," something Gould wrote in 1962. Leroux writes that, in this passage, "we find the strongest expression of what will become (Gould's) artistic ethic. I regard it as a declaration of principle that underlies his entire aesthetic, and I will return to it often:"

I am disposed toward this view because I believe that the justification of art is the internal combustion it ignites in the hearts of men and not its shallow, externalized, public manifestations. The purpose of art is not the release of a momentary ejection of adrenaline, but is, rather, the gradual, lifelong construction of a state of wonder and serenity. Through the ministrations of radio and the phonograph, we are rapidly and quite properly learning to appreciate the elements of aesthetic narcissism -- and I use that word in the best sense -- and are awakening to the challenge that each man contemplatively create his own divinity.

Leroux responds to Gould like so:

In this book I want to reflect on the meaning of this sense of wonder and this sovereignty of the artistic life, and also on the factors that limit the experience. I also want to look at the transcendence of a work of art and the sway it exercises over a life, even in its persistent elusiveness. My assumption is that these limits are pushed outward day by day, and I am tempted to see there a parallel with holiness. I would not recoil from speaking of the holiness of art, if by that one means the absolute, uncompromising commitment to a style of life. We would not revere a saint who did not give of himself freely; not would we admire an artist who took no risks. The demands of art are such that it claims life in its entirety, and that is the price of authenticity...

And so on (and on). And on.

It is such a Romantic view of the Artist, with a capital A. It also has all the elements of the Facebook world's preoccupation with All Things Me. And it all comes wrapped in the florid circumlocution of a seasoned lecturer on Philosophy.

Leroux gazes adoringly at his subject, returning obsessively to Gould's eccentric solitude as a source of fascination, from childhood through to the final recording of the Goldberg Variations. All of his biographical material is borrowed from those who came before, so what we get is an appreciation. There are no freshly unsealed letters, no secret trysts, no hatchets unearthed. Here is a man who loves music and adores Gould, and seems to have a fondness for the Artist as hero, building the sound studio as his Temple to Art.

This rubs me the wrong way, because I (currently) believe that it is this kind of unnatural fixation on the artist as icon that scares away many young people from the world of classical music. If we didn't have eccentrics, we wouldn't have any art. Musicians are human beings whose music will or won't connect with a listeners for purely human reasons. 

For me, the ideal book about Gould that was not about Gould is Mark Kingwell's contribution to Penguin's Great Canadians series from last year. Kingwell looks beyond the self of the listener and the artist to look at a broader cultural and philosophical context for what made Glenn Gould so very special.

Kingwell used his philosophical background to help me see and understand how our society makes icons of artists. Kevin Bazzana's biography, Wondrous Strange, explained Gould the man and the artist in a straightforward, meticulously researched and elegantly laid out narrative.

For this pair of eyes, Leroux's extended meditation achieves neither.

Perhaps we should simply let the music speak to us directly, and stop trying to explain its mysterious attraction. The soil of Glenn Gould's life and work can only net so much fruit before it runs out of nutrients.

Here's Gould, playing the Fugue in E-flat, from Book II of the Well-Tempered Clavier, in 1963:

Here, for Scott, is a montage of Toronto streets, roads and alleyways, with a soundtrack of Gould playing Sellinger's Round, by William Byrd:

On TV tonight: Why Canada Council Instrument Bank competition is like no other

Cellist Denis Brott puts everything in perspective about halfway through the film, when he says: "A great instrument is when the limitations are always yours." That is what makes Old Master violins and cellos so valuable musically, and why so many string players dream of getting one in their hands.

Last year, Montrealer Ari Cohen followed a pan-Canadian competition for young, talented string players that awards the use, for three years, of one of 14 stringed instruments from the Canada Council's Instrument Bank.

We meet many of the competitors and several past winners, and discover what a close relationship these people have with their instruments. We find out how the enterprising Brott hooked up with William Taylor, a prominent business CEO, to raise some money for this project three decades ago. We also see how this competition is not just about musicality, but having a serious career plan.

The Instrument Bank competition is about the total artist and, satisfyingly, Cohen also manages to connect the viewer with the total person. It's a fine way to spend some time in front of the TV this evening -- on Bravo! at 8 p.m. (Eastern), with a repeat broadcast on Oct. 30 at 7 p.m.

Here's the official trailer: