Now that the rules are safely out the Window!

Music has been described as living math; there are plenty of rules and more importantly, conventions that make for a pleasant listening experience. But what happens when a musician wants to go where music hasn't gone before and break into new territory? In the old days this is where the "Fantasy" came in, like dream sequences in a film, just about anything can happen here and usually does.

On the Piano this Sunday Randy Anderson traces the fantasy/ phantasie/ fantasia/ fancy from the 16th century to the 20th and you will be surprised at the growing freedom composers used in these "fantastic" works.

The Piano, heard Sunday afternoons at 5 on KPAC & KTXI.

host, Randy Anderson

Home of the Fighting Turkeys?

Benjamin Franklin thought the Meleagris gallopavo, or Wild American Turkey would be the best avian symbol of our country. He explains in a letter to his daughter…

"I am on this account not displeased that the Figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a Turkey. For the Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America . . . He is besides, though a little vain & silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on."

Since Thanksgiving is the quintessential American Holiday and the turkey isn't quite gone from our refrigerators yet, on the Piano this Sunday we present a U.S. program with American composers, not imitating Europeans, but making music that best exemplifies life in this country.
There is Charles Ives, hard nosed and brilliant, Virgil Thompson's take on American mythology with George Washington and the Cherry Tree and a Texas boy, David Guion and music close to every Westerner's heart.

The Piano, hear it this Sunday afternoon at 5 on KPAC & KTXI.

host, Randy Anderson

Who's that in the graveyard?

Halloween is coming and one of the best known symbols of this holiday is the church graveyard. On the Piano this Sunday music that is a special kind of French remembrance, Le Tombeau. These works put you at the graveside or tomb side, if you will, remembering a recently departed friend.

Music as a tribute, remembrance or a fond recollection on the Piano this Sunday afternoon at 5 on KPAC & KTXI.

host, Randy Anderson

A new 85 year old recording?

On the Piano this Sunday I group together a wide range of new music from a musical horoscope of John Tavener to mark the birth of a child. Andre Previn takes that impulse much further by marking all of the birthdays of his children. We will hear Rudolfo Halffter's bagatelles and an homage to pianist Arthur Rubinstein and to end the program authentic Respighi. Is there such a thing? Well at least Ottorino is there at the piano, playing his Fountains of Rome.

The Piano, this Sunday at 5 on KPAC and KTXI.

host, Randy Anderson

Life in Sonata-form

One of the oddest composers of the 19th century was the Parisian Charles-Valentin Alkan. Spectacularly gifted he was friends with Liszt and Chopin and one would consider him a romantic and he was sort of. His music is constructed as if a young Mozart or Haydn wrote it and the sentiment is that of the wildest romantic. The Sonata, the Four Ages of Man explores a man, not unlike Alkan himself, in the shank of life. Living life to the limit when young, later falling for the dark side and having to extricate himself with an eleven part based on a theme of Bach!

What happens next? Find out this Sunday afternoon at 5 on the Piano, heard on KPAC & KTXI.

host, Randy Anderson

A brand new 60 year old recording!

On the Piano this Sunday, three recent recordings that feature Slavic composers. Hear the great Horowitz play Islamey the only season it was in his repertoire. Also an etude of Karol Szymanowski and his Sonata No. 3 both performed by Emily White and to bring the program full circle a Canadian pianist, Nareh Arghamanyan plays the Horowitz edition of Sergei Rachmaninoff's Sonata No. 2

On the Piano, this Sunday afternoon at 5 on KPAC & KTXI

host, Randy Anderson

Life before purists...

There was a time when the name of Bach was hyphenated. No, he didn't take his wife's name, but Bach's music was arranged for us so we could hear it on the instruments we are used to; big orchestras and concert grand pianos. Those interested in playing Bach only on organs he would be familiar with moved on to the rest of the instrumental families and soon there was a new reason to record all of Bach, Haydn and Mozart again, this time with authentic instruments. I'm lucky, I like it all. Falling in love with the harpsichord was easy with Paul Mauriat's Love is Blue back in the 1960's. I wanted to learn to play on such an instrument, but that was a real challenge to a broke thirteen year old living in a small town in Texas, so I had to make do with pictures in reference books.

Now in an age with historic instruments rebuilt to play and the thousands of new harpsichords that are assembled as if it was 1640, we listeners and performers have a choice. KPAC's own Gerald Self makes the most beautiful sounding and looking harpsichords I know of and if I had the room I'd have one in my house. It's funny, but when you are young it is the lack of money holding you back and when you have the money well, it's something else.

On the Piano this Sunday, baroque music on a concert grand and I'm not thinking about Bach's music here, but from the golden age of French music at of Couperin and Rameau. Does this music so closely associated with the dynamics and timbre of the harpsichord even work on a piano?

Find out this Sunday afternoon at 5 on the Piano @ KPAC & KTXI.

host, Randy Anderson

Doing what comes naturally....

The Chinese have a saying, "find a way to make a living doing something you love and you will never have to work another day in your life" - it is easier to follow your heart than to chase a paycheck. Nikolai Medtner was one of the last composer/ pianists and he knew exactly what he wanted to do even though he had a hard time providing for himself and his family. But he stuck to his guns as an artist that believed in himself. When his friend Sergei Rachmaninoff secured for Medtner some tours of America, the pianist insisted on playing his own music rather than offering something more popular that would sell more tickets.

There are a number of contradictions in Medtner's music, it is thick, but must be played lightly, his harmonies are more adventurous than of those by Rachmaninoff and the rhythms are tricky - often tripping up those learning his music. This composer is a romantic classicist and however lyrical or exciting the music the foundations are always in the grand tradition. Brahms would be proud.

Come and explore music from both ends of Medtner's repertoire this Sunday. Hear some tiny Fairy Tales and the massive second piano concerto of Nikolai Medtner on the Piano, this Sunday afternoon at 5 on KPAC & KTXI.

host, Randy Anderson

The Berlioz of the Piano

What a descriptive phrase! Hector Berlioz with his imagination, love of the macabre and a penchant for monster, certainly nails down an impression, but of whom? Liszt, sure, maybe Anton Rubinstein, but this was said of Charles Valentin Alkan. This little known French composer/ pianist is hard to come to grips with; he avoided people, publicity and concerts. He was a friend of Chopin, who lived in the same apartment building and after his death in 1849; it was Alkan who inherited Chopin's pupils and unfinished notes on a teaching manual by the Polish composer.

What characterizes Alkan's music is it's incongruity between an arch conservative who was also one of the wildest romantics. Imagine a cross between a teenaged Mozart and Edgar Allen Poe and you are getting into the strange space that Alkan occupies in music.

This isn't music for the faint hearted performer. I've noticed that some composer's piano music often looks unique, like the fingerprints of the artist are visible on the printed page. Chopin's music does not look like Beethoven and Schumann isn't like Bach, no matter how hard he tried. Alkan's music looks blocky like Liszt's, but it is thick, really thick. The music looks so straight forward that you think you might be able to sight read some of it and then the thickness and complexity of the chords start to intimidate you and all it takes to finish your enthusiasm, is a glance at the time signature and this is where most pianists throw up their hands. Playing music this thick, rhymically tricky and fast isn't for the average pianist.

The people who take the trouble to learn Alkan are a special bunch. These are not pieces for a typical recital. The Symphonie for Piano solo is an offering for those connoisseurs that spend their time reading about and listening to composers that only show up as footnotes in main stream music books. You need a sterling technique, lots of stamina and what the Italians call bravura, the ability to whip up the piano into a froth of notes. That will get you entrance into the interesting and unusual world of Alkan.

Tune in for an introduction to this conservative/ wild man in the age of Romanticism on the Piano this Sunday at 5 on KPAC & KTXI.

host, Randy Anderson

Only thirteen movements to go...

In a country that discovered attention deficient disorder, the idea of the concentration necessary to enjoy a three hour piano sonata is frankly, daunting. But Andrew Violette did it and this Sunday you can hear the concluding thirteen movements that take us through Rocket Dance and a second Colorfield and to send us into a blissful repose... four adagios, one after another to bring this mighty work to a close.

The Piano, hear it this Sunday a 5 on KPAC and KXTI.


host, Randy Anderson

Half way through our Journey....

A Piano Sonata can range anywhere from six to fifty minutes and to go beyond that is really stretching the envelope. Why would anyone write out a sonata that comes in just under three hours? Andrew Violette as a répétiteur spent hours at the piano playing for modern dance companies and it was there he learned to concentrate and develop the muscles and calluses necessary to play for extended periods of time.

One the Piano this Sunday part two of Andrew Violette's 7th Piano Sonata, with the composer at the keyboard we cover movements 7 through 13. Colorfield 1, the 11th movement is not to be missed!

The Piano this Sunday afternoon at 5 on KPAC and KTXI

host Randy Anderson

One step at a Time...

The Chinese have a saying that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. I don't why this comes to my mind when I listen to the music of Andrew Violette, maybe it is the concept of thousands and thousands of notes adding up to something bigger - more grand. In talking to today's composers the topic of tunes come up. Pop music still has tunes that are beautiful and endlessly repeated. Classical composers know that with twelve notes to an octave there are limitations on what one can say. Leonard Bernstein said he knew too much music to be an effective composer, these four notes remind him of Beethoven or Copland and there goes the creative energy down someone else's path.

Today's composers work more in rhythm and density that, coupled with the twelve notes of an octave gives much more material to work with. On the Piano this Sunday an artist that couples all of what has been mentioned with ten powerful fingers, incredible energy and imagination and you have Andrew Violette's Piano Sonata No. 7. Spanning three CDs this music is the journey of thousands and thousands of notes, with a logic that is bracing. Like with many long trips we can't reach the end in one go so, this whale of a sonata will be presented in three sections every Sunday through the month of July.

The Piano this Sunday afternoon at 5 on KPAC & KTXI.

host, Randy Anderson

Making the most of what we have...

"America" conjures up so many thoughts and emotions; to me it was the mostly British colonialists deciding that life could be better if a government was designed on a clean sheet of paper with the everyday citizens in mind first. As this country grew and prospered it had it's own artists, but for many years American art followed European trends and it took visitors to our land to discover that we had developed, almost without thinking; a voice of our own.

On the Piano this National Birthday, Music America Built.

The Piano Sunday afternoon at 5 on KPAC and KTXI.

host, Randy Anderson

Alpha & Omega

In the novel Steppenwolf the protagonist Harry Haller observes that Brahms and Wagner were seen as being as far apart in music as possible and yet in Hell they suffer for the same sin - over orchestration. Liszt and Brahms were both following the footsteps of Beethoven and they grew in totally different directions.

On the Piano this Sunday, Alpha and Omega, the music from different ends of the romantic spectrum. Hear the Piano at 5 this Sunday afternoon on KPAC & KTXI.

host Randy Anderson

From a little acorn, a mighty oak grows...

Franz Schubert probably had no idea that a Piano Fantasie he composed for a pupil of Hummel would change the musical world but his "Wanderer Fantasie" did. Influencing Franz Liszt, who not only played this music and made it popular, but delved into this work and saw possibilities that Schubert never imagined. Liszt took to heart Schubert's intuitive genius, codified it and found a romantic work around to the aging Sonata form that had been the bread and butter of composers since the 17th century. This infuriated the conservatives and started a turf battle that lasted some 70 years.

Find out about the "Wonder of the Wanderer" on the Piano this Sunday afternoon at 5 on KPAC & KTXI.

host, Randy Anderson

And the rewards come at the end of the race....

Gabriel Faure spent most of his youth with caretakers or teachers. Taught the ancient art of church music he seemed to have a modest life planned out when his friend Saint-Saens suggested that try composing some music. The Piano has explored the first two-thirds of Faure's life and this Sunday the last and fulfilling years from the beginning of the twentieth century to the composer's death in 1924. If this musician "lived fast and died young" the world would have missed much!

Hear the Piano this Sunday afternoon at 5 on KPAC and KTXI.

host, Randy Anderson

What's going on behind those big, brown eyes?

The 1890's was a time of artistic expansion for Gabriel Faure and some of his best known works came to life in this age of changing values. In painting, the Impressionists were coming on strong and music was changing too. The big, heavy and deadly serious music of the hyper-romantics was losing favor and Faure's melodic and deceptively simple sounding works were gaining the respect they still have today. It was also a time of emotional growth, Faure was called the French Brahms - he spent most his life working at one church job or another, but there was another side to this multi-talented musician. He married and when that didn't work out he cast his intense brown eyes else where and from one of these affairs we get some his best known pieces.

Find out more about this fascinating artist on the Piano this Sunday afternoon at 5 on KPAC and KTXI.

host, Randy Anderson

Life behind the moustache

Gabriel Faure is considered a composer of lightness and beauty. His Pavane and music to Pelleas et Melisande are masterworks, but what was he like in real life? Did you know he was so passionate his first fiancée was afraid of marrying him? On the Piano this Sunday the beginning of three programs that connect the life and life accomplishments of this famous but little known composer.

Hear the Piano this Sunday afternoon at 5 on KPAC & KTXI.

host Randy Anderson

You are from where again?

It is common practice to categorize composers by their country and there are National Schools, but on the Piano this Sunday afternoon music from two men that probably could not agree about many things. Mily Balakirev was the founder of the Russian Nationalist School also known as the Mighty Five. He and friends like Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Borodin wanted to remove German Symphonic influences from Russian music and by using native tunes return a national essence to their music. Alexander Scriabin started as a follower of the music of Frederic Chopin but he soon grew into a world, no that isn't quite fair, a universe of his own.

On the Piano this Sunday afternoon at 5 hear music of these diverse Russian composers on KPAC & KTXI.

host, Randy Anderson

Gustav Mahler's Piano Concerto?

Imagine a piano concerto by Mahler, the gigantic fortissimos and surging
rhythms all in service to a universal ideal of one's quest through life. Sounds exciting except Mahler never wrote a concerto, but his friend Ferruccio Busoni did and we explore this path from before one's birth to the end of days on the Piano this Sunday afternoon at 5 on KPAC and KTXI.

host, Randy Anderson