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RIP Olly Wilson


JSngry

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23 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

"He probably was lying." :lol:

  Steuermann gave the world premiere of the Schoenberg Piano Concerto in 1944 and performed it many times thereafter. One would think he'd know it by heart after a while. Further, if Steuermann hadn't memorized the score, why would he try to play that fairly complex work without one? You think he'd choose to get up there and just slop around?

If that conductor, and Rosen for that matter, thought that Ravel's was a music of naivete, they were crazy. It's among the subtlest, slyest, at times one might say secretive music there is. Gaspard de la Nuit is a work of naivete? Mercy! And there are some interesting modern composers -- e.g. Englishmen Robin Holloway and Julian Anderson -- whose works bear definite traces of Ravel at times but are not in the least attempts to write in the style of.


I've heard a few  stories, I think from the  late '40s, about people blanking while playing Schoenberg piano pieces and faking it. Yes, some people in the audience didn't notice because they didn't know the music yet, but those who knew it certainly did notice. In fact, in the one story about such an event that I recall, a young composer in the audience -- could it have been Morton Feldman, begorrah? -- went backstage afterwards and confronted the pianist, who tearfully confessed to what she had done. 

 BTW, it it possible to hear any of your big band pieces on YouTube or the like?

Yeah, I thought that conductor guy was nuts, too. I could see Satie, but Ravel? 

I don't have any recording equipment right now, but maybe in the future...

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