Pop legend Annie Lennox plays enchanting ‘Moonlight’ Sonata

... on her living room piano

Annie Lennox plays Beethoven ‘Moonlight’ Sonata on her living room. Picture: Annie Lennox/Instagram

By Maddy Shaw Roberts, ClassicFM London

 

Annie Lennox takes on a Beethoven masterwork, and nails it like the music royalty she is…

For many of us, all this time at home has presented a silver-lining opportunity to sit down with a once beloved musical instrument and practise, practise, practise.

And it seems one pop legend has had the same idea.

“Well, I’ve wanted to play the Moonlight Sonata perfectly for quite a long time,” Eurythmics star Annie Lennox, sat at her living room piano, explains to her followers in an Instagram video.

“I’ve been practising a great deal because It doesn’t seem that I’ve ever managed to play it perfectly.

“But I’m going to try! So, just for the record, here we go…”

It’s a wonderful performance. Lennox even gains a tiny fly-on-the-wall audience member, as a little bird hears the beautiful Beethoven and does his best to join in – socially distanced, of course – from the other side of the window.

Lennox, who is perhaps best-known musically for her feel-good 90s hit ‘Walking on Broken Glass’, plays the first movement of the German Romantic’s enduring sonata with beautiful expression and sensitivity.

And her performance, which has been enjoyed by more than 400,000 people across Instagram and YouTube, is being praised by music lovers all over the world for its star’s humble approach to music practice.

After all, how often do you see a legendary pop star being completely open and vulnerable about their journey to perfecting a song or piece of music?

As LVB himself once said – and as one particularly astute YouTube user pointed out – “To play a wrong note is insignificant. But to play without passion is inexcusable…”.

(C) 2021 by ClassicFM London

Oscar Peterson: A Musical Biography

A Musical Biography is first and foremost a celebration of Peterson and his music. Barris, who has known Peterson for over fifty years, adulates his subject as "Canada's greatest gift to the world of jazz" . But while Barris's cheer leading is at times refreshing, the book is poorly organized and edited, and makes little effort to provide a balanced view of Peterson's musical life and career. Organized loosely in chronological order, the book attempts to paint a picture of Peterson's musical career by presenting a deluge of anecdotes from a variety of sources including Peterson himself. Although Barris seems to have had several opportunities to interview Peterson directly, he also relies extensively on third-party reflections and other Peterson interviews. In fact, a large part of the text consists of quotations. There are frequent references to record liner notes, newspaper articles, Peterson's Web site (www.oscar peterson.com), and books such as Gene Lees' Oscar Peterson: The Will to Swing (2000) and John Gilmore's Swinging in Paradise: The Stoty of Jazz in Montreal (1989). But readers who are interested in tracking down Barris's citations and second-hand retelling of stories will be disappointed. There is no exhaustive list of sources either in the form of end notes or a bibliography. 

However, Barris does include an index and an extensive, although not complete, discography. (Peterson's recordings from the late 1940's are missing.) He also includes a List of Permissions which lists some sources, although not in alphabetical order nor always with full citations. (Curiously, Lees' book, while frequently referenced, is absent from this list.) Barris's book was published in 2002. In the same year, Peterson's autobiography A Jazz Odyssey: The Life of Oscar Peterson made its triumphal debut, and the updated version of Lees' invaluable resource appeared only two years before. Comparisons among the books are inevitable; there are considerable similarities in structure and content. A striking difference, though, is what Barris does not include. Whereas Lees delves into Peterson's career and personal life with verve, Barris skips over much discussion of the latter. In a prefatory Author's Note, he explains: To the extent that that is possible, I believe that anybody's private life is his own business, and not ours. Consequently, references to Oscar's personal life are included in this book only where they have some bearing on his musical or professional activities. 

In contrast, Peterson's autobiography does include ample discussion of "Matters Personal," devoting an entire section to it, with references to his failed marriages and other problematic relationships. Both Lees and Peterson address the complicated relationship that Oscar had with his severe father, which Barris bypasses to emphasize only the positive dynamics. Throughout, Barris maintains a genial, colloquial style of writing. This is most successful when Barris recounts his personal association with Peterson. For example, in Chapter 1, "The Joe Lewis of the Piano," Barris shares with pleasure his discovery of Ella Fitzgerald and Peterson jamming in the wings of Massey Hall before an early 1950's concert in Toronto. Similarly, in the chapter entitled "Music and Fun," Barris discusses Peterson's penchant for practical jokes and tells of a goodnatured joke he played on Oscar. Some passages go over the top, however, in their gratuitous praise. Consider the following passage in reference to the album entitled Jousts: What a marvelous idea it was for Oscar (and to give him due credit, Norman Granz) to go into studios in Los Angeles, New York, and even London, England, with these trumpet kings and give us all such joyous jazz. (143) Each of the twenty-eight chapters is loosely guided by a theme, stringing together sometimes disparate stories into a collage of vignettes. For example, in "The Amsterdam Scam," only a small portion directly deals with the issue suggested by the title, namely that the music on the LP called The Oscar Peterson Trio at the Concertgebuow actually comes from a performance at the Civic Opera House in Chicago. After a little more than a page on the so-called scam, Barris spends six paragraphs discussing Peterson's singing on records, both involuntary and intentional, after mentioning that Peterson's voice is heard humming along on one track of the album. After identifying With Respect to Nat as Peterson's second (and last) recording where he sings and plays, Barris detours for a further five paragraphs on Nat King Cole's musical career. Barris does bring the topic back to the first digression of Peterson's singing, but only after repeating in two places that Cole died the same year the LP was issued. An abrupt return to the chapter's main topic is heralded with "To get back to the Concertgebuow CD ...."

However, Barris soon wanders away again, quoting from an interview with Herb Ellis (Peterson's guitarist in his first trio) on the trio's musical interaction, given in the liner notes for a CD reissue. After one more brief mention of musical selection inconsistencies, the chapter fizzles out with a review of Peterson's performances on two other tracks. Inconsistent organization and repetition stemming from atrocious editing plague many sections of the book. On pages 65 and 75, the same extended Ellis quote is used even though the quote in the latter location is only indirectly related to the content.

Barris also writes that Peterson was ready to perform a June 2001 concert as if it had yet to occur (p. 221), but earlier in a different chapter, Barris summarizes how the June concert went (p. 215). The chapter on "Oscar the Composer" is particularly bad in this regard. On page 130, Barris writes "[Peterson] has with age become more of an experimentalist, taking greater risks and attempting greater innovation," but just five lines later he continues ". . . [Peterson] resisted strong pressure from those who wanted him to be an innovator.. . He's been doing it for forty years, and he has prevailed'' (italics added). It also takes nine paragraphs just to get to the main topic: "Oscar Peterson has done his share of composing, too." Immediately following this statement though, Barris cites two paragraph-long remembrances of Oscar's incredible musical memory as a child, before the first substantive discussion of Peterson's compositional activities occurs. These meafderings could at times be considered a plus. For instance, Barris's unexpected interpolation of a four-CD listening guide to Oscar Peterson is, nonetheless, a perfectly valid collection of pivotal recordings. This list (pp. 158- 9) includes Oscar Peterson Beginnings (194549), The Oscar Peterson Trio at the Stratford Shakespearean Festival (1956), Ella and Oscar (1975), and Last Call at the Blue Note (1990). He frequently provides interesting anecdotes about other jazz musicians, and there are extended forays into people prominent in Peterson's life, including his parents, his sister Daisy, Johnny Holmes, Norman Granz, Ray Brown, and Nat Cole. (Cole is discussed with slightly conflicting information in two separate locations.) McNamara in a chapter on her work and influence in Canadian jazz. But "Oscar and the Jazz Lady" is really more about how Barris himself put on a benefit concert to help pay for McNamara's medical expenses resulting from Parkinson's disease. Peterson did participate in the concert, but his role is reduced that of a supporting character. Still, the chapter holds together better than most because Barris simply tells the story instead of tediously relying on other sources. It is clear that Barris has led a fascinating life as a journalist and broadcaster, and could probably write a very interesting autobiography. Alex Barris holds his subject in the highest esteem. The photographs selected for inclusion capture the jazz virtuoso in his glory. But in spite of some engaging passages, Oscar Peterson suffers f?om poor editing, inconsistent writing, and patchy scholarship. Barris does share and celebrate Peterson's public achievements. But aside f?om some personal reflections and reminiscences, he offers little that cannot be found elsewhere.

James McGowan University of Rochester 

Overheard at the symphony

 Funniest audience comments at a classical concert

Funniest comments at a classical concert. Picture: Getty/Instagram/Classic FM

By Maddy Shaw Roberts, ClassicFM London

 

‘Chopin? I thought he was taking me shopping!’

As many of us sit at home, missing the days of attending live performances, we thought it might be fun to reminisce about some of the lighter experiences we’ve had while sitting in an auditorium waiting for some Brahms and Beethoven.

Accordingly, we put out this request:

And you didn’t let us down. We got some fantastic anecdotes – and have compiled some of our favourites. Here are the most wonderfully ridiculous comments you’ve overheard at an opera or classical concert...

– [While the orchestra is tuning] “I don’t know the name of this piece, but they always open with it.”

– [Before a performance of Pachelbel’s Canon] “What do you mean there is no cannon? That’s the only reason I came to this thing!”

– [During a performance of Turandot, after ‘Nessun Dorma’]: “The guy playing Pavarotti didn’t even look like him”

– [Before a performance of Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ Symphony] “Are we supposed to clap at the end, or...?”

– [At a Beethoven concert] “And which one of them is Beethoven?”

– [After a concert of Mozart symphonies] “I thought there would be some singing as well.”

– “My husband has a very loud sneeze. We were at a piano concert and when he sneezed, one of the pianists was startled right off the piano bench.”

Orchestra seeks boy who exclaimed 'Wow' after performance of Mozart

Credit: WCRB/Handel and Haydn Society

– [A child at a performance of Rhapsody in Blue] “They stole the airplane commercial music!”

– [A child listening to the Dvořák Cello Concerto] “Daddy, can we go home when the old man has sawed through the box?”

– [A small child in the Royal Opera House foyer before a family performance] “But mummy, will they sing *all* the time?”

– [Woman on the phone during the interval of a concert where Krystian Zimmerman was playing Chopin] “I thought he was taking me shopping.”

– [Boy talking to his mum] “Why do they have to taste the wood thing before they tie it to their instrument? Does it taste good? What flavours do they have?”

– [During a performance of Aida] “A man in front of me slept through the whole thing, woke up right at the imprisonment and loudly asked ‘What happened? Did someone die?’

Triumph for Russian giant Rachmaninov ...

 ...  in the Ultimate Classic FM Hall of Fame

Triumph for Russian giant Rachmaninov in the Ultimate Classic FM Hall of Fame. Picture: Getty / Classic FM

By Rosie Pentreath, ClassicFM London

@rosiepentreath

 

The devilishly difficult but gloriously beautiful Piano Concerto No. 2 takes top spot, whilst the beloved ‘Lark’ soars to second place.

This year, it was the 25th anniversary of the Classic FM Hall of Fame. To mark the anniversary, we presented a ‘chart-of-charts’ just after Christmas, counting down the top 300 most voted-for pieces of classical music in the last quarter-of-a-century of the Classic FM Hall of Fame.

The Ultimate Classic FM Hall of Fame countdown began on Monday 28 December and, five days later, on New Year’s Day, the winner of the coveted top spot has just been revealed.

The piece of music that’s been most popular in the Classic FM Hall of Fame’s 25-year history is Sergey Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2.

Click here to listen to the Ultimate Hall of Fame Top 300 on Global Player, the official Classic FM app >

A devilishly difficult piece of music, renowned for its hand-splitting chords and the mind-bending virtuosity it demands from the player, it was composed between 1900 and 1901, and 120 years later has lost none of its potency. It’s also an incredibly lyrical and beautiful piece of music.

The piece was No.4 in the Classic FM Hall of Fame countdown in 2020 – and it’s appeared every single year in our chart.

Not only that, but it’s never been voted into the Hall of Fame below the No.4 spot. It was last No.1 in 2011, after which The Lark Ascending knocked the beloved piano work off its perch.

But now The Lark is back down on the second branch, and we have our Ultimate No.1 – congratulations Sergey!

No.3 was Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, No.4 was Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No. 5 and at No.5 we had Elgar’s Enigma Variations.

Read more: The Ultimate Classic FM Hall of Fame full top 300 >

The Classic FM Hall of Fame – the largest survey of classical music tastes anywhere on the planet – has been a staple on Classic FM since it started in 1996. A new top 300, made up entirely from listener votes cast beforehand, is revealed every year on Easter weekend.

Classic FM is available across the UK on 100-102 FM, DAB digital radio and TV, on Global Player on your smart speaker (“play Classic FM”), iOS or Android device, and at ClassicFM.com.

Jahrhundertpianist: Alfred Brendel wird 90

Von Rick Fulker, Deutsche Welle

 

Der Österreicher gilt als einer der bedeutendsten Pianisten des 20. Jahrhunderts. Auch nach dem Ende seiner Konzertkarriere lässt Alfred Brendel aufhorchen.

Im Dezember 2008 verabschiedete sich Alfred Brendel endgültig vom Konzertpodium. "Sechzig Jahre Spielen in der Öffentlichkeit scheint auszureichen", kommentierte er den Schritt damals lapidar - und wünschte sich bescheiden: "Es wäre schön, wenn die eine oder andere meiner Aufnahmen auch in Zukunft ihre Hörer fände."

Kurz danach erlitt er einen massiven Hörsturz. Töne nimmt er seitdem nur noch verzerrt wahr. Er übt nicht mehr. Für einen Berufsmusiker gewiss ein herber Einschnitt. Doch Brendel ließ sich das bis zuletzt nicht anmerken. Er wirkte fit, 15 oder 20 Jahre jünger, als er 2015 für ein Geburtstagsporträt des Zweiten Deutschen Fernsehens (ZDF) vor die Kamera trat. "Die Erscheinung täuscht, aber es könnte schlimmer sein", sagt er da mit funkelnden Augen und einem leichten Schmunzeln: "Ich habe den Eindruck, jetzt könnte ich sterben - aber dann kommt immer noch etwas dazwischen". Zum Beispiel der Echo Klassik. Mit dem renommierten Musikpreis würdigte die Deutsche Phono-Akademie 2016 das Lebenswerk des Ausnahmemusikers. 

Seither sind Interviews mit Alfred Brendel selten geworden. Nicht dass er sich stumm zurückgezogen hätte. Noch im Dezember 2015 trat er anlässlich der Internationalen Telekom Beethoven Competition in Bonn auf. Thema seines Vortrags war "Das A bis Z eines Pianisten". Glasklar, launig, weitsichtig, voller Anekdoten und Lebenserfahrung waren seine Gedanken und Einsichten über die Welt der Musik und der Musiker. Und es war klar: Brendel hat nichts von seiner Bühnenpräsenz eingebüßt, sie hat sich nur verändert.

Brendel: "Philosoph am Klavier" 

In seinem Sprachduktus spiegelt sich die Spielweise während seiner langen Pianisten-Karriere. Kritiker priesen dessen Leichtigkeit und Souveränität, zugleich spielte er stets präzise und seriös. Als der "Philosoph am Klavier" - hager, lang gewachsen und mit dicker Hornbrille - stellte sich Brendel mit sparsamer Körpersprache und einer Prise Bescheidenheit in den Dienst der Komponisten. Dennoch war er, wie die Londoner Zeitung "The Guardian" lobte, nie der "passive Befehlsempfänger" oder gar, wie die "Süddeutsche Zeitung ihn einmal nannte, ein "Lordsiegelbewahrer der Klassik".

Kein blindes Vertrauen 

Im Gegenteil: "Ich fühle mich oft als Charakterdarsteller", erklärte Alfred Brendel 2002 in einem Interview mit der Deutschen Welle. "Ich möchte mich - soweit es geht - verwandeln." Er vertraute also doch nicht blind auf den Notentext, sondern brachte stets seine unverwechselbare künstlerische Individualität mit ins Spiel. Warum das so war, auch darauf gab der Musiker eine mögliche Antwort: "Die Jahre, die ich unter Naziherrschaft verbrachte, haben mich immun gegen blindes Vertrauen gemacht."

Die Töne des Pianisten, die auf Schallplatte und CD festgehalten wurden, sind für Generationen von Musikern und Musikliebhabern prägend. "Musik, die nicht gespielt wird, sondern einfach selbständig geschieht": So beschrieb er die Musizierweise seines Lehrers Edwin Fischer und des von ihm verehrten Dirigenten Wilhelm Furtwängler. Die Beschreibung mag auch für sein eigenes Lebenswerk gelten, das weit über 100 CDs umfasst. Und Brendel wäre nicht Brendel, wenn es nicht auch noch dazu einen launigen Kommentar gäbe: "Jetzt bin ich neugierig, ob man alles wieder so hinterlässt, wie es war."

Kosmopolit auf der Konzertbühne

Geboren wurde Alfred Brendel am 5. Januar 1931 in Nordmähren, seine Geburtsstadt liegt heute in der Tschechischen Republik. Der Junge mit deutschen, österreichischen, italienischen und slawischen Wurzeln wuchs an der Adriaküste im heutigen Kroatien auf. Schule in Zagreb, Studium am Konservatorium in Graz, Umzug nach Wien 1950, Übersiedlung nach London 1970, wo er heute noch zu Hause ist: "Ich bin nicht jemand, der Wurzeln sucht oder braucht", sagte Brendel einmal. "Ich möchte so kosmopolitisch wie möglich sein. Ich ziehe es vor, zahlender Gast zu sein. Das ist eine Lektion, die ich im Krieg gelernt habe."

Erstes Konzert mit 17 Jahren, Gewinn des Busoni-Wettbewerbs in Bozen ein Jahr später, bald jahrzehntelange, weltweite Konzerttätigkeit. Die Ernte dafür fuhr er ein: drei Ehrendoktortitel (an den Universitäten von London, Oxford und Yale), zahlreiche Preise (darunter der "Ernst von Siemens" und der "Herbert von Karajan"-Preis) und Auszeichnungen für sein Lebenswerk bei den "MIDEM Classical Awards" in Cannes, bei den "Edison Awards" in Holland - und im Oktober 2016 beim ECHO Klassik: Das sind nur einige Punkte auf der langen Liste von Auszeichnungen, die Alfred Brendel zuteil wurden.

Neben der erstaunlichen Bühnenproduktivität hat er auch zahlreiche Gedichte und Essays verfasst und Bücher veröffentlicht. Im September 2015 erschien sein neuestes Werk: "Music, Sense and Nonsense" (Musik, Sinn und Unsinn).

Einige wenige Komponisten

Er war und ist ein Künstler mit einem breiten Horizont. Dennoch kristallisierte sich für ihn heraus, mit welchen Komponisten er sich vornehmlich beschäftigen sollte. Als Erster nahm er das komplette Klavierwerk Ludwig van Beethovens auf. Zudem bezeichnete ihn der deutsche Musikkritiker Joachim Kaiser schlicht als "den Schubert-Interpreten seit 1950". Haydn, Mozart, Liszt, Busoni und Brahms gehörten ebenfalls zu seinen Lieblingskomponisten. In späteren Jahren konzentrierte sich Brendel auf nur noch einige wenige, und zwar, aus gutem Grund, wie er im Interview mit der DW 2002 erklärte: "Wenn man die richtigen Stücke spielt, mit denen ein Leben zu verbringen sich lohnt, dann sind das Kraftquellen, die ständig neue Energie aussenden und die Kräfte des Spielers regenerieren."

Alfred Brendel in den 1980-er Jahren

Auch in Sachen, die nichts mit Musik zu tun haben, fand und findet der Künstler Kraft und Erholung: "Für mich war es immer ein Bedürfnis, nicht nur zu lesen, sondern auch zu schreiben", erzählt der Pianist, "Ich habe in jungen Jahren auch eine Zeit lang gemalt. Jetzt ist es für mich immer wichtiger geworden zu schauen. Ich gehe in Museen, Ausstellungen, ins Kino und ins Theater."

Kurz bevor Alfred Brendel am 18. Dezember 2008 mit seinem Sohn, dem Cellisten Adrian Brendel sein letztes öffentliches Konzert gab, hatte der Pianist noch Beethovens Cellosonaten aufgenommen. Beim Klavierwettbewerb im Dezember 2015 in Bonn gab er allen angehenden Pianisten einen Tipp: "Ihr sollt Kompositionsunterricht nehmen und selber komponieren." Nur so könne man verstehen, wie ein Werk von Anfang bis Ende durchdacht wird. Bis zuletzt reiste Brendel durch die Welt, hielt Vorträge zu musikhistorischen und philosophischen Themen, las aus seinen inzwischen elf Büchern oder trug eigene Gedichte vor.

90. Geburtstag in London 

Seit den 1970er Jahren lebt der in zweiter Ehe verheirate Familienvater in London. "Wien war damals provinziell. Ich sehnte mich nach einer großen lebendigen Stadt", verriet er der Nachrichtenagentur dpa. Hier hatte er sich und seiner Familie im Stadtteil Hampstead ein Häuschen eingerichtet. Gefüllt ist es inzwischen nicht nur mit Musikalia, sondern auch mit jeder Menge Bildern, Büchern, Schallplatten, kurz: Zeugnissen eines überreichen Musikerlebens. Dort feiert Alfred Brendel nun seinen 90. Geburtstag.