A Very Short Story - by Maria Choban (describing the Ballade in g minor, op. 23 composed by Chopin)

Let's talk about the Chopin g minor Ballade, shall we?

Where do we come in? 7 measures of murky darkness. We can't see a thing. Not a thing. But we feel the portent. We know 2 people are somewhere in here. Searching. Hunting. Sexually charged. It's her turn first. She is measured. We hear her heart beat or her breathing. She is intimate and intense. She is not romantic. She watches his every move. She smells him when he moves and she turns her head to follow the scent.....somewhere across this murky darkness where we can't see a thing. She sniffs and moves toward him. We hear her breathing; ragged, not at all romantic. We hear her blood flow quicken. We sense her starting to lose her grip, lusting his scent. We know when she finds him by her growl and her senseless throwing of her body and mouth and teeth on him. And we know he's caught her and allows her to feed. And then it's his theme, his turn. He is the E-flat Major theme. He is the romantic. And while she feeds she unobstructs him. His loveliness, his gentle strength shines. He captivates us. We wonder why he can't find someone closer to his ethereal, sublimely ethereal yearning. And then he becomes human. He slides into her darkness, her tearing, and she takes her theme back. The beautiful melding of Major tonics and Dominant sevenths is replaced by her raspy breath. She is primitive. She needs to pull away and assess the feeding, the feeder. And the one who feeds loves the wild psychopath that she is. He watches her spin herself into these frenzies he knows and is terrified (because he's not sure who's going to die) and he grabs her and breaks her body on his. In a gesture romantic and brutal he crushes her and kisses her and listens to her scream, no, roar with the pain and the ecstasy and he lays her gently on the bed. You hear him moving in the octaves under her. You hear her excitement in the sharp acid f-sharp melodic minor ascension and the plummeting into the f-sharp diminished arpeggiated passage that cadances in HIS key - E-flat Major. God he loves her. For two pages he finds the words to sob his lament and his love of her. For two pages he thinks only of this need he has to devour her, to envelope her, to make her understand - but he can't. She breaks his reverie with her totally self absorbed theme which never ever varies. She is strictly sensual - of the senses. Her breathing is ragged and raspy. She is reason and insanity. The thought of unbounded hedonism isn't (a thought) with her - it's the thing she most tries to hold in check. But not now. Once more she's spun herself undone. She slaps him very very hard across the face. Every time it comes to this. Every time we wonder why this romantic mythic god of a man mates with this demon bitch. It's because she moves him. She will loose his boundaries. She will throw invectives at him, humiliating him, in a voice lower than the devil's and only barely animal and certainly not human. He yells, no - sobs "NO". But she knows this means yes - or maybe she doesn't care. He's crying. He begs, whispers "please". She smiles - no, only half her mouth smiles. It's a Halloween ending. There is blood everywhere. You decide who lives and who dies.

WARNING: If you click "Read full post" you will be seeing the unedited XXX version.

Catch this concert of The Winterreise (A Winter's Journey) song cycle and The f-minor Fantasy for piano duet

Date: Saturday, March 7, 2009.
Time: 7:30pm
Place: Southminster Presbyterian Church; 12250 SW Denney Rd, Beaverton, 97008

Tickets: $10 Adults $8 Students/Seniors $20 family

Program: Die Winterreise by Franz Schubert and Fantasy in f-minor by Franz Schubert.

CONTACT INFO: 503-644-2073 or bosendorfer97@comcast.net


Tenor: Ken Beare
Pianists: Dr. Kenn Willson and Maria Choban

It's been a long cold lonely winter, so we thought we'd cheer you up a bit. Perspective is a wonderful thing; if you think you have problems, how about the guy who's best girl just left him? In the dead of winter? In a seriously bi-polar condition? With no meds? We welcome back from Europe Ken Beare, the man who sings us this emotionally wracked journey into insanity. Dr. Kenn Willson and Maria Choban divide the task of accompanying Ken's dystopia. To further assault our senses, captioned slides. All this while we sit in the midst of a nationally acclaimed yearly art show. And as if this weren't enough, Schubert's Fantasy in f-minor for piano duet - one of the greatest metaphors for suicide - ends the program. Cyanide will be doled out at the door (because no amount of Prozac will help you recover).

And to further entice you......here's MY translation of the first song in that cycle titled "Good Night". (I'll post MY translations/interpretations of each song as I draft them - please burn your own translations of each in the comments section)


A stranger I came.
A stranger I go.
May bloomed all over me with bunches of flowers: She spoke of love, her mother even intimated marriage.
No More! It's a dark world - snow covered with grey skies.


I didn't choose this.
But I have to find my way through this.
I am accompanied by the dark side of the moon,
...and a single deer - who's only evidence is it's hoof prints in the snow.


It would be humiliating to hang around until someone drove me away.
Listen to your lovers - your stray dogs howling outside your door.
Love wanders, by necessity - as you did from me.
Goodnight, angel.


I don't want to disturb your dreams (HA!)
I don't want to wake you (HA!)
You won't hear me leave (bitch!)
Softly, softly - I close the door,
and on your gate I write "Good Night" as I leave,
so that you might have some inkling of the pain you caused me, you Mother Fucking Cunt.

Now THIS is how you diss a piece. Senior Classical Music Critic from The Oregonian, David Stabler, reviewed my concert last Sunday. Clearly he loved the concert. Clearly he hated my Chopin. This is the most entertaining review of a concert I've read in YEARS. Enjoy!

Read about it here:
http://blog.oregonlive.com/classicalmusic/2008/10/maria_choban_passion_and_grit.html

One of my Republican friends confessed his fear that his party may never recover from the onslaught of narrow thinking conservatives and he was seriously thinking of abandoning ship and becoming a Democrat. I, a Democrat, admonished that now is not the time to leave the Republican Party. The party needs serious, well spoken, intelligent folks like my friend. One of my sophisticated musician friends opined that I ought to consider changing my description from Classical Pianist to maybe something like "Fresh, from the Past". And like my reaction to my Republican friend, I say NO. I am what I am - a Classical Pianist. I think like I think, feel what I feel, interpret how I interpret, despite what has become a warped and narrowed idiom by the onslaught of Classical Music conservatives. I won't abandon this ship. I may go down with it though.

David Stabler, Senior Critic for The Oregonian
posted this, this morning.

Now THIS is how you write program notes. OK, the bit about the Chopin Ballade is over the top, but why not?

Maria Choban is a Portland pianist with a rock 'n' roll soul. She hates convention, hates the rituals of classical music and hasn't played in public for a while. She plays like she writes -- vivid, direct, non-negotiable. She's back with a concert on Oct. 26.

Here's what I wrote about her in a story in 1994:

Maria Choban couldn't resist. It was Mother's Day, after all.

First, the bad-girl pianist squeezed into a Barbie-size black dress. Then, she reclined atop the piano so her hair tumbled over the keyboard.

Gradually, the lights came up. Choban arched her back and slowly sat up. The audience, out for a nice Mother's Day concert, just stared. Perhaps people thought they were watching Michelle Pfeiffer do her steamy rendition of ``Makin' Whoopee'' in the film ``The Fabulous Baker Boys.''

Classical music concerts don't start this way -- which is exactly Choban's point. Why not? Why are concerts so predictable? Why do audiences sit so politely? Why don't they stand on their seats and cheer? Why don't they boo? Or walk out?

Choban wants to kick the classical world in the butt. It's too stuffy, too white bread, she claims.

Wake up!

Here's what Choban hates: polite audiences, stuffy performers, white Wonder Bread music, ``nice'' sounds.

Here's what Choban loves: teaching disadvantaged children; cultural diversity; Greek music; audiences who think for themselves, sensual, earthy sounds; Elvis.

Choban sums up her philosophy this way: ``Music mirrors life. It's not always pretty and tailored. Sometimes you just have to go out and use your instinct. It can be raucous and screaming and eruptive. I like to lose propriety.''

Choban can be eruptive, too. She vibrates with energy. She waves her hands when she talks, and when she pauses, they tremble against the light. She grows impatient if she loses her train of thought.

``What's the word? What's the word? What's the word?'' she demands.

Even her hair is on the move. Black as her dresses, strands of it keep trying to escape. But her nose is what gives her away. In silhouette, Choban has a wonderful, Maria Callas nose.

Choban lost her own ``niceness'' after playing for Mark Westcott, the prize-winning pianist who grew up in Portland. ``Your sound is nice, it's pretty,'' Westcott told her. ``And it's perfect for Portland.''

Choban changed her sound. It's now deep and sensuous. It can also sound turbo-charged. ``Maria's the loudest pianist I've ever heard,'' says Jerry Bobbe, who plays cello in her group, the St. Elvis Trio.

Choban is set to play at 3 p.m. Oct. 26 on the First Presbyterian Church - Celebration Works! Concert Series. Here are her program notes:


MARIA CHOBAN WRITES:
I hate writing program notes. I don't particularly like reading program notes. I am like Nasreddin Hodja in one of his stories - trying to escape preparing for a sermon:

He walked to the Mosque one week, stood in front of the people and asked - "How many know what I am about to say?" All was quiet. So the Hodja pretended at exasperation, "Then I am sharing my wisdom with ignoramuses" and he turned around, walked out and back to his abode, happy to have gotten off so easy. The following week he walked to the Mosque, stood in front of the people and asked - "How many here know what I am about to say?" And the people, remembering the previous week, shouted "We All Know!" To which the Hodja replied, "Then I won't waste my precious words" and turned around, walked out and back to his abode, happy to have gotten off so easy. The third week Nasreddin Hodja shuffled to the Mosque, stood in front of the people and asked - "Do you know what I will say to you today?" And the people, divided and confused - some recalling the previous week, others recalling the week before that - say "YES!" or "NO!" And in the cacophony of mixed answers the Hodja replied, "Then, will all those who know please inform those who don't" and once more he turned around, walked out and back to his abode, happy to have made such a narrow escape.

I am at the fourth week. So I will tell you a story...

We begin with a Tango written by Igor Stravinsky. For those who want to know more about Igor, read any of the books written by Robert Craft or go to Wikipedia. This Tango was written in Hollywood in 1941 where Stravinsky was living at the time. Therefore, I deem it an American work. One of Stravinsky's fabulous gifts was his ability to morph convincingly into his milieu: He could adopt and write in any style - and truly, this Tango is as dramatic and over the top as American Ballroom Tango gets.

An aside - I am zealous in my mission to promote American works, preferably those of the mid 20th Century through today. I also am zealous about promoting the works of Greek Composers (I am a Greek-American), and particularly the Greek Composition following the Ottoman Occupation (1800 to the present). And I also have a soft spot for undiscovered works or composers. Sometimes, as with the Chopin Ballade, I'll pick up a work already interpreted and performed many times - but ONLY if I am really moved to say something different about it. Like any zealot, I truly believe and am moved by my missions. I totally get Svoboda and Bowmann; I can't escape (nor do I want to) the Byzantine aspects of Theodorakis or Kalomiris - they are in my gene pool.

From the Tango we meander on to three pieces written by Jeff Bowmann in 1992: "Thumb Prints on the Page", "I'm No Fun", and "Charcoal". This is a bittersweet vignette in my story. I never met Jeff Bowmann, although I spoke to him by phone once. Once upon a time I taught piano at Reed College. During that time I taught a student named Bruce. Bruce was very accomplished and was preparing to give a solo piano recital. At one lesson he asked whether it would be alright to play one of his friends' works. I answered "of course!" The next week he brought in this set of three pieces by Jeff Bowmann. I expected student level composition. I expected average or slightly above average inspiration and quality. It takes A LOT to blow me away and these pieces did. The whole time Jeff was at Reed I never made the attempt to contact him. Years later when I thought about recording a disc of current Americans I tracked down Jeff. I recall it was a tedious process. I found him finally in law school somewhere in New York. He was extremely gracious and deferential. (I asked permission to record his works.) In the conversation he acknowledged that there is NO money in classical composition and when he finally accepted this he decided to go into law. In a world of current classical composition that quite frankly leaves me so bored I want to die, having Jeff bow out (for very legitimate reasons) was a huge blow. I have a small hope, a wish, maybe just a fantasy, that Jeff might be lured back into composing even if just half-time.

The first palette cleanser - the first Prelude by Mikis Theodorakis, from his set of 11 Preludes written in 1947. I believe Andreas Brandes (translated by Tatiana Papageorgiou) gives a brilliant synopsis of The Preludes:

"The eleven Preludes were composed in 1947, whilst he (Theodorakis) was at the Athens Conservatoire. Before he completed a score of the work, however, he was arrested and sent into exile on the Aegean Islands (Ikaria - Makronisos). He returned after three years and then sat his final exams in Composition. In the Preludes, the composer achieves the effect of crystallising (sic) particular musical moments within the shortest possible time-scale. Moments reflecting impressions and experiences from Greek folk song with its distinctive instrument (the clarinet of Epirus), the counterpoint of J.S. Bach, the western church choral tradition, jazz music, etc. What strikes us in the Preludes is the great economy of means of expression, the more advanced harmonic language being characteristic of that particular period of the composer, as well as the individual piano writing which makes the work more demanding and at the same time more attractive to the performer." For information about Mikis Theodorakis and his works, go to http://en.mikis-theodorakis.net/

Another aside: While playing a run through of this program for a trial audience I had just finished playing this Prelude #1. One of the folks in the audience, a person who listens only to cutting edge industrial, alternative, and classic rock, said "This piece reminds me of the Elvira Madigan." I agree, it does me too. But I loved that this comment came from someone who does NOT routinely listen to classical music yet knows some lynch pins of the repertoire. (The Elvira Madigan is the second movement of a Mozart Piano Concerto in C Major, No. 21 k.467). I am mystified that my friends who are steeped in rock and roll and metal and alternative and on and on and on know more about classical music than my friends who are steeped in classical music and can name only The Beatles or Radiohead.

The Second Sonata, op. 121 of Tomas Svoboda, completed in 1985. I am in love with this work. The second movement in particular is the epitomal description of complete desolation and dissolution and unraveling. Structurally, this Sonata is probably one of the most difficult works in the piano repertoire in terms of contrapuntal playing. Not only is it written melodically contrapuntally, but the articulations and phrasings are also individuated and woven among each other. AND WAIT, there's more. The pedaling - it is not intuitive but it makes sense, yet it too is contrapuntally woven in this entire mess of linear writing that somehow comes together and sounds like a right-brained creation. It's a brilliant work of math and logic - so brilliant that we are aware only of the Americana in the first movement, the suicide in the second, and the magical, joyful resurrection in the third. For more information about Tomas Svoboda and his works, go to http://www.tomassvoboda.com/

Another palette cleanser - the fifth Prelude by Mikis Theodorakis, from his set of 11 Preludes written in 1947. I think this is the loveliest piece on the program. But you don't have to think that.

And we end the first half with Five Huge Fluffy Persian Cats: Lots of hair, lots of drama, lots of lots. The Five Preludes of Manolis Kalomiris, written in 1939. I have recorded these and they are available on my disc, Greek Rapture. For more information about these preludes and about Manolis Kalomiris, visit my website - Alitisa.com


INTERMISSION

I wrote a racy version of this story. This is the shortened PG-13 version describing Chopin's Ballade no.1 (of 4) in G minor, op. 23:

Where do we come in? Seven measures of murky darkness. We can't see a thing. Not a thing. But we can feel the portent. We know two people are somewhere in here and that they are hunting each other. First. First it's her turn. She is measured. We can hear her heart beat or her breathing. She is intimate and intense. She is not romantic. She watches his every move. She smells him when he moves and she turns her head to follow the scent...somewhere across this murky darkness where we can't see a thing. We can hear her breathing, ragged, not at all romantic. We can hear her blood flow quicken. We can sense that she is starting to lose her grip. We know when she finds him by her growl and her senseless throwing of her body and mouth and teeth on him. And we know he's caught her and allows her to feed. And then it's his theme, his turn. He is the E-flat Major theme. He is the romantic. And while she feeds she unobstructs him. His loveliness, his gentle strength shine. He captivates us. We wonder why he can't find someone closer to his ethereal, sublimely ethereal yearning. And then he becomes human, weak. He slides into her darkness, her tearing, and she takes her theme back. The beautiful melding of Major tonics and Dominant sevenths is replaced by her raspy breath. She is primitive. She needs to pull away and assess the feeding, the feeder. And the one who provides loves the wild psychopath that she is. He watches her spin herself into these frenzies and is terrified (because he's not sure who's going to die) and he grabs her and breaks her body on his. In a gesture so romantic and so brutal he crushes her and kisses her and listens to her scream, no, roar with the pain and the ecstasy. When she recovers, she is calmer, playful even. She teases. He responds. You can hear him moving in the octaves under her. You can hear him driving her. You can hear her response in the sharp acid f-sharp melodic minor ascension and plummet into the f-sharp diminished arpeggiated passage that cadances in HIS key -- E-flat Major. God he loves her. For two pages he thinks only of this need he has to devour her, to envelop her, to make her understand - but he can't. He can't without her participation. She knows this. And as he winds down and feels the impending rejection, she breaks his reverie with her totally self-absorbed theme which never ever varies. She is strictly sensual - of the senses. Her breathing is ragged and raspy. She is reason and insanity. She knows this man. The thought of unbounded hedonism isn't (a thought). It's the thing she most tries to hold in check. But not now. Once more she's spun herself undone. She slaps him very, very hard across the face. Every time it comes to this. Every time we wonder why this romantic mythic god of a man mates with this demon bitch. It's because she moves him. She will loose his boundaries. She will throw invectives at him, humiliating him, in a voice lower than the devil's and only barely animal and certainly not human. He yells, no - sobs "NO". But she knows this means yes - or maybe she doesn't care. He's crying. He begs, whispers "please". She smiles - no, only half her mouth smiles. It's a Halloween ending. There is blood everywhere. You decide who lives and who dies. For more information about Chopin, read his Complete Letters (Dover edition) or go to Wikipedia.

Radar (1981), by Mikis Theodorakis is a song cycle beautifully arranged for piano solo by Alkis Kakaliangos.

And finally, Storm Session, op. 126 (1987) by Tomas Svoboda. My friend and role model, John Tamburello, commissioned this work in 1987. It is written for electric guitar and electric bass. John is an electric guitarist who grew up playing in bands. Sometime in his 20's he had the epiphany that the electric guitar should have its own non-pop literature, so John set out and commissioned works from composers he adored. John is responsible for much of the interest in generating literature for this instrument. I had the privilege of playing the electric bass part in the initial performances of this piece. I confess, I coveted this piece from the day of its inception. It was actually written in two stages: The e minor section was the original work and at some point John thought he wanted a prelude so he went back to Tomas who wrote the d minor prelude. I yammered at John and Tomas for 20 years about playing this piece on piano as a modern invention (like a Bach invention). Finally, with John's permission, but NOT with Tomas', I went into the studio and cut a recording of it. I marched it over to Tomas, told him I'd recorded it with a very dirty and over processed sound. The uglier I described it the more Tomas giggled and the wider and shinier his eyes got. I played it for him and he was hooked. I think this is the coolest piece in classical literature since Lalo Schifrin's "Mission Impossible" theme. Dig it.

Maria Choban



See the original post here:

http://blog.oregonlive.com/classicalmusic/2008/10/the_future_of_program_notes.html#more

Right now, none of the above excite me. I don't drink coffee in any form. I hate fake boobs. I have never smelled Napalm in the morning, but that might be because I am not a morning person. It occurs to me that I have explained my dislike of all of the above except for classical music.

Classical music... Now let me see, the FCC won't let me be... sorry, my mistake that's Eminem and I haven't heard of the FCC giving a rat's ass about anything to do with classical music, even the operas where the women are taking their clothes off. I don't pay $50 to go see women take their clothes off - by the time I leave, I may have spent that - but I don't go to a classical music concert or opera for that (perhaps I should, it might be cheaper). Anyway, I digress.

Years ago I remember watching basketball on TV and Charles Barkley missed a free throw. To this day I remember him screaming "GODDAMNIT". I cannot remember any classical musician ever showing anything resembling that form of passion for what they do. When was the last time at the end of a symphony that a First Violin stood up, raised the violin over their head and screamed "Whoooo, I kicked some serious fucking ass tonight"? Instead I get a polite bow or nod of the head. And you want to convince me that you are passionate about what you do? I get some pompous ass who has spent the whole time waving a stick acting as if he/she is responsible for the entire performance when their entire contribution is obstructing my view of 2nd Violin (damn, she's hot). I get to spend a few hours looking at people who look like they are dressed for a funeral. I can't even get a decent beer (and no, not everyone who shows up wants a glass of wine) while I am being subjected to this indignity.

What could I do instead? Let me count the beers...I meant the TV channels...actually I meant the things I have to do around the house like cleaning the gutters.

Ludwig van Beerthoven

(This article was written by Ludwig van Beerthoven. Enjoy and add your own comments about what you enjoy about Classical Music - OR what you don't. - Maria)

So, what is it? Is it music which was created in the past? Does it only exist as an historic art form? Is it music which requires certain discreet instruments? (as one of my friends views it): Violins, tubas; or discreet ensembles - string orchestras, woodwind quintets; or both in tandem? Is it perhaps tied to form? - Sonata form, Fugue form, Fantasia form.... Or structure? - monophonic, polyphonic, Alberti bass, Chaconne bass, 12 tone.... Can we distill it, boil it down to an essence and state that it is complex music forms and structures performed by humans on instruments traditionally relegated to classical music? What differentiates Classical Music from other genres? Yesterday another friend asked a version of that question: What differentiates Classical from Pop, and quickly answered his own question with "Dynamics". Yes. We are accustomed to hearing pop at one dynamic level. In addition, there is rubato - that sci-fi time manipulator which totally obliterates the concept of a metronome or a click track (so forget dancing to it - even slow dancing).

I am not really interested in capturing a definition. I am extremely interested in perceptions. There is no wrong answer.

Definitions of Classical music on the Web:

Usually signifying serious music intended for the concert hall, the term can also mean any kind of music with lasting value (hence, classical jazz, classical pop songs, etc.)
www.artsalive.ca/en/mus/musicresources/popDictionary.asp

traditional genre of music conforming to an established form and appealing to critical interest and developed musical taste
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

* The European tradition of music which is associated with high culture, as distinct from popular or folk forms (including works in this tradition in non-European countries).* That tradition as well as similar non-European traditions. ...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical music

THE CLASSICAL MUSIC SOUND

Picture an airbrushed playboy photo. Now picture the classical music sound. All that reverb and room presence has blurred any hope of detail or individual characteristics. All discs sound the same - the same room, the same amount of reverb, the same, the same, the same.

My friend Michael who manages one of the largest independent classical cd stores thinks I record too hot. He's frequently asking me to study the Philips piano recordings. I have. I'm not convinced. I'm still bored. Jerry, another friend and my favorite cellist, thinks the same. Funny because Jerry has such a unique sound I could pick him out of a roomful of cellists with my eyes closed: Brash, loud, sincere yet idiosyncratic phrasing, extreme dynamic range, over the top on everything. How is his playing style compatible with tons of reverb, a concert hall ambiance, microphones backed up all the way to Wales? He'd lose half of what makes him stand out under these circumstances.

I like the mics as close to the instruments as possible and I want NO reverb and as small a room as I can squeeze out of the engineer's software options and my artist co-horts. Of course this means we walk in and we know our shit because recording under these conditions is like walking in downtown stark ass naked. Ain't nothing between your preparation and the final product. The recording session is NOT an expensive practice session. The control does not rest with the engineer, it rests with the performer.

Does this mean I ignore all the great technology in the studio? Hell no. We used a click track through most of the Muczynski cello/piano Sonata (and wove the rubato around it) in order to insure forward motion or at least to insure against backward motion. We drop in re-recorded notes/measures/passages. We bow before cross-fade and pitch tweaking and scootching one instrument forward or back in order to better line up an attack or a release. But all this because we record in large segments - from 48 to 64 measures typically. I like authentic continuity. I like to think I can sense the difference between splicing and dicing and something closer to a live performance.

I also argue my ass off trying to hold back the tide on reverberation when we mix. If there's one thing that destroys a recorded classical performance it's reverberation. It masks everything. Musicians have defaulted to reverberation because it also masks mistakes. Somewhere along the way, we became used to that sound. Yes, it does mirror the quality of a concert hall which I also can't stand - I much prefer dead rooms where my ears can pick up everything. Dead rooms are frequently described as brittle sounding whereas concert halls (and reverberation) are thought to warm up the sound. I find having to fight through the echo to find the detail annoying not warm. Conversely, I find the overstimulation in hearing everything in a dead room really exciting.

Enough bitching. If I don't start practicing I'll have to resort to reverb.