Practice Log

9/3/16

Played Viola.
Bow is good. Work on sh rest.
Played scales. Do more and add arp’s and diff bowings.
Tried J Ridge. Too hard, but had nice hi lonesome sound.
Wayfaring Stranger: Sounds good.
Tried other songs, esp easy ones that I know.
Look for another bluegrassy, hi lonesome piece, perhaps a waltz that would be fun to play.
Try Ash F.

David Oistrakh: Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, Brahms and Dvorak.wmv

Here is 3 1/2 hours of heaven. I love David Oistrakh. His artistic richness brings me both peace and excitement. I wish I could own this recording. It is on an old Soviet label dating back to the Cold War and very hard to find. I'm grateful to mightysmeagol  for posting this on Youtube and also sharing it via Google+.

My Father and Pagliacci

I remember so clearly my father sitting and listening to his old vinyl recording of Caruso singing I Pagliacci. My father's eyes were half closed, his lips were trembling, and tears were running down his cheeks.

Here is that recording.

When I listened to it just now, I cried heavily. I cried for Pagliacci and I cried for my father. I miss my father so much. He helped shape my inner life according to his. Although his outer life became a mess, his inner life shone with the joys and values he nurtured in me: love of learning, science, history, poetry, literature, music, art, humor, and a sensitivity to the plight of those "less fortunate than we," which led him to progressive political activism. I miss my father so much.

Would anyone notice

Would anyone notice if I disappear?
Would anyone understand why I had to go?
Would anyone who was cold to me while I was here
Feel some remorse for hurting me so?
Would anyone feel sad because they held me dear?
Would anyone still think of me after a year?

Teaching Violin by Skype

Out of the blue came a request from someone I didn’t even know, someone who lived far away from me.  “Would you consider giving me a violin lesson by Skype?” she asked me by email.  It sounded both fun and challenging, so I said, “Sure.”

I’ve been giving lessons by Skype for over a year now, and I’ve discovered a lot of interesting things about this kind of teaching.

I teach violin / fiddle to beginners, including adult beginners.  Beginning fiddlers really do need teachers.  The physical techniques necessary for playing the violin are challenging.  Beginners must learn, consolidate, and maintain many motor skills with left and right shoulders, arms, wrists, hands, and fingers.  It is crucial to develop good habits right from the start because bad habits will be very difficult to correct later.  Beginning students need a teacher to watch them play and make corrections.  

There are different kinds of online violin lessons.  A common one, which is not mine, resembles a large scale group lesson.  The teachers videotape themselves teaching lessons and put the tapes online for anyone to use for free.  I have looked at a lot of them, and some are very good.  The way I teach, via Skype, is really a private lesson.  I teach one on one and in real time.  I watch and listen to a student and give him or her feedback just as I would to a student in my home.  My online lessons are up close and personal.  

I often read beginning fiddlers say that the sound they make is like squeaking and squawking and that the people who live with them can scarcely bear listening to them for the first year or so.  I always tell my beginning students that after just one lesson, they will be able to make a pretty sound with their violin.  I have never been proven wrong.  I regard the squeaks and squawks of beginning fiddlers as cries for help.

Most people believe that it is best to have a teacher who can be with them in person, and I agree.  However, this is not always possible.  Most of my online violin students live in musically underserved areas.  That includes people in rural areas in the U.S. as well as those in other countries, notably Australia.   Since I live in a major metropolitan area with lots of violin teachers and violin stores, this has been a new concept for me.   One of my fun experiences teaching online happened when something streaked by outside the window behind one of my Australian students.  He later told me that it was a kangaroo.  One of my students lives in a small city in Alaska.  There was only one violin  teacher in her city, and he moved away.  I asked one of my students in Australia how far she lived from a violin store, and she said, “An eight hour drive.”  When these people need help learning to play the violin, online lessons can be a godsend.  

My distance learning students fall into one of two groups.  First are the ones whom I teach regularly  once a week.  Teaching them is very similar to teaching my students in my home weekly.  The second group consists of self taught adult beginners.  Some of them have been struggling alone in the wilderness for too long.  Some have no fiddle teachers nearby.  Others just can not afford to pay for weekly lessons.  They all realize that they need help from someone who can watch and listen to them play and give personalized feedback.  They generally take lessons from me on a sporadic basis.  Results would probably be better with regular weekly lessons, but I’m glad to help them in any way that I can.

I love playing the violin; I love learning new things; and I love helping others.  Teaching violin gives me immense personal satisfaction.  Teaching one on one online has helped me extend my reach and explore new ways of teaching.  I just love it.

Teaching adult beginners to play the violin

I am a patient, encouraging teacher of beginners of all ages, and many of my students are adults.  A lot of adult beginners approach me saying, “I don’t even know whether it makes sense to start at my age” or “I have no experience with music.  Can I start now?”  I tell them, “It is never too late to start doing something you love.” 

You can read about me as a teacher on the website I made for my students and on my personal website.  Be sure to read about my adult beginners, too.  

I have found one big difference between adult beginners and kid beginners:  Adults are impatient. The adult beginners often want to jump ahead and do complex things before they master the basics. They also get frustrated easily because they think that, "I've been studying for a year. I should be able to do this right by now."  I tell them them to remember that the violin is a very technical instrument.  I also advise them to give themselves high marks and feelings of accomplishment for every increment of progress, no matter how small.  A teacher who has experience with adult beginners can help by giving you positive feedback whenever it is justified.

Of course, adults’ bodies are not the same as kids’ bodies. Often I find that adult beginners, especially adult males, can not use their hands and fingers in the preferred way,  I have to help them find ways to "cheat" and still produce a good sound.  I treat each student as an individual and avoid the "one size fits all" approach.

Playing the violin can cause muscle cramps, especially while learning.  The people who are most often affected are adult males because their muscles are large.   You can not play the violin with muscle cramps, just as you can not run with leg cramps.  Stretching can help you keep your muscles healthy and pain free, and it is important for all violin players, particularly for adult males. I recommend stretching before, during, and after practicing.  I have a page on my website (https://sites.google.com/site/paulinelernersviolinstudio/stretching-exercises-for-violinists) with videos of helpful stretches, and I teach these stretches to my students.

I love teaching adult beginners.  My lessons are stimulating, fun, and rewarding for both me and my students.  

Through the Windows of My Mind

When I look at my photo of light and open spaces at Strathmore Music Center, I sometimes see an intriguing world beckoning for me to come there, outside the window.  I think about Alice, who stepped “Through the Looking Glass” and explored a world related to, but in some ways very different from, our own.  In another story, Peter had a wonderful trick of flying in through the window and later flying away through the same window to a very different world.  Wendy loved to listen to his stories about his other world.

The child is father to the man.  Robert Louis Stevenson was an invalid child who spent most of his childhood in bed.  His nurse would carry him to the window so he could look out.  Back in bed, he would play with his toys, sometimes pretending that he was exploring outdoors.  Some of his childhood impressions were expressed years later in his poems in “A Child's Garden of Verses,” which I learned to read on.

Robert Frost wrote a poem about a tree outside his bedroom window.  He said

That day she put our heads together,
Fate had her imagination about her,
Your head so much concerned with outer,
Mine with inner, weather. 

Many of Georia O’Keefe’s paintings are about light and open space.  When she was a little girl,  someone told her to build a doll house.  She went outside, found two sticks of about the same size, and put them down on the ground in a plus (+) shape.  Her dollhouse had lots of open space connected to the outdoors.

Wordsworth was impressed with daffodils that he had seen outside dancing in the wind.  Later, in a pensive mood, he saw them with his “inward eye” and found that

...then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils. 

I thought of all these things and will likely think of more just from looking at my photo.

The Alleged Death of Classical Music

“Please comment on the decline of Classical music listeners in our society and what, if anything, can be done to reverse the trend.”  No, this is not the subject of an essay required for admission to a school of music.  It is a question posed on LinkedIn recently and discussed con spiritu online.  To paraphrase Mark Twain, the reported death of classical music has been greatly exaggerated.  

I got revved up on the subject and wrote the following.

Will people be playing and listening to Lady Gaga in 20 - 40 years from now? Many people love and listen to music by dead European musicians such as Bach, Handel, Mozart, Chopin, and many, many more today, and people will continue listening to their music and loving it long after Lady Gaga and her ilk pass from the public eye and ear.

I agree with the music teachers who emphasized the importance of getting classical music to kids when they are young and impressionable. My parents listened to classical music around the house all the time when I was a kid. We didn't have much money, so the only live performances of classical music I heard during my childhood were sponsored by a local brewery. I think that live outreach concerts of classical music for people who would not hear it otherwise are very important.

Classical music does not need to be dumbed down for kids to understand it. I'm old enough to remember listening to and loving Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts. I was excited when they were re-released on video and DVD, although I could not afford to buy them until just a few years ago. I still listen to them over and over, love them, and keep learning from them.

BTW, I love listening to and playing, when I can, music by the Beatles, Bill Monroe, the Tannahill Weavers, Ravi Shankar, and more. I play and teach classical and other styles of music, and I can attest that there is a surplus of prejudice on all sides.

Let's not forget that Lang Lang -- the great, young, Asian born and raised, master of classical music by dead European composers -- was first turned on to classical music by a Tom and Jerry cartoon with music by Liszt.

Ride, Sally, Ride

I feel saddened by the passing of Dr. Sally Ride and impressed by her legacy. She was the first American woman astronaut and forged ahead despite public putdowns regarding the innate inabilities of a woman in a male-dominated field. Equally impressive to me was her stance as a panel member investigating the tragic blowup of the Challenger space shuttle shortly after takeoff and the resulting deaths of all of the crew. Dr. Ride asked tough questions and was morally outraged at the refusal of NASA administrators to take seriously earlier warnings about the O-rings instability that caused the blowup. I'm glad that I came of age when she did. I have respected her and benefitted from her role as a professional.

Loving a Fiddle

I took these photos of a friend playing his fiddle at a jam session.  I can tell by his hands that he loves playing his fiddle just as I love playing mine.  I see a lot of love in these photos.

My humble impressions of "French Impressions" by Joshua Bell and Jeremy Denk

The whole classical music world -- or, at least, the violin classical music world -- has been abuzz for months about "French Impressions," a stunning new recording by violinist Joshua Bell and pianist Jeremy Denk.  The CD was heralded by tremendous publicity before its release in January of this year and highly praised by reviewers since then.  The recording artists have given interviews about the music and their interactions with each other as performers.  Now I add my humble impressions of "French Impressions."

"French Impressions" contains three pieces for piano and violin written by Saint-Saens, Franck, and Ravel, composers of the French Impressionist style and contemporaries of the French Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painters.  French Impressionist paintings are all about color, nuance, and light.  Likewise, French Impressionist music emphasizes the color of each note.  It is about sound for sound's sake.

Shimmering light and nuances of color by Monet 

Joshua Bell and Jeremy Denk have toured and concertized together for seven years.  How have they developed and maintained a productive relationship?  When the two musicians first played together, they just clicked, according to Bell.  They shared some basic musical values.  Their differences are important, too.  Bell says that Denk is a scholar, and Denk says that Bell is a great communicator.  The two musicians argue through their different perceptions of the music and how it should be played, a process which Bell describes as "fun."  They approach and play music as equals, not as a violin soloist with a piano accompanist.

My very first reaction to "French Impressions," after hearing only a few notes, was that the quality of the sound was wonderful in a way that I had not experienced before.  It was rich, coherent, and very close to me.  There was no sense of directionality.  The sound completely surrounded and engulfed me.  I read later that Bell wanted just this quality of sound.  He said that he didn't want the person listening to his CD to feel as though he were sitting in the audience of a concert hall with two musicians onstage.  Instead, he wanted the listener to hear the music as if he were right on stage with the musicians.  The producer of this recording, Steve Epstein, worked hard to get this effect, running around and between the musicians with extra microphones as necessary.  Bell certainly got the results he wanted.

The first piece on the recording, the Sonata for Violin and Piano by Saint-Saens, is by far the most calm and tranquil.  In the first movement, this sonata shows its good credentials as French Impressionist music.  It is about color, not melody.  Most of the piece is tender, gentle, and playful. 

The Franck sonata is the centerpiece of the recording, and it is interesting from many perspectives.     

I have known and loved a 1989 recording of the Franck sonata played  by Joshua Bell and Jean-Yves Thibaud.  The performance on the current CD is infinitely better.  When an interviewer recently asked Bell about the earlier recording, Bell answered uncomfortably that he hasn't listened to it in 20 years.      

The varieties of color, note by note, are especially dramatic in the violin part.  Each note can stand by itself as a work of art.  Bell uses subtle variations in such techniques as vibrato to convey dramatic differences in the color of each note.  The listener can appreciate these variations in different ways.  One can listen carefully to catch the individual beauty of every note, or one can relax and let the stream of colors sparkle, shimmer, and drift by.  I am reminded of John Lennon's advice to lean back, relax, and float downstream, although he was actually describing a very happy LSD trip. 

Many pieces of music evoke images for me, but the Franck sonata gives me a mixed perception of sound and light.  There really aren’t any words to describe this perception.  People who have had good trips on LSD or other hallucinogens have spoken of the mixing of senses.  They say that they can hear colors, taste sounds, etc.  If you want a mini-psychodelic experience, listen to the Franck sonata in the way John Lennon described.

The Franck sonata is captivating from the very start. The first movement conveys to me a sense of the  many colors of sweetness.  In spite of the emphasis on sound for sound’s sake, it has a very lovable melody.  You can walk away humming it.  The part of the sonata that comes closest to the sound of color is, for me, the second movement.  Here the music sounds like shimmering, glowing light.  I especially like the third movement.  One short theme is repeated over and over with every imaginable nuance of color in the violin, the piano, and the combination of the two instruments.  The fourth movement has a distinct, pleasing, and very sing-able melody.

As a violinist, I have benefitted greatly from Laurie Niles's interview with Jeremy Denk on violinist.com.  He discusses the considerable technical demands and virtuosic potential of the piano part of the Franck sonata.  He also advises violinists to pay particular attention to the bass line of the piano because the violin must fit well with it. 

Another very impressive piece on this recording is Ravel’s Sonata for Violin and Piano. I was fortunate enough to hear this piece performed live by Joshua Bell and Jeremy Denk (See my blog on violinist.com), and I found it very moving.  It is so dramatic that it lifts me up every time I hear it.  It is an unusual jazz piece.  Jazz was born in the U.S., but it has always been popular in France.  Ravel put his own spin on it.  He used jazz rhythms most dramatically in the first movement.  Bell noted that part of the second movement sounds like “Summertime,” which was written much later (1933-1935) by George Gershwin.  The resemblance is striking.  “Summertime” has become a jazz standard and has been recorded over 25,000 times.  It was arranged for violin, performed, and recorded by Heifetz and has become a staple of the violin repertoire.  When Bell played this jazz fragment, he followed in the footsteps of the great Heifetz. In another part of the sonata, Bell plays some flashy pizzicato that sounds like a jazz guitar.                                                                                          

Another interesting aspect of Ravel’s sonata is its dance-like quality.  Ravel wrote a great deal of dance music including La Valse, Valses Nobles et Sentimentales, Pavane for a Dead Princess, and several ballet scores.    Various parts of his sonata sound like swirling dances, gypsy dances, or high energy foot stomping dances.  I love this recording because Ravel, Bell, and Denk give their listeners so  many varieties of beauty in just one piece. 

"French Impressions"is now among my best loved CDs.  I listen to it over and over, and I love it more each time.

 

Postlude:

Here are some resources I used for writing this article.  You may find them interesting, too.

Sound samples (with option to buy) and press release on Joshua Bell's website.

Interview with Joshua Bell and  promotional video

Interview with Jeremy Denk by Laurie Niles

The Joys of My Childhood, Lost and Found

Ever since childhood, I have loved to read.






Looking back, I can see that reading was my way of escaping the unhappy reality of a dysfunctional family.  I did pay a price for it, though.  My mother used to give me hell for reading.  "You've always got your nose stuck in a book" she'd say.  "You're going to grow up to be an egghead, utterly worthless, just like that no good father of yours."  However, my joy was well worth the price I paid for it.


I suppose that I did grow up to be an egghead, although not entirely worthless, and I married an egghead who loved to read just as much as I did.  During the 18 years of our  marriage, we accumulated many books -- about 3,000, as I estimated during our divorce.  When I left my ex, I just didn't know what to do about all these books.  I didn't know how to figure out which were his and which were mine.  Besides, I felt giving for leaving him.  I took just a very few of the books for myself.  My office mate and unofficial counselor told me, "You should have taken them all."  He was absolutely right.  I should have taken them all.  

One of the hardest experiences of my divorce was finding out that my ex had moved 1,000 miles away and taken our books with him.  I learned that one day at work, and I went out of my office, got into my car, and screamed and cried for an hour.

My ex mailed me just one book out of those 3,000, and that was very painful, too.  The book was a gift from one of my students, who had inscribed it "To my teacher and friend,  Love, Michael."  At first I didn't know why my ex had sent me that one, very special book.  Later, I decided that he did it because he was jealous of all my male friends.  That book means a lot to me, and I still have it.  

After our divorce, when I got myself back together financially, I began to look for and buy some of my favorite books which I had lost.  One of the first things I did when I got my divorce money was to go to a bookstore and come out with my arms full of poetry and Shakespeare and a great big smile on my face.  I wasn't always successful in finding the books I loved, though.  Some were out of print, and others, which I had bought during our travels abroad, were not available in English in this country.

Recently I've started getting books for free or for very low prices through Kindle and other sources online.  The other day I found "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass" with the original illustrations on Internet Archive.  That was one of my lost favorites.  I especially loved the pictures.  I am now reading it and enjoying it immensely.

Christmas, 2011

Today I had some things that most people have and don't appreciate: family and friends. My cousin, with whom I recently reconnected, wrote me a warm, cheery email. I had Christmas dinner, as I have for several years, with some friends I care for very much. Today life was good.

Fall foliage, 2010 and 2011

Octave violins

Another octave violin (OV4) made by Bruce Gewirz.  

It differs from his previous ones in that he started with a small (14") viola rather than a full size violin.  The sound is deeper and fuller because the viola body is made to sound that way.  I'm having fun playing it and breaking it in.

Here is a family portrait of 3 octave violins made by Bruce Gewirz from 14" violas.

Oxygen and the Sibelius Concerto

I was looking forward to this concert for a long time: Gil Shaham playing Sibelius's Violin Concerto. I had never heard Shaham in person, and I love the Sibelius.

I had been sick with a migraine and dizzy spells for a few days before the concert. By the day of the concert, I was feeling better, although not quite fully recovered. I had no doubt that I would go to the concert. Many times in my life, I've had to choose between feeding the body and feeding the spirit. I have always chosen to feed the spirit, even if my body feels worse temporarily, and I've always found that this works for me. What good is a healthy body with a weak spirit?

When I went to the Kennedy Center, I was still feeling somewhat dizzy. I moved slowly and carefully, and I was fine until I started up the stairs toward the entrance of the concert hall. I fainted, but I regained consciousness as soon as I hit the ground. I have had similar experiences over the last few years. I am under the care of two good doctors, so I wasn't worried. Several people, including a nurse and a doctor, stopped to help me. However, an emergency medical technician employed by the Kennedy Center came over and took charge. He kept trying to talk me into going to the emergency room of a nearby hospital, and I kept say, "I want to hear this concert. I really want to hear this concert." He gave me some oxygen to breathe, and it made me feel much better. He admitted that I looked better, but he still tried to talk me into going to the hospital. I can be very stubborn, and I was. He had me sign a release form, and I stayed for the concert.

The Sibelius Concerto was quite a thrill. It pulls the listener into it with a fine, taut line. The first few measures say so much with so little. The orchestra starts playing very softly, and after a few measures, the violin enters very, very softly. You almost have to strain to hear the violin at first. It plays a gradual crescendo, lean and tense. The vibrato on the first few notes communicates wonders. "In no violin concerto is the soloist’s first note—delicately dissonant and off the beat—so beautiful," says Michael Steinberg in the program notes for the Boston Symphony Orchestra. I have recordings of this concerto played by several great violinists (Hilary Hahn, Joshua Bell, Jascha Heifetz, and David Oistrakh). I've listened to the first few notes of each recording by each violinist over and over. Most of these violinists start with a very narrow vibrato which heightens the tension as it pulls you in. The sound swells and the emotions become more intense.

At the concert, I was prepared for the first note on the violin. I leaned forward in my seat and watched Shaham's left hand. His initial vibrato was larger than the ones I've heard in recordings of other violinists, and his first note sounded richer. He maintained a rich, warm sound throughout most of the concerto.

Like many well known violin concertos, the Sibelius presents formidable technical challenges to the violinist. For example, the violinist must play a trill with the first and second fingers while playing a second moving line with the third and fourth fingers on the next lower string. Other challenges include double stopped sixths which must be played precisely in tune for correct effect, double stopped glissandi, up bow staccato double stops, runs with rapid string crossings, and passages of harmonics. I watched Shaham's left hand playing all these challenging maneuvers with speed and grace, as if they were easy. His left hand gymnastics were awe-inspiring. In addition, his tone was beautiful throughout the concerto.

I don't have a clip of Shaham playing the third movement of the concerto, but this video of David Oistrakh playing it shows the astounding pyrotechnics of his left hand.

I always understand music better when I can see, as well as hear, it. I love to watch themes being tossed from one group of instruments to another, musical conversations between groups of instruments, power plays (one section grabbing attention with a sudden fortissimo), unexpected assertions by the percussion instruments, and other tours de force. In the Sibelius Concerto, the soloist sometimes joins in the action just like a section of the orchestra.

The Sibelius concerto encompasses a variety of intense emotions, sometimes changing in rapid succession. At times, the soloist plays striking changes in tone from loud and forceful to soft and tender. The contrast focusses the listener's attention on the soft, tender notes and makes them even more endearing. Both Shaham and the the National Symphony Orchestra conveyed the emotions with stunning effects. I was sitting on the edge of my seat, entranced, through the whole performance.

Although I've never been to Scandinavia, the Sibelius Concerto sounds to me like a Scandinavian winter with its stinging cold, biting wind, dancing aurora, and brilliant sunshine.

During the intermission after the concerto, one of the Kennedy Center staff came to me in my seat and said, "I've been standing at the rear of the concert hall and watching you to be sure that you're OK. I saw you in animated conversation with the woman sitting next to you, and I knew that you were feeling fine." He was right. The combined effects of the oxygen and the Sibelius Concerto had completely restored me.

Has Hilary Hahn gotten too fishy?

Hilary Hahn recently posted a clip of herself interviewing a fish, but not a real fish. She got many positive comments from her fans.




This is what betta fish are really like.


Now Hahn's fish video has been reviewed by a music critic, David Stearns, at http://www.artsjournal.com/condemned/2011/10/hilary-hahns-fish-video-and-life-lessons-from-carol-channing/.  He talks about the musician/reviewer relationship and tells some interesting stories about his own experiences. Then he writes, "Until now, she has had a relatively sweet relationship with the news media….[but in her fish interview] she seems to mock the news media with surprisingly cheap shots."

I'm a great fan of Hilary Hahn. I love her artistry as a violinist. I also love her communication with the public via Q&A sessions and autograph sessions after concerts, her blog, her Twitter posts, and her TV interviews. I know that she started interacting with kids in the early part of her career, probably because she was a child prodigy and likes interacting with kids. However, I do not like her fish interview. I feel that she is getting too cute-sy. I generally enjoy her posts on her Youtube channel, but now I wonder whether she has gone from being amiable and joyful to being just a little too cute.

On hearing Leonard Bernstein's Symphony 3, "Kaddish"

Leonard Bernstein's Symphony No. 3, Kaddish, is a massive work for orchestra, two choruses (one adult and one children), and a narrator.  The emotional impact is also massive. 


Leonard Bernstein once said that he loved both music and words, and that is why many of his musical compositions have singing or narration as integral parts.  His third symphony is built around the traditional Jewish prayer, the Mourner's Kaddish.  From the time the Kaddish Symphony was first performed, it received harsh criticism for its narrative.  Even Bernstein was unhappy with the narrative, and he found the right person to rewrite it when he read a book by Simon Pisar.


Pisar had unusual qualifications for the task.  His resume included Auschwitz and Harvard. Today he is one of the few remaining Holocaust survivors.  He was captured and taken to a Nazi death camp when he was only 10 years old, and he saw his family members taken to their deaths.  His perspective as a child, underscored by the children's chorus in Kaddish, gives a special meaning to the symphony.  When the American army came and liberated his death camp, Pisar ran joyfully to the white stars on their tanks.  After his release, he needed considerable caring and rehabilitation.  Fortunately, he had relatives in France and Australia who took care of him.  He finished college in Australia, earned doctoral degrees at Harvard and the Sorbonne, and became an international lawyer.  The came another miracle:  He decided to spend his life working for reconciliation between nations and ethnic groups who saw each other as enemies.  From his high ranking positions in the U.N., UNESCO, and the State Department, as well as his role as adviser to President Kennedy, he worked proactively to reconcile traditional enemies, including Communist and democratic countries, Jews and Arabs, and the U.S. and Muslim terrorists.

Bernstein tried in vain for many years to convince Pisar to write a new narrative for his Kaddish symphony, but Pisar believed that his writing skills were not good enough to accompany Bernstein's music.  Only after 911 and the surrounding hatred did he agree to write the narrative.  He also felt compelled to write because the memory of the Holocaust was fading.  It was very difficult for him because he had to immerse himself in his own personal memories of the Holocaust.

Since Pisar's narrative is far better than anything I could say about it, I will quote some of his words and insert a video of part of the performance.

In the invocation, the first part of the narrative, Pisar tells God that his Kaddish is dedicated to

...Your tormented children:
Jews, Christians Muslims and all others
[...]
Yearning for Freedom, justice, and peace
In our genocidal, fratricidal and suicidal world.


Then he describes some of his own emotions.

I utter this lament with grief and anger
Welling up from my own traumatic past
[...]
My first tears are for my family and my people,
Perpetual victims of religious and racial persecution
That reached its climax in my childhood
Destroying everything and everyone around me.


Then Pisar expresses, for the first of many times in this work, his anger against God.
While You, supreme ruler of the Universe,
Stood idly by.


Pisar speaks of his own personal losses in the Nazi death camps and rails against God for letting him down.  He speaks vividly of the cries of the victims before they died in the
gas chambers and honors their fighting spirit just moments before death.

In this part of the narrative, Pisar has a brief but dramatic utterance that is one of the most hard hitting parts of the entire symphony for me.

Can you pardon my sins, Lord?
Can I pardon Yours?

The climax of the narrative occurs when Pisar recalls endearing memories of his grandmother singing lullabies to him.  Even this sweet memory engenders conflicting feelings in him.

I can still hear my grandmother's sweet voice,
Singing me lullabies about how good, how loving,
How merciful a God You are
[...]
The memories of my grandmother's lullabies
Has always soothed me to sleep,
Even when I became an adult.
But in my nightmares all I could see
Were her eyes and hand
Raised in fervent prayers to You
As the killers took her away.

This part of the symphony features a solo soprano singing as Pisar remembers his grandmother singing.  In the performance I heard, the soprano sang absolutely beautifully.  The applause told me that the rest of the audience felt the same way I did.

For the remainder of the symphony, Pisar speaks of his love and devotion to God, but some anger and disappointment remain.

Yet I have never deserted Your fold
Nothing could ever shake my ancestral vow to worship You
[...]
It is high time that You reaffirm
Our everlasting covenant.

Even his current blessings are mixed with past sorrows every single day.

Above all, Father
You blessed me with a new and happy family --
A wife, children, and grandchildren
Whose sparkling faces
And sterling characters,
Resurrect every day
The memory of those I have lost.


Pisar's written narrative and, particularly, his reading of it, are what make the symphony truly great for me.  He is a gifted speaker who increases the emotional impact of his already forceful narrative.  I am glad that his performance is recorded on video so that many more people can appreciate it now and in the future.

The performance by the orchestra and the choirs was nowhere near as strong as Pisar's narration.  Music critics have blamed the conductor.  Pisar's fear that he could not write words strong enough for Bernstein's symphony were proven false.

Although the memory of the Holocaust is already fading, it remains fairly strong with some of us.  I come from a Jewish family, and I was brought up on memories of the Holocaust which gave me nightmares and triggered my childish fear of persecution.  When I grew up, these memories receded from center stage in my mind.  However, I could never bring myself to read accounts of the Holocaust or to see Margaret Bourke-White's photos of the death camp Buchenwald.  I almost did not go to hear the Kaddish Symphony, but I'm certainly glad that I did.  I needed to be reminded.  Many other people, including Jews younger than I and Gentiles, did not have the horrors of the Holocaust instilled into their minds during childhood, and they needed to be taught or re-taught.  I believe, as Pisar does, that the memories must be kept alive to honor the dead and to work hard to prevent another Holocaust.

And what is my message if not that man
[...]
Remains capable of the worst, as of the best
[...]
That unless we curb our predatory instincts
Heed the lessons of the horror-filled past,
Cherish the sanctity and dignity of human life,
And uphold the universal values shared by all our noble creeds
The forces of darkness
Will return with a vengeance
To doom our dreams of a radiant future.

The jam must go on

Saturday I took a 2 1/2 hour trip by public transportation to go to a sing/jam session, as I've been doing for several months. It is always well worth the trip. Even on a hot, humid day with bad air pollution and huge crowds of holiday tourists, it was well worth the trip. Some of the members are very good singers or instrumentalists who know lots of great songs, and everyone is high spirited.

Friday night I had played my viola and loved it, and I packed it in its case and carried it with me on the long trek on Saturday. When I arrived, I eagerly took it out and tried to tune it, but I met with disaster. Every single tuning peg was stuck. I couldn't move a single one of them one little bit. I knew why, too. During that long, hot, humid trip, the wooden pegs had swelled so much that they got stuck in their holes. I asked a guitarist to help me, knowing that his hands would be stronger than mine. Turning a wooden peg, as on the viola, is quite different from turning a geared, metal peg, as on the guitar, so I gave him detailed directions. He had some success but wisely stopped before he might do any harm. Desperate to play along with the others, I chose one string and played moving my hand up and down that string, playing melody whenever I could and improvising harmony the rest of the time -- quite a challenge. When the group played another song in another key, I was stymied. Desperate to cool my viola down, I put it on the AC vent. (In general, cool air is less harmful for wooden instruments than warm air.) I hoped this would help, but it didn't.

During our break, one of the fellows, who had seen my troubles across the room, came over to help me. Of course, I thought. Why didn't I think of him? He plays guitar at our jams, but he also plays violin and viola. He understood the problem completely and knew just how to solve it. Within a few minutes, he loosened all the pegs and tuned all the strings. I was so happy and so grateful.

When the jam restarted, I played along happily. Shortly before my turn to lead, I thought of a song that I really love that is rather complex and that I hadn't played in a while. I played the song anyway, and it went really well. I played it with spirit and love. I could see the others transfixed by the music. When I finished, a few told me that I sounded really good. However, the magic didn't end there. One woman who knew all the lyrics sang the song solo, beautifully, and the whole group hung on to the song again. When she was finished, the two of us quickly agreed that this was one of our very favorite songs.

I was really high. I felt the great excitement of playing music for an audience when things go very well. It was as if I had lit a spark and thrown it into a fireplace, and in response, I got a roaring blaze.

The greatest gift: In appreciation on Father's Day

Does this violin have a gorgeous varnish or what? It was made some time around the year 1900 in Germany. It belonged to my violin teacher, who lent it to me when I was in high school. It had and still has a beautiful, warm sound. My family didn’t have enough money to buy a good violin like this. After I had played it for a few years, I told my father that I would be very unhappy when I had to give it back to my teacher. “You don’t have to give it back,” my father told me. “It’s yours now.” He had been paying my teacher a small amount of money every week for years. This violin is, in more ways than one, the greatest gift I’ve ever received.

Happy Father’s Day.