College Music Society

In March, I had the privilege of presenting music from the Skinner Anthology during the annual conference of the Mid-Atlantic Chapter of the College Music Society, which took place at George Mason University. I enjoy my involvement with CMS as the organization includes people from all branches of the college music scene - theory, musicology, performance, ethnomusicology, music industry, etc.


My presentation quickly painted the parlor music landscape by highlighting three of its personalities -

Henri Herz: the successful Parisian musical elite

George Knauff: the struggling musical pioneer in Farmville, VA

Franticek Koczwara: the roaming rogue whose Battle of Prague stayed near the top of the parlor hit parade


I also shared a list of uses I've found for my research, which I will copy below.

1. The technical demands of most parlor music are such that intermediate piano students can enjoy playing it. Knowledge of intermediate repertoire is an acknowledged weak point for many piano teachers, thus an introduction to the range of parlor music could be very helpful for piano pedagogy students.

2. As much parlor music is literal in form and formulaic in development, it is an excellent source of straightforward scores for theory students to analyze.

3. As much parlor music was designed for collaboration, it provides lots of options for creative work with students and colleagues in music, drama, dance, literature, history, etc.

4. Parlor music can provide contrast in our own recitals full of Brahms, Busoni, and Boulez. Listeners enjoy a respite from aesthetic challenge, and hearing about music-making in the parlor setting seems to spark their imaginations.

5. In the context of college-level piano study or music history classes, parlor music can provide perspective on the quality of the works that have survived in the canon. It can also introduce discussion of the 19th century struggle between commercial music for home use and the rise of the symphony as the hallmark of high art in the concert hall.

6. Working in an area with few traditional concert venues, I need to find other settings in which to connect with the public and to recruit students. Historical associations, museums, and history teachers are often interested in presentations that involve live music. Such opportunities allow me to meet a broader range of people than I would if I were limiting myself to the recital hall.

7. Facing the limited nature of the materials of the music, and contemplating the parlor setting, I have been refreshed in my appreciation of the sometimes simple joys of making music. This attitude is exemplified by a song text attributed to Johann Usteri and found in the anthology. In it we are exhorted to enjoy the simple gifts of life while there is still time to do so.


Several colleagues shared interesting remarks after my presentation. One probably shares ancestors with me. Another commented on the need for a lighter charming sort of repertoire today. A third provided some wise counsel regarding what sort of place ought to eventually be entrusted with the anthology.

Lafayette's Journey

On Thursday, I presented a short recital of Skinner Anthology materials at the Hertford Academy at the request of the Murfreesboro Historical Association. The Society is one of the things that makes Murfreesboro a great place to live. It preserves our heritage and plans events that give our town lots of charm, including the Christmas Tour, the Watermelon Festival, and Porkfest. I've been wanting to get involved with the Historical Association, so I was excited about the opportunity.

The occasion was the visit of a tour group from Suffolk. The group is retracing Lafayette's journey through our region in 1824, and they came to Murfreesboro on the precise date that Lafayette did, February 26. They were treated to several museums in historic buildings in town that would have been here when Lafayette visited, and they were served a fine lunch at the Hertford Academy.

The Hertford Academy is the building in which several schools have held classes over the years, including some of the earliest classes of Chowan University. The Academy was decorated with several images and artifacts relating to Lafayette, including the pretty portrait from the Roberts-Vaughan House that always makes me think of Beethoven.

The lunch consisted of very tasty pork loin, lima beans, rolls, pickled fruit, and exquisite sweet potato soufflee, followed by a dessert of Pineapple Cake with fluffy white frosting - all prepared and served by members of the Historical Association.

After lunch, I spoke and played. The dates of the anthology fit very well with the timeframe of Lafayette and his post-American Revolution life, which included his visit to Murfreesboro.

I played two of reels that Knauff wrote down which were favorites from the Farmville area - "Love in the Village" and "Mississippi Sawyer." If he heard these, it would have been at some fete in Virginia or North Carolina.

Next I played the Herz Sontag Waltz. It is quite likely that Lafayette would have heard some Herz in some Eurpoean parlor as Herz was the best-selling composer of parlor music for piano in the era. Herz also toured the U.S. when his fortunes weren't going so well in France.

My third selection was Ogilvy/Anderson's "Battle of Warterloo." In preparation for this event, I read a bit about the relationship of Lafayette and Napoleon . Their relationship was definitely rather complicated. Being a strong supporter of representative government, Lafayette could not fully support all that Napoleon did. Napoleon must have also been concerned abot Lafayette's ideas and fame. When Napoleon held a memorial service for Washington, he didn't invite Lafayette whose own son was named for Washington! Still, after Lafayette fled to Belgium and was imprisoned, Napoleon freed him. In general, it seems that Lafayette tried to chart a course of moderation for the events of the French Revolution, and such a position must have been extremely hard to maintain and must have also been misunderstood by people on all sides of the conflict.

The last piece I played was the set of tunes from La Muette de Portici. This opera was popular towards the end of Lafayette's life, and is particularly relevant to his life journey as it deals with revolution, and revolution in Belgium in particular.

A few musical insights regarding this event:

One reel (Love in the Village) would probably have been enough!

I think all of the pieces I played on this occasion probably work best when played elegantly and with refined sound.

Hearing the "Lamentation for the Slain" in the "Battle of Warterloo" always deepens the experience in a serene way.

The picture above shows Sophie with me outside the Hertford Academy. In spite of her interest in Lafayette, I didn't take her to the performance.

Virginia Reels

These are images of rehearsals of Virginia reels for Life Let Us Cherish at Chowan.

Life Let Us Cherish

Friday night I presented a lecture-recital entitled "Life Let Us Cherish: Parlor Music in Antebellum North Carolina" as part of the 2009 Chowan University Pianofest. Click here for the full text of the lecture.

In the morning I got up and walked our beagle. Then I spent the rest of the day tending to details so that the evening would go smoothly. This was the most involved of the Skinner Anthology events yet. A singer, twelve dancers, a timpanist, a bassist, and a reader collaborated with me.

The dancers were Chowan students, coordinated and taught by Ashley Brooks. They worked hard and did an excellent job of dancing Virginia reels in period costume. Programming the reels was more problematic than I anticipated as it takes about eight minutes for six couples to dance a full round of the reel. That means eight minutes of constant sixteenth notes for the pianist. Playing that much fast music accurately during performance can tire the pianist's hand and mind, not to mention playing the music for several rehearsals in which we did the entire reel several times in a row! Nonetheless, a high point of the evening was the presence of these young dancers and their interest in the project.

Steve Harders, who also teaches at Chowan, read the Twain quotation with an excellent accent and also declaimed the various headings in the "Battle of Prague" with appropriate drama.

Lori Parker sang a few verses of "Life Let Us Cherish" at the beginning of the concert. We decided to transpose the song, and since the piano part is pretty easy, that worked out fine, although I rarely practice transposing these days.

Our version of "Battle of Prague" included another colleague, Dr. James M. Guthrie, on bass, and our student, Alex Welch, on timpani. Dr. Guthrie imrpovised/composed his part as we rehearsed, and Alex started by improvising. Dr. Guthrie and I gave a little input along the way.

Other colleagues attended and were encouraging in their feedback. One commented on the Daniel Hall piano sounding better than usual, which I believe is mostly due to the repertoire, much of which is transparent in texture and stays in the middle third of the keyboard.

Serenade

I performed two concerts recently with tenor and good friend Jeff Prillaman. Following a Bizet aria, I played Iucho's work based on themes from La Muette de Portici. At another point, I played Herz's "Mademoiselle Sontag's Waltz" Playing this waltz in the context of a vocal recital focused my attention on the fact that a lot of the writing sounds like sparkly coluratura - appopriate for a work there bears the name of one of the mnost famous sopranos of her day.

Last night we performed at historic St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Petersburg, VA. Robert E. Lee attended worhsip there and his son was married there.

Cherry Hill Lecture Recital

Yesterday afternoon I presented a lecture recital for the Members Only Tea at Cherry Hill in Inez, NC. It is lovely venue with a fine Steinway and excellent acoustics. The audience - about fifty folks, I believe - sat in two rooms off the sides of the main hallway as well as on the steps and in the other end of the hallway.

My Roberston ancestors who owned the anthology lived just a few miles from Cherry Hill. Alstons and Kearneys married some of my Roberstons and Skinners. The Alston and Kearney names are also associated with Cherry Hill.

I think it's safe to say that the Roberstons would have at least known the residents of Cherry Hill. It seems likely that they would have visited there on occasion and vice versa. A little more speculative is the idea that the music of the Skinner Anhology was played there. It's quite possible that it was.

It was a special privilege and delight to share the music and my research at Cherry Hill. During the reception that followed, I learned a great deal and met many fascinating people.

One gentleman thought he had seem a Knauff piano before. Knauff, the arranger of the Virginia Reels in the anthology, did run a piano factory for a time in Farmville, VA.

I met several people who share Skinner or Kearney ancestors with me way back.

I also met a great-great...granddaughter of Albert Jones. Jones was the architect of Chowan's MacDowell Columns as well as a couple of other houses in town. I learned that Jones was from Warren County and more of his houses are very close to Cherry Hill.

I learned that a friend of over 10 years might share some Skinner ancestors with me. We never knew we both had Skinners our family trees.

Jonathan Johnston joined me for the concert. He played the reels and the Boieldieu and also read the descriptive titles during the Battle of Prague. Our rehearsal went smoothly, and with that piano in that acoustic, our sounds meshed better and we discovered some things about how to shape the Boieldieu. So much of that piece seems the same that it takes a while to really zero in on the contrast and the shape that it does have. Jonathan also mentioned that The Battle of Prague came more into focus and sounded much more convincing in the Cherry Hill setting. Several folks mentioned a passage that I think was probably in the Battle of Prague that reminded them of the Keystone Cops, which got me wondering if an excerpt from Battle Prague might have been used by silent film pianists.

On the way to Cherry Hill, a deer walked onto the road ahead of the car and nonchalantly stood in our lane. We stopped and waited for the deer to realize the danger it was in. Then it ran quickly back towards the woods which were far across a field.

I had been excited about the very meaningful experience of playing this music at Cherry Hill for several days leading up to the event. I didn't reaize how tightly wound I had been until I started to unwind on the drive home! We stopped for a filling supper at the Logan's in Roanoke Rapids.

Today I'm pondering further tasks I should pursue regarding the anthology, in addition to lecture recitals. I need to make usable scores of the rest of the piano works and research them as well. I currently have 20 or less of the works in a usuable version. I'd like to write an article for some scholarly organization on the contents of the anthology. I'd like to make a recording of some of the music. And I'd like to edit an edition of a selection of the works.

I enjoyed practicing some of the pieces today. Bigger portions are getting memorized even though I wasn't particularly aiming to memorize this music. The longer I'm a musician, the more I realize that a lot of the richness and enjoyment of the work comes from having pieces of music as your daily companions whether that be in practice, rehearsal, or performance.

MacGregor Plaid

I found this image here.

Last night, Kathy and I drove up to Williamsburg, had great open-faced turkey sandwiches and listened to some celtic harp playing at Shields Tavern, and bought me a MacGregor tartan bow tie to wear for my Skinner Anthology performances. The Skinner Clan is a subset of the MacGregor Clan. For a time, the use of the name "MacGregor" was outlawed, and Skinner was one of many names used by Macgregors during that time.

I wonder how connected my Skinner and Robertson ancestors felt to their Scottish heritage. It is well-represented in their collection of music which includes variations on "Kinlock of Kinlock," "The Devil among the Taylors," "Auld Lang Syne," as well as Virginia Reels. The opening of the Battle of Waterloo sounds like a fiddle tune as well.