I think I miss music history. Honestly, I do. Call me a geek, it's been done before and rightly so, but there is a little void in my life and I think history belongs there. I will be taking at least one class next semester, so that will be nice, nice to run to the library and take out way more books that I'm going to read and nice to poor over details in the hope of finding out something new about my topic. But I hate that word, nice. Everything is nice, everyone is nice. Let's branch out, Emily. Use some more grown-up adjectives, like fulfilling, satisfying, intellectually stimulating. And even those, I feel, are intermediate adjectives. I want some really brilliant ones. Or just avoid using them altogether. An adjectiveless world would be a very stark one, though. See? You can't describe any nouns. Nouns need describing, and I think Plato would agree. We have the form of a horse, but to make it unique, we need to attach specifications to it, color, size, temperment.

What a rant! Maybe all this free thinking is getting to me. It is all for the best, I think. I could use some poeticism in my writing.

Some Stein for you

In honor of Gertrude:

We pull the weeds needing pulling but they come back strong. The strong weeds come back needing pulling so we pull the weeds so they don't choke the flowers. So we pull them but they come back strong, stronger than the flowers, you can't water the flowers without watering the weeds so we pull them out, out, but they are strong and come back and shouldn't we let them?

cooool

I just found this list of tings I did in London:

Soloists of the lond phil at Wigmore Hall
London Phil: Brahms, Sibelius and Zemlinsky
Gothic Singers: Medieval Music
Tate Britain
Tate Modern
V and A
Westminster Organ Recital/Evensong
National Portrait Gallery
Lion King
London Phil: Beethoven, Bartok and Dvorak
London Phil: Turnage, Ravel and Prokofiev
London Phil: Turnage, Henze, Brahms and Tchaikovsky
Konstantinova ensemble. Mahler unfinished piano quartet and Schumann op. 44 piano quintet
Les Mis
History Boys
Crystal Palace Museum
British Library
Viewing of Parliament
National Gallery of Scotland (Edinburgh)
Fitzwilliam museum
The hour in which we knew nothing of each other
Guildhall armours and brassiers award (winner Chris Evans)
LSO: Gergiev conducting Schoenberg Chamber Symphony and Mahler 7
ENO: Lucia di Lammermoor
Frankenstein
Wicked
After that Fall
The Serpentine Gallery
Dover Castle/ Regimental Army Museum
Dealer’s Choice
Much Ado About Nothing
Liverpool Cathedrals
Maritime Museum of Liverpool
Museum at the Docklands
Hairspray
The Magic Flute
Avenue Q
Relatively Speaking
The Sarajevo Story
Tate St Ives
British Museum
Rational Rec 2
Royal Ballet
Salome
National Gallery
Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Marlowe’s Dido Queen of Carthage
Stomp
National Portrait Gallery
Rational Rec
James, Son of James
Philharmonia: Messaien’s La Trangalia
Cinderella
Handel Concert (Handel’s Heroines)
Alban Berg Quartet (Hadyn, Schubert, Berg)
A Laughing Matter
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The Mikado
The wallace collection
The importance of being earnest
Sir john soane museum
The Homecoming

My Rap

Since I was little I have been told to try hard

Do the best, pass the test

Look up and dream of success

Now I’m ambitious, dedicated

To young yet to be jaded

The drive their hopes created

Has flickered but not faded

I want to stand up

Make some noise, Make a racket

Someday you’ll quote me on your book’s dust jacket

But I can’t ignore

The doubts that plague me

Don’t know what’s in store

Where life will place me

Cause why does what I say even matter

My whispers amid this academic chatter

People smarter than me

Try harder than me

With their maps in hand for this uncharted journey

Noses in book, are they helping us all?

You can’t eat a journal, can’t live in a concert hall

The most brilliant minds

Dote on rhetorical finds

Countless dollars are spent

On their minutia and dissent

So I can see the disconnect

Reality intellect

But I refuse to reject

That it is worthless, and I suspect

That my future that gleams

The glitter of my hopes and dreams

Is actually gold

So forth I’ll go bold

If I’m happy I may

Above the storm and the fray

Make a difference some day

And that’s all I got to say

Song Lyrics

Inspired by Doc Pomus:

I go to classes everyday
rehearse, reads books and such
but sometimes I wish I was busier
So I wouldn't think of you so much

They say that love is easy
That it lifts you to the clouds
But I feel the dirt more than ever
Since you're not around

But I know the time will come
Where I can greet you at the door
Your hand will be mine to hold
And I won't cry no more

Til then, I'll wait so patient
It's for you I truly care
There ain't nothin' i wouldn't do
I know we'll find our somewhere

emmmmo, but the blues were emo, so there.

Carlos 'n me

MY first encounter with Carlos Kalmar, Conductor of the Oregon Symphony:

I was backstage at a rehearsal, shadowing the Operations Manager. Carlos comes out of the dressing room, and Anne moves to introduce me.
"Carlos, this is Emily Nelson. She's shadowing me."
he looks at me skeptically: "I was about to say, who the hell are you?"
Anne continues as he walks on, "She did an internship wth the London philharmonic"
he makes weird, not very impressed noises and walks away.

I think I made a great impression. Just awesome.

Short Story

Piano.

“Why don’t you ever play for me?”
She paused for a moment as he flipped through a magazine at her kitchen table, but quickly continued to dry the dishes from the dinner she had cooked.
“Did you hear me?”
Setting down the last plate, she faced him. He looked up now.
“Yes, I heard you. And I don’t know” she lied, running her fingers delicately over her still-wet palms.
“I think you do. I’ve asked you before and you seem to just avoid doing it. I know you still play. Why can’t I ever listen?”
She held his gaze for a moment before reaching below the sink for a towel. This one was getting better at reading her, and she didn’t know if she liked it or not.
“It doesn’t matter”
The towel was returned to its hook. She did not sit down.
“Why is this a big deal? Don’t get defensive. I’m not asking you to tell me your sordid past or reveal any secrets. I just want to hear you play piano. And you have been doing it for so long that it can’t be because you’re awful at it. You know I wouldn’t care if you were.”
His voice remained kind as he tried to catch her eye and she feigned interest in the dirty window.
They had asked her before. Love ran through her life like electricity. The bulbs would flicker then begin to fade, but she could replace them easily. He was no different.
“You know I don’t understand why you keep things from me. This, we, should always be honest.”
Oh God, is this really going to set him off? She was not in the mood.
“I am not keeping anything from you! I just play the piano, it’s just a thing I do.”
The dial on the stove gave way under her weight, clicking as gas escaped and she turned to correct it.
“I don’t get it, just tell me why you won’t.”
His whole body was facing her now, affirming his interest, and she lost hope he would drop this.
“Maybe I don’t want to.”
She studied her feet now, arms crossed over her chest protectively.
“Why?”
She chewed her lip.
“Because it’s mine.”
She looked up and watched his brows furrow.
“The piano? But you play…”
“No, the music.”
She was surprised she was telling him this and watched his reaction intently.
“But why? Music is such a wonderful thing to share, to bring people together. It would make us closer…”
“No!”
There wasn’t room for arguement in her tone.
“It isn’t fair but this is mine.”
He watched her soft, dark hair all to her shoulders as she undid her ponytail. Even from there he could smell the faint scent of shampoo, that warm and sweet vanilla.
He stood up from the table to her perch by the stove and took her chin in his hand, pulling her face up to meet his.
“Don’t fucking do that,” she said, jerking her head away.
He took a step back, embarassed by how demeaning he must have just come off as.
“I’m sorry. I just wanted to hear you play. I understand.”
She wished she hadn’t said anything.

My Funeral

Funeral


Music plays a huge role in my life, and will too in my death. At first it seemed to difficult a task to sum up my life in thirty minutes of music. What emerged as the final playlist was a compilation of pieces important to me as both a listener and performer. I don’t feel it gives a narrative of my life or a comprehensive summation of my personality, but more a personal representation of the importance of music as a source of comfort and expression.
The first piece I chose was the fifth movement from Rachmaninoff’s All-Night Vigil. Rachmaninoff asked that this movement be played at his funeral, and though make no claims to be on par with such a great master, I still wanted to include it. The passion of Russian choral music are so moving and in the beauty I canot help but feel an uplifting and comforting tone. I am not religious at all, and I have no idea what they are singing about, but the feeling in the music is clear. The next two pieces are both solo piano works. The first, Intermezzo no. 2 from opus 118 by Brahms, was the first piece I have played on piano through which I felt I could truly express myself. I never get tired of either listening to it or playing it, and it is so full of love. The second, Etude no. 3 from Op 10 by Chopin, always makes me feel better when I’m sad. The melody has always touched me; it has that inexpressable tenderness that makes music so amazing.
The next piece is a simple Irish folk tune arranged for trumpet and wind ensemble called “’Tis the Last Rose of Summer” (paticularly fitting considering my middle name). In my biased opinion, there is nothing more gorgeous than a soulfully played trumpet. This short piece has so much simple beauty and a sentimental quality without sorrow, both very appropriate for a funeral.
As much as I love classical music, I have always thought that jazz musicians can express themselves on perhaps not deeper, but more intimate level. The performer has so much freedom that it becomes their piece far more than the composer’s. In a self-indulgent action, I decided the standard “Emily” would be perfect. I always felt so special whenever someone played it for me, and I suppose this would be the last time it would happen.
My last choice of song sticks out from the rest. I honestly have no idea who the band is, or what else they have done, but The New Radical’s “You Get What You Give” is the song I listen to whenever I feel like giving up. I might be interpreting it incorrectly, but I think it says that this world is hard, but youhave to keep fightint. You always have a reason to pursue your dreams because “you have the music in you.” I’d like to think I have the music in me.
My funeral should not truly be about me; I’ll be dead, I won’t care. It should be a chance for those who want to mourn my passing or celebrate my life to be able to do so, and find comfort or solace for their grief. Music more than anything had the power to do that, and I tried to choose pieces that would accomplish this goal.

Beethoven and his Nephew

Emily Nelson

Music and Language

9/27/08

Article Review

In the chapter “Beethoven and his Nephew” from his esteemed biography of the composer, Maynard Solomon sheds new light on this much-discussed period of Beethoven’s life. His narrative of the years 1815 to 1820 not only gives a solid factual overview, but also highlights Beethoven’s deep moral questionability and provides psychoanalytical theories regarding his behavior. It begins with the death of Beethoven’s brother Carl Caspar, whose son Beethoven lays claim in direct contradiction to the wishes of his brother. What ensues is a legal struggle between Beethoven and his brother’s widow, Johanna, along with the tragic circumstances surrounding the boy Karl. Beethoven’s actions have been condemned as unethical and cruel by previous biographers, but Solomon takes a more scientific approach, theorizing based on psychoanalytical methods in an effort to explain the actions and summarize the ultimate effect they had on the composer. Indeed, Solomon presents this period as one of the most psychologically important in the composer’s life; it forced Beethoven to deal with “unresolved issues of his family constellation” by bringing them out of the world of fantasy and into reality.

When viewed on a personal level rather than psychological, it is difficult not to whole-heartedly condemn the composer for his actions. Perhaps if he had claimed sole guardianship and subsequently provided a quality, loving home for Karl, sympathy would come more easily. But every action seems inexcusably selfish. It was not that Beethoven wanted the boy in his care, but he did not want him to be with his mother. He explicitly tried to turn the boy against Johanna, and at the same time was trying to obtain permission to ship the boy out of the country. His interactions with Karl were not one of a loving parent but cruelly ambivalent, smothering the boy alternately with affection and beratement. Solomon makes the pertinent connection between this behavior and Beethoven’s own childhood, noting that we should balance our condemnation with the “understanding that he was in the grip of forces that he could not control and that in his own way he ultimately sought atonement.” Was he the conductor of a train headed toward a man on the tracks, completely conscious of what was happening but unable to control his actions? Or was he Madame Bovary, entrenched in a world of fantasy he created for himself? From an outsider’s perspective, especially one from a relatively healthy family background, it is hard to understand what drove these seemingly misguided events. Solomon does an excellent job of trying to rationalize them, however, and provides an even-handed psychological explanation of Beethoven’s possible motivations.

But Beethoven is not just a case study in Freudian theory. He is a composer. And what brought us to have any interest in this man is his music. According to Solomon, Karl and Johanna were “catalysts” by which Beethoven could reach new creative heights. But unlike a chemical catalyst, Johanna and Karl did not remain unchanged. Beethoven’s creative breakthrough came at a terrible price to these two people. The whole event may have been psychologically beneficial to Beethoven, but does that excuse the irreparable damage he caused Karl and his mother? A utilitarian view might pardon his actions because such widely loved and musically genius works as the Ninth Symphony would have never happened if the scenario had played out differently. It is not an easy conflict to resolve but an intriguing one none-the-less, and Solomon guides us down the path to understanding with many new and interesting ideas regarding this period in Beethoven’s life.

The Appeal of the Artist

Wednesday in class we talked about the musicological quest to unite artists and their works on a very personal level. We want to hear struggle and love and anger in the music, for their inner selves to emerge in the notes, chords, melodies. We scrutinize the minutia of artist's lives as meticulously as any historical figures. Their family, behavior, sexuality, personality, everything is under the microscope: the geek version of People. It's big news when a new letter is unearthed or it turns out Handel had a previously unknown girlfriend. Though it is based around and music and eventually comes back to it, we have become obsessed with these figures in a extra-musical way. And i have no problem with this. I LOVE gossip, I love to know everyone's business. I know it's bad, but I'm a teenage girl- what do you expect? It also does enhance the listening experience, especially if you know the composer was expressing himself through his compositions which, I believe, is not always the case. Music and sound have intellectual appeal as well as emotional, and I can't imagine that all of Glass or Haydn's works have deep meaning to them. It also, honestly, was a profession before an art. It is also hard for someone who can barely write a chord progression to imagine being able to hear a melody or feel a symphony in a creative way, without thinking about going from ii to V to I. I am both envious and in awe of those so fluent in the language of music that it can be a form of expression. I feel like I have gotten to a point where I'm beginning to learn to express myself through music, but it has to be the right piece.
Anyways, I love listening to a piece and knowing what the composer was thinking, especially when I can't connect with the piece solely aurally. To listen in an informed way, with specifics in mind, helps me understand what they were trying to accomplish and appreciate the artistry.
I love musicology.