Classically Abby - PODCAST #2： SPECIAL GUEST ｜

00:00:00.000 Hello beautiful ladies and gents and welcome to Classically Abbey. Today we

00:00:05.520 have a special guest, my father, and we're going to be talking about our

00:00:09.440 shared love of music. So my dad is a composer and a pianist and he was

00:00:14.080 actually the one who got me into singing opera. When I was 16 he bought me a an

00:00:20.000 opera lesson for my birthday, was it my birthday? No, Hanukkah present. Hanukkah

00:00:25.800 present and that really got everything started. So today we're going to be

00:00:30.920 answering some of your questions and talking about music. So we're starting on

00:00:35.120 Instagram and this is the first question we've gotten. Do you two perform or play

00:00:41.740 together? If so, what's your fave piece to do together? Well we do perform and play

00:00:46.440 together. What's your fave piece to do together? What's your favorite thing?

00:00:49.120 There's so many. I like Vidmung. I was about to say. Vidmung is definitely my dad's

00:00:55.200 favorite and I love singing it. So that is a Schumann piece and it is stunning to

00:01:01.800 listen to. There's also a wonderful piano transcription by Liszt which is

00:01:05.200 extremely difficult. Yeah. Because he's got 12 notes for 10 figures. Yeah, but it's

00:01:11.520 but it is a it's an exquisite piece and there are moments where where the harmony

00:01:18.320 but for example when I think the word schmerz and the harmony shifts and schmerz means

00:01:24.000 pain. And it's just it's it's exquisite. I mean there's no other word for it. Yeah. It's a remarkable piece.

00:01:29.600 Well I mean the history behind it is so beautiful that Schumann wrote that for

00:01:34.400 his bride and the poetry is absolutely stunning. I also like um is it Come

00:01:41.600 Ready and See Me by Richard Hundley. I love that. That was actually the very first video that I put

00:01:48.000 up on my channel of me singing. Yeah. So you can actually find that on YouTube. My dad wasn't

00:01:52.280 accompanying me unfortunately but we do do that together. The only one I don't like doing because

00:01:56.040 it's so ridiculously difficult is um Bati Bati Bati. Bati Bati. The left hand is just

00:02:02.760 it has to be so precise and yeah no it's impossible. I have to avoid avoid saying something I shouldn't

00:02:10.000 when I'm playing. Well it's definitely not written for the piano. It was written for the orchestra and

00:02:15.100 they transcribed it for piano and made it impossible to play. Yeah it's it's it's difficult. It's it's not

00:02:20.620 impossible but it's difficult enough that you can't relax when you're playing it. Yeah definitely.

00:02:26.060 Okay so the next question we have is what musicals are your favorite and why?

00:02:31.660 And this girl wrote very kindly thank you for rising for thank you for raising such a ray of sunshine.

00:02:37.660 So that was very sweet. Oh thank your mother too. Yeah oh of course. As involved as I was.

00:02:42.620 Um two there's so many great ones tell me so many great ones but 1776. I was about to say I knew you

00:02:48.780 were going to say 1776. And Carousel and Carousel. Yes. The soliloquy from Carousel. Can I tell a quick

00:02:54.060 story? Yeah go for it. So some years ago there was a woman who was the wife of a friend of mine

00:02:59.100 and she was a tv producer and um she didn't know anything about musicals whatsoever and I she was over

00:03:07.580 at the house we were discussing something and I said listen let me play you one number from one

00:03:12.860 musical and if this doesn't explain to you how effective and powerful musicals are nothing will.

00:03:17.820 So I gave her the whole background before Billy Bigelow sings the soliloquy and I put on the

00:03:22.540 original recording which of course is the best recording of John Raitt singing it and at the end

00:03:27.980 she was the tears were streaming down her face. Yeah and I said well yeah yeah that's as good as it gets.

00:03:32.860 Absolutely. 1776 is unusual because it's there's one stretch I think it's something like 30 or 40

00:03:37.740 minutes without music. Yeah. It's a remarkable thing for a musical but it's it's so intelligent

00:03:42.860 and the songs are so intelligent and and what's remarkable about it is that it kind of reminds me

00:03:49.020 a little bit of Oedipus Rex in that which is conceivable quite conceivably the greatest play

00:03:54.060 ever written. The reason that Oedipus Rex is so great is because it's inevitable. At the very beginning

00:04:00.140 um Tyre I believe it's Tiresias the blind prophet comes to Oedipus and Oedipus wants to know why the

00:04:06.220 plague is um on the Phoebes where he where he is king and he doesn't really want to go because of

00:04:13.420 course he's going to discover that he slept with his mother and killed his father so that's not a good

00:04:16.780 thing. Not great. Tiresias keeps saying you don't you don't want to go there you don't want to go there

00:04:20.700 and Oedipus is determined because he wants he's trying to do what's good for the country and so from the very

00:04:25.740 beginning you know that the end is going to be tragic but it's inevitable given what he did so

00:04:31.260 um 1776 um the same kind of principle applies in that you know the ending before you start the

00:04:38.220 musical yeah you know they're going to sign the declaration so how do they create a story that's

00:04:43.500 so compelling when you know the ending already yeah that's a that's a massive achievement it really is

00:04:49.020 and I will I agree with you I mean it's totally compelling yeah on the subject of Oedipus Rex and

00:04:53.660 musicals it's funny I was thinking about this once I think you and I discussed this many years ago

00:04:57.260 yeah but that is that I was thinking has there ever been a musical like that has there ever

00:05:01.820 been a musical that has that sense of inevitability from the beginning and that's what gives it its

00:05:07.020 power and of course there is one and that's the king and I because once the king at the beginning

00:05:14.140 before the it even starts right before he says I'm going to modernize my country I was about

00:05:18.460 to say he's doomed absolutely because he can't live in a world like that he's not made to live

00:05:21.980 in a world like that so that despite all the incredible musical that the thread that makes

00:05:27.260 it so strong when you're watching is at some level of consciousness you're aware this guy can't

00:05:32.780 coexist with what he's created and so it gives it a tremendous power yeah no I I love I love that

00:05:38.300 musical and it's great I'm trying to think of some of my favorites because I love all of them

00:05:43.100 I love some not all of them I love so many of them all right let's go down the list West Side Story

00:05:47.900 West Side Story Showboat's great Showboat's amazing Oklahoma all the Rodgers and Hammerstein

00:05:52.540 Oklahoma Carousel South Pacific right The King and I I mean Sweeney Todd Sweeney Todd's amazing um

00:05:58.460 I was actually thinking Fiddler's great and I was thinking one of my favorites which is a comedy

00:06:03.980 but I loved it was A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder yeah I thought it's smaller it's smaller but really

00:06:09.660 well crafted yes and you can say that about certain musicals that they're they're just well crafted

00:06:14.780 you know it's funny and I'm gonna get a lot of trouble for saying this but um you know when I

00:06:18.860 saw Phantom of Les Mis I felt like they were flip flip sides of each other in that Les Mis had tremendous

00:06:23.820 heart but there are parts where I felt as a composer it wasn't well crafted there's a point at which she's

00:06:28.940 singing I believe it's on my own and they don't have a pedal tone in the orchestra in the orchestration

00:06:35.020 right I'm thinking you know you've got something with this harp or something playing

00:06:38.700 and the note dies yeah in the accompaniment because there's no pedal tone underneath it

00:06:43.260 and also there's a rock band and it's 1820 like what the hell are we doing yeah it doesn't make a

00:06:47.180 lot of sense no to be fair that's also true of Phantom of the Opera well but Phantom it's interesting

00:06:51.580 because I thought Phantom is is actually a much more cynical show it doesn't have the heart for me

00:06:57.580 that Les Mis does in the story but it's really well crafted it is and the reason I know this because I

00:07:03.020 I wanted to hate it I wanted to hate it when I went because I played the music a zillion times

00:07:08.220 I haven't seen I thought oh yeah and I went and then and then I kept thinking this is so damn dumb

00:07:13.500 why doesn't she just leave yeah he's a bad guy why don't you know she's not living so all through the

00:07:19.180 music I'm thinking this is the dumbest thing I've ever seen and then the end comes and she sings

00:07:24.380 pitiful creature of darkness what kind of life you know something like that yeah yeah yeah she

00:07:28.780 God give me courage to show you you are not alone I'm in tears it's like what that I know I know I

00:07:34.620 know I was so pissed at myself don't do that you know you don't like this but the ending's amazing

00:07:40.860 I mean it's it works he's such a craftsman that he knows he can string you along string you along

00:07:45.580 string you along right it's in your reminds me of it reminds me of an affair to remember yeah

00:07:50.300 never remember great movie but all through this is bantering etc etc and then you know it's it's

00:07:55.500 kind of funny and it's right etc etc then you get to that last scene which we're not going to spoil

00:08:00.460 even though it's very old oh my goodness and and it hits you with a wallop yeah and one of the

00:08:06.940 reasons for that is that hugo friedhoffer who wrote the music for that wrote an eight minute cue that is

00:08:12.540 just astonishingly good right and he was also by the way the first he was the person who orchestrated

00:08:18.860 gone with the wind uh for max steiner and his first score which oh my god no but his first

00:08:26.940 score on his own yeah it was 1939 the first score on his own was 1946 in the best years of our lives

00:08:32.460 which is also a great score right so when he got to a fair to remember which is maybe 1957 something

00:08:37.980 like that 10 or 12 years later after best years of our lives he writes this cue and it just hits you

00:08:43.820 with a freaking wallop absolutely it's just you get the end the funny story about that is i was

00:08:48.380 watching that with one of your siblings and watch it all the way through and then another one of your

00:08:53.020 students and they're teenagers at this point yeah and another sibling came in just as we finished and

00:08:56.620 i'm crying out of this right and the other sibling comes in and you rewind it a little bit and he said

00:09:04.860 well you know he said i'd love to watch it last scene yeah i'm just i've just finished the movie i'm just

00:09:10.060 finishing i'm just i'm finished crying would they run the last scene and i cry again it's like i just

00:09:14.540 saw the scene it's that effective right it's really powerful well let's move on to the next question

00:09:19.980 we got a lot to get through so we have what's both of your favorite genre and song that's a tricky one

00:09:30.060 i mean obviously classical music classical music because i would say classical and jazz would probably be

00:09:35.100 our two favorites right but classical music and i we share the same taste yeah and i've done both i mean

00:09:39.820 i was a jazz musician from the time i was 11 i was playing nightclothes when i was 14 but and jazz is

00:09:45.180 amazing i love playing it i love playing it but the level of intelligence with classical music is so far

00:09:53.500 beyond everything else the level of complexity whether you're talking rhythmically whether you're talking

00:09:59.580 harmonically whether you're talking melodically you look at some of the things they did i mean one of the

00:10:04.860 things that comes to mind on that is you think of somebody like brahms and brahms had to follow

00:10:09.180 beethoven i mean this is gigantic figure of beethoven yeah what are you going to do i mean how are you

00:10:13.500 going to establish yourself in the face of this massive figure yeah exactly and brahms because his music

00:10:20.620 is just redolent with intelligence he's um his music and he's one of my he and beethoven probably

00:10:27.020 going to and bach are probably my three favorite command modes are oh yeah yeah right but brahms is

00:10:34.620 so intelligent and and that he's able to go farther and yet it's it's the level of intelligence in his

00:10:43.420 music is just amazing i know brahms is a composer so you would say he's probably your favorite composer

00:10:49.980 he will he's he's the most intimidated he's the most intimidating yeah that's fair beethoven is

00:10:55.900 astonishing because the late the late stream quartets are just remarkable the gross fugue sounds like it

00:11:01.020 could have been written today yeah um well what i will say is that i think as having gone to conservatory

00:11:06.460 which you also did um i think that having jazz as a as a prelude to learning classical music is a

00:11:15.900 wonderful benefit because it gives you a little bit more flexibility if you've only ever studied

00:11:19.980 classical music you're kind of scared to take that step of improv well that's exactly right except

00:11:26.380 that when you and you know this as well as i do but you know if you talk when in the baroque period

00:11:31.260 when they would do opera singing in the aria they would sing the first time straight the second time

00:11:35.100 they would be added yeah there would be ornaments but i have a lot of that's my point is that a lot

00:11:39.100 of my classical singer friends are very afraid to throw in an ornament they need to go through stuff and

00:11:43.420 they need to make sure that okay let's make sure that this all fits whereas i'm not saying that i'm

00:11:47.260 great at it but i am comfortable with it well and i'm like okay i'll just try a few things and see

00:11:52.060 what works well i actually believe that one of the things that has damaged the classical music world

00:11:56.860 is recordings yeah because because there began to be an emphasis on perfection yeah it's impossible and

00:12:02.700 that's not good right because there is no perfect version of anything yeah i mean you'll think well

00:12:09.740 that's the greatest version i've ever heard and then somebody will come along and do something you'll think

00:12:13.100 oh wait a minute what is that and you're always getting compared against these incredible singers

00:12:18.220 but then it doesn't leave room for new singers to have their to make their mark right and

00:12:22.460 and it's subtle and it's so you'll be faithful to the music and make a very subtle nuanced change

00:12:29.020 and that can be so profound i mean there's there's a wonderful moment in um in um the hyphens recording

00:12:36.380 the tchaikovsky violin concerto he does something in the second movement where he achieves a pianissimo that is

00:12:42.540 almost unearthly and that one moment you know i remember when i was studying orchestration my

00:12:48.540 therapist we were talking about this the other night the um my orchestration teacher said to me

00:12:53.260 when i was buying scores it was costing me 25 bucks in 1978 which is a lot of money yeah for sure and

00:12:59.180 i was feeling a little guilty about it he said if you get one good idea from this you and i were talking

00:13:03.500 about this the other night one good idea from the score it's worth buying as a composer same thing's true

00:13:07.660 the performance sometimes you'll watch a performance and it's good it's good it's good

00:13:11.340 and then there's this moment that's just magical and you think i would have paid 25 bucks just for

00:13:17.580 that moment just for that and that's why live performance supersedes anything that you'll ever

00:13:23.420 get on recording because you get those moments that are electrifying yeah no i totally agree and

00:13:28.860 one of the things i will say and i said this in my blog is that maria collis the reason she was so

00:13:33.500 electrifying was because it wasn't perfect yeah it was because you didn't know what was going to

00:13:37.820 happen rubenstein archer rubenstein was famous for making a mistake early in the recording it's like

00:13:42.780 okay now i can play right you know which i think is a very healthy attitude so i'm going to answer this

00:13:48.220 one i mean you can answer it too it's how important do you feel it is for vocalists to have a thorough

00:13:53.740 understanding of music theory as a singer i will say we get a lot of jokes about this because people think of

00:14:00.060 singers as separate from musicians and the singers that don't have training are are at a disadvantage

00:14:07.420 a severe disadvantage and you can't make music in the same way unless you understand what you're doing

00:14:11.820 you don't understand what's behind you what's backing you up unless you understand why the composer wrote

00:14:18.220 those chords why the composer has it fingered in a certain way why certain things are there for you

00:14:24.380 and why you're singing the notes that he's written for you and also you don't understand the larger

00:14:28.860 structure of things right so for example you're you're you're in the moment and that's fine but

00:14:33.180 you have to be able to see you that's the microcosmic version of perspective you want to have the

00:14:38.620 macrocosmic perspective too so if you know theory you understand well this section is in this key

00:14:44.220 but here over here he's going this key why why is he going there and then you do that then you can make

00:14:49.660 a larger scale plan for your performance as opposed to every note is in its own world yes i totally agree

00:14:55.740 with that so we've got another question here what's so and this is for you what sort of activities and

00:15:04.460 experiences do you recommend doing with kids to encourage their musicality and interest well i think

00:15:10.540 they should learn an instrument absolutely i agree with that one yeah you played violin before i did yeah

00:15:15.180 um the um i think that's important i think singing together makes a lot i also think just exposure i

00:15:23.260 was about to say exposure to classical music is so relevant to kids nowadays because you're not going

00:15:28.700 to get it from the radio i'll tell you a story when i was teaching i taught for one year in the beverly

00:15:33.500 hills school system because they needed a teacher their music teacher quit i love that it was yeah i used to

00:15:38.460 come in on on certain days i would just come in and enjoy the class and that's what i taught k through

00:15:44.300 eight and one of the things i and it was just for one year because they they were bereft they had uh

00:15:50.460 lost their music teacher about two weeks before this year started they happened to know me because i'd

00:15:55.020 done some work for them yeah so i taught there for a year and one of the things i discovered early on

00:16:00.780 is that none of these kids knew anything about musicals you remember this right i do so i so i went to

00:16:05.260 the art teacher next to her who began a close friend and she had a vcr which i didn't and i

00:16:09.580 borrowed her vcr and for i think it was a month so because they had music once a week i would show

00:16:15.340 different classes different musicals partially because i wanted them to expose some music but

00:16:19.980 there was another reason too and that was that none of these kids understood romance so let's do one

00:16:25.740 last question does that sound good yep okay what is your favorite time period for classical music

00:16:31.260 baroque classical or romantic oh wow it's a hard one because there's great the thing is there's

00:16:37.660 great composers in each of those categories um romantic i mean romantic is sweeping classical is

00:16:45.500 fascinating and baroque is titillating well you know what not in a sexual way no but you know what it's

00:16:52.140 interesting intellectually yeah um intellectually yeah i can appreciate all i appreciate all them

00:17:00.700 there's a difference between what you can appreciate intellectually let's say is from a composing

00:17:05.260 standpoint and what you would like to perform that's fair that's a really good distinction yeah i i don't i

00:17:12.460 think classical is my is my favorite as far as all the composers that i love they come from that era

00:17:18.540 yeah yeah but romantic is the stuff i love to perform correct if i'm playing chopin or something

00:17:24.540 uh from the romantic period yeah or mendelssohn or um you know brahms absolutely yeah then i i love that

00:17:31.820 on the other hand i love singing mozart i mean mozart's amazing and he's classical yeah yeah so i i guess i

00:17:38.540 i'm torn i'm very torn on the other hand the respect i have for bach is as a composer is because i i studied

00:17:47.020 with one of the greatest scholars of bach in the world when i was a young man back in boston and i

00:17:55.020 mean he knew it so well that actually it's a funny story you know when you're learning counterpoint one

00:17:59.100 of the things you learn is you're never supposed to write parallel fifths right yeah i remember that

00:18:02.860 but he knew the corral so well he said i'm going to show you the one corral where yeah actually wrote

00:18:07.740 a parallel yeah and i thought no really he did yeah so i remember that so um i the the fact that

00:18:16.140 bach could take these the the structure of the feud and write things that are so varied i know it's

00:18:24.940 it really is amazing it's just amazing i mean all of the people working within their structures for

00:18:31.020 their time is amazing but his was so strict yeah you know and what he was able to do because i write

00:18:37.740 fuchs and and sometimes i'll look at things he did and i'm thinking wow you know just it's it's a reminder

00:18:45.420 it's mind-blowing it's really no i agree and i guess the the one thing i think i i feel like i have to

00:18:52.940 mention is verismo opera because that's my favorite to perform really is things like um

00:19:01.020 paliaci which well there's an intensity to it so i mean because verismo is about performing

00:19:06.220 real emotions yeah and to their extent i guess puccini doesn't really fall under verismo but

00:19:11.820 puccini is not romantic either he's he's a little cheese puccini i mean puccini's puccini right

00:19:19.260 did you ever hear this story about when caruso came to sing for him caruso and no one knew caruso was

00:19:24.620 okay caruso came to sing for puccini and he you know puccino sat on the piano and i think

00:19:30.860 i'm trying to remember which area was he saying i can't remember right now rick and dita uh harmonia

00:19:35.180 is that what it's called um i think he's saying that and um from yeah and he finished and puccini

00:19:44.300 turned to him and said who sent you to me god that's how we all that's how singers all feel about

00:19:50.460 puccini like we look at his scores and we're just like oh my god who wrote this oh yeah it's just

00:19:54.860 it's an unerring sense for knowing how to reach your heart oh it's just it's uh that's devastating

00:20:00.540 that's a gift in itself that's to be able to do that it's it's uh remarkable all these guys i mean

00:20:06.860 you know when you talk about a composer and say well he's not as great as these other composers

00:20:10.780 hello i mean you couldn't i mean how do you even match up against no i mean we're we're so lucky that we

00:20:17.820 live in now and we get to experience all of these composers that have come all through the ages and

00:20:24.380 the fact that we live in an era after schoenberg which makes a huge difference schoenberg was a

00:20:28.540 composer who created the 12 tone system he he he's he kind of it's not clear whether he created it

00:20:33.980 there were some other guys but he was the one who became famous for i mean yeah theoretically he's the

00:20:38.700 one who created it and it just opened up so many ideas for composers now not to say necessarily that i

00:20:44.300 like 12 tone well but it does mean that you have the freedom as a composer to compose really anything

00:20:51.340 you want well a couple notes on that number one what my favorite piece of music by him is actually

00:20:55.660 before he can start using the system the five pieces for orchestra yeah which is an unbelievable

00:21:00.540 piece i mean i like some of his cabaret songs actually which are also great the other thing is

00:21:05.580 that there is a great great 12 one of the greatest film scores ever written is a 12 tone score

00:21:12.060 you know which one i'm referring to i'm not i was gonna i was gonna say wait opera because i was

00:21:17.020 thinking no no film score it's a film score oh yes i do know which one you're talking about but i

00:21:21.020 don't remember the name it's a 12 tone score and it's amazing right amazing so i was thinking about

00:21:28.620 berg yeah yeah is just my one of the it's fascinating it is absolutely fascinating but berg also had a

00:21:36.140 whole different take on 12 tone that is really incredible but yes i i do remember the planet of the

00:21:41.740 eight score yeah i don't like music from something novelty for novelty's sake so if it's useful that's

00:21:47.740 fine but the idea of just doing something because it's new you know there was a wonderful quote in

00:21:52.780 the book the source by mitchner where somebody's talking about something that's a great book and one

00:21:57.020 and one of the characters is talking about how something was moving forward something and the

00:22:01.020 other character turns him and says the question is not forward or backward it's forward to what and

00:22:05.020 backward to what so something that's novel um is not good just because it's novel yeah you know it's

00:22:13.500 it's where you going i mean schoenberg himself said there's a great deal of music yet to be written in

00:22:17.500 c major so you know it's not a matter you know aaron copeland said once that the term that was not used

00:22:24.620 anymore toward the end of his life but was used a lot of the beginning of his life was to say somebody

00:22:28.220 who was musical and that's exactly the point yeah it's um i you know a couple of copies i like a lot

00:22:34.620 he's not a major composer i mean simple simple gifts yeah yeah appellation spring's great uh there

00:22:43.420 are parts of other things that are really good but that comment itself is a really cogent comment

00:22:48.300 just to be able to say above all is it musical and does it appeal this is something that also gets to

00:22:54.460 me with modern music generally classical music is this idea that it doesn't have to appeal to the

00:22:59.900 mot to the everyman yep it should everybody should understand classical music just because you can

00:23:04.540 compose something that you can only understand if you've had music theory training doesn't

00:23:07.740 necessarily mean that you should compose it well you know i used to say to when i was young that

00:23:13.660 when people talk about something being avant-garde um i think this is my own personal feeling i might be

00:23:19.420 wrong but the idea is to be one step out of the audience not five steps out of the audience if you're

00:23:24.140 going to lead them fine but don't be so far ahead that they're confused and bewildered it should be

00:23:28.940 something that's they think oh that was kind of neat but there's some sort of commonality you have

00:23:35.020 instead of being so far afield that they just reject it because that's the human nature if you

00:23:39.020 don't understand anything totally i've always said this that people have a visceral react in all

00:23:44.540 things in life people have a visceral reaction to things and then they rationalize everybody

00:23:48.860 thinks well i saw that and i thought about no your initial reaction is so quick that the the brain

00:23:54.060 the solar so quick that you have a visceral reaction to things and then you rationalize why

00:23:58.700 you like it or you didn't so that applies here if you're one step ahead of them then they can say

00:24:04.940 well there's a part of me that really maybe there's part of you it doesn't but there's a

00:24:07.500 part of it does like if you're five steps out of them they're just going to reject it outright

00:24:10.940 and you've achieved nothing and on that note go ahead and check out my last podcast on the magic

00:24:17.100 flute where i give you guys a little bit of a taste of a few different pieces and excerpts from the

00:24:23.020 opera and that will let you know how you should enter and see the opera and it won't be totally

00:24:28.700 unfamiliar to you thank you guys so much for listening and thanks dad for being here you're

00:24:32.860 welcome go ahead and follow me on my twitter and instagram follow my blog and subscribe to my channel

00:24:39.500 and i'll see you guys in my next podcast good night

Classically Abby - August 09, 2019

PODCAST #2： SPECIAL GUEST ｜｜ My Dad and I Answer Your Q's!

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Word Count

Sentence Count

Misogynist Sentences

Hate Speech Sentences

Summary

Transcript