Music within The Wreckage of Agathon by John Gardner

Agathon was a "famous and respected" Athenian Seer in ancient Sparta ruled by the tyrant Lykourgos. Agathon became "the foulest man alive, by any reasonable standard: a maker of suggestions to ugly fat old cleaning ladies, a midnight prowler in the most disgusting parts of town. . . and lived, whenever his onion patch had nothing in it but burdocks and brambles, by foraging in the garbage tubs behind houses."

For no immediate reason, he was led away to prison, and Demodokos, a follower that he nicknamed Peeker, accompanied him with his jug. (Peeker: "Was it my fault that he couldn't carry his own damn jug? . . . I may be an old man myself sometime, thought I doubt it. 'All right,' I screamed, 'all right!' So they found out I was his follower, and put me with him in the cell.") They coexisted in a rat-infested prison cell—"a sprawling gray-stone mass of buildings filled with sickness and misery, honeycombed with windows like bugs' holes, and smoking here and there, day and night, like a garbage dump."

Agathon feels he has been "disloyal to everything [he] knows." He abandoned his wife and children, his city, his art."

In "The Wreckage of Agathon," by John Gardner we find another passage of ancient music overheard, and like Grendel, who listens unobserved and is utterly transformed, Agathon listens “clinging to the ledges [of her window on] the polished stone by [his] fingertips and toes.”

“Tuka sat, facing away from me, and her movements, as she played, were not like those I saw when she played for an audience: it was as if, now, she was inside the music, moving only as the music moved, swaying for an instant, hovering, sometimes touching the dark wood beam of the harp with her face as though the harp, too, knew the secret. I was torn by contradictory emotions, like the music, and, like the music, I turned them over and over, as if by feeling them intensely, not with my mind but with my body, I might grasp them. I felt outside time, as if all things merely temporal, coldly dianoetic, were of no importance.”

The sound of secrets. A Dionysian image grasped by the body outside of time. Harpists do that sort of thing. Agathon hears music intended for practicing, for communing with sound and the harp itself; as a voyeur, as an outsider.

In prison he remains an outsider who transcribes his prior world onto scrolls. He writes of his memories.

Agathon continued to listen: "the music moving in my chest like wind, like annulate waves, the cold night air moving softly across my skin, until my fingertips and toes ached from clinging, and I climbed back down. When I saw her by daylight it was as if what had happened in the night were unreal. The girl I had seen at her harp might easily have been anyone or no one, a spirit, but this daylit girl was Tuka, my friend, almost sister."

A Quick Tour through Twinkle; Thoughts on Mozart's Variations on Twinkle-Twinkle Little Star

Mozart's twelve variations on "Ah vous dirais-je, Maman" K. 265/300e are a showcase of compositional styles:



The theme is presented in a stately and spare two-voice scoring that sings. Then the collection bursts into motion with five variations that group together through the development of etude figuration and textural oscillation.

The patterning is systematic. The 16th note figuration in the first variation [0:34] is played by the right-hand; the second variation [1:03] by the left-hand.
Variations 3 and 4 spin slower, using a triplet motor, but follow the pattern; triplets in the third variation [1:33] played by the right-hand, then by the left in variation 4 [2:01].

The pattern is broken [2:35]. Mozart compresses the pattern into a single variation of immediate dialog between the hands. The fifth variation expresses humor in purely sonic context.

The broken pattern is a large-scale cadence to a textural process that links the first five variations into a larger stanza.

The second stanza of Mozart's Variations is a gallery of topics.

Variation VI [3:02] is like an eighteenth-century quickstep with figuration that sounds like the drums on wipeout by the Safaris. Eccentric perhaps, but this movement is a bridge from the systematic into a new collection of attitudes.

Variation VII [3:29] is set in the brilliant style with rockets balanced by throws. The broken chords at the cadences return in the figuration of the tenth variation and in modified form in the final cadence of the work.

The learned style is explored in the next two variations, first [3:57] with an unaccompanied motive in the parallel minor answered in the subdominant. A modified bass entry on the dominant balances harmonic fields. An austere and graceful dancing fills these lines which seem to continually fall, weighing against quick-rising motives.

Variation IX [4:33] seems a variation of the prior variation: it dances on the surface, losing its learned in rustic temptations.

Variation X [4:59] is an etude for left-hand crossing, balancing touch, and the challenge of matching voicings between the hands.

A gorgeous essay in the singing style follows [5:26]. The gentle syncopated background and the orchestral shifting among registers can be made unforgettable. The figure that opens the second half of the variation [6:05] also appears(transposed to G) in measure 9 of the Andante of his piano sonata K. 283.

The final variation [6:53] introduces music in 3/4 time. Trills on the third beat emphasize the new meter. A playful passage in doubled 16ths [7:14] momentarily suspends the strong dance impulse, but it re-emerges with clever third-beat hiccups four measures before the return.

A short cadenza samples textures from several variations to bring the set to a close.

Benno Moiseiwitsch; Pianist of the Grand Style

“The critics are occasionally pleased to compliment a pianist by saying that he plays in the grand style. Exactly what do they mean by that phrase? In the broadest sense, they mean a style of playing which penetrates deeper than the physical conquering of the piano. It concerns itself with the release of music.” Benno Moiseiwitsch



Benno Moiseiwitsch played in the “grand style.” He also lived his life by those ideals, leaving a legacy that is human and lasting, inspiring and sincere. A modest and self-effacing personality offstage, he generated extraordinary energy, excitement and glamour in concerts hall worldwide. Photographs radiate his sense of ease, and he maintained a distinctive calmness while performing. Yet, his recordings project music that is full of passion, inner-voices balanced with an orchestral depth, and lyrical lines that attract and reveal and surprise.

He was born in a suburb south of the Russian seaport of Odessa in 1890. His love of music, and aptitude for learning the piano lead him to the Imperial School of Music where he studied music along with general educational courses as a boy. At the age of nine he was awarded the Rubinstein Prize, a scholarship sponsored by the government to one student at a time for the duration of their studies. He outgrew the musical life at the Imperial School, and left in 1905 for a new start in England. Benno then followed the recommendation of his new teachers to fully develop his unique musical personality by seeking the best training available anywhere: to audition for study in Vienna with Theodore Leschetizky.

The transition between the nineteenth and twentieth century was dominated by the pupils of Franz Liszt and Theodore Leschetizky. Leschetizky studied with Czerny who studied with Beethoven. This direct lineage was handed down directly to Moiseiwitsch, and also to other significant pianists who studied with Leschetizky like Paderewski, Schnabel and Gabrilovitch. Moiseiwitsch later commented of his teacher that “no two pupils played the same piece in exactly the same way, but all his teaching was grounded in fundamental beauty of tone and emphasis on expressive color. Individuality, not method, made him the wonderful teacher he was. He turned what accomplishment I had into a love for the piano.”

In 1910, Moiseiwitsch’s official debut took place in London, after which he built an international career from a prolific performing and recording schedule. He married the Australian violinist Daisy Kennedy in 1914, but as happens all too often when active musicians marry, frequent professional separation led to legal separation and divorce after ten years. Moiseiwitsch remarried in 1929, having fallen in love with Anita Gensburger, the daughter of a prosperous Franco-Russian family living in Shanghai.

His career brought him in contact with most significant musical personalities of his day, but his bond was particularly strong with Sergei Rachmaninoff, and the two often spent informal time together razzing one another. Moiseiwitsch biographer Lawson Cook recalled that, “Moiseiwitsch was fascinated by Rachmaninoff’s response to humor, recalling that he would toss his head back, open his mouth wide, and wrinkles would form around his eyes. Tears would stream down his face, but he never made a sound!” Rachmaninoff expressed on more than one occasion that he considered many Moiseiwitsch recordings of his music better than his own.

Moiseiwitsch became a British subject in 1937, and when war broke out, gave an endless succession of concerts to help develop the Russian War Fund. Sir Winston and Lady Churchill were deeply touched by his artistry, and often invited he and Anita to dinners, informal performances, (Churchill’s favorite request was reported to be the Chopin Ballade No.3 in Ab Major. The middle section inspired in him the image of a galloping horse.) and perhaps most entertainingly, Moiseiwitsch became Churchill’s favorite Bridge partner.

Benno Moiseiwitsch died in 1963, active performing and touring until the very end of life. A premeir representative of the early century’s golden age of pianism, he helped to define pianistic eloquence itself. The “grand style” is increasingly studied by pianists today, who have found artistic integrity and love of sound in its recordings.

Sunday night television old-school. William Schuman on What's My Line.

On Sunday evening, September 30, 1962 during the 12th season of its 17-year run on CBS, American composer William Schuman (1910-1992) was correctly identified on "What's My Line." Schuman had been named the first president of Lincoln Center the year earlier, and his 8th symphony was to be premiered, with Leonard Bernstein conducting, the following Thursday, October 4:

The first segment introduces the four panelists, who will each ask questions designed to identify a mystery guest. Part of the charm of the show was that each panelist was introduced while walking onto the set, and they often took bows. Veteran panelist Dorothy Kilgallen (1913-1965) was introduced first. She was a journalist best known for her column "The Voice of Broadway." Kilgallen introduced Martin Gabel (1912-1986), though her accent makes his name sound more like "Morton." Known primarily as an actor, he introduced his wife, Arlene Francis (1907-2001), without "fulsome adjectives." Francis was an actress who was a regular on this show. Finally, Bennett Cerf (1898-1971), who was co-founder of Random House publishers. Cerf riffs on the Mariner 2 space probe, which had been launched by NASA about a month earlier, to introduce host John Charles Daly (1913-1991). Schuman was considered to be recognizable so the panel was asked to put on blindfolds [2:00]. The guys wear standards, but Francis looks like an aviator and Kilgallen looks ready to go swimming. Schuman signs in on a chalkboard [2:41]. Asked if he is familiar with the score-keeping system he says, "vaguely." Well, ten responses of "no" to questions from the panelists before he is identified and Schuman "wins." Schuman's "line" is shown to the audience [3:10]: "Composer and President of Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (New York City)." Francis [4:23] asks him a question that requires a "small conference:" "Are you a person behind the scenes rather than a performer yourself?" When Daley leans in [4:34] he looks ready to kiss Schuman. "He doesn't know," quips Francis during the conference, "whether he's back or front." "Four down six to go." "How about music?" asks Kilgallen [5:03]. "How about it?" replies Schuman, "what's the question?" "Are you Leonard Bernstein?" "I'm his friend." [5:48] Francis asks, "would you be Mr. Bing?" Rudolf Bing (1902-1997)was general manager of the Met at the time of this production. "I'm his friend." "Everybody's friend, this fella..." says Francis in the background. Gabel pins him to Lincoln Center [6:32]: "Are you a managing director of the new Lincoln Center?" Schuman responds that: "You'd have to rephrase the question but there is an element of truth in it." The best line of the episode [6:57] is the response by Gabel: "We are all seeking truth here, sir!" Ah, the days of gallantry. But then things fall apart and the questions become unfocused. All ten "no" answers have been given, none are left. Suddenly Cerf nails it [7:35]: "Is it Mr. Schuman?" After the buzz cools something even more remarkable for prime-time network television. The sentence [8:37]: "I'm happy too, for you sir, that your eighth symphony is to be performed this Thursday." Imagine. The opening movement of the symphony is a dark and enchanting sound world of obsession and slow unfoldings. "We are all seeking truth here, sir!" Had they played the opening of this symphony no questions would have been required to identify Schuman: