Earlier this week I submitted my last paid writing assignment for this particular season, a program note on Handel’s Alexander’s Feast for the Philharmonia Baroque’s April 2012 concerts. That might give you an idea of the lead times required in the program note writing biz. Usually I have a few more items remaining as of December, but this year all of the deadlines were pre-New Year’s.
That isn’t to say that I’m now unemployed and sitting around on my hands. I have plenty of projects cooking along. A lecture at Davies Symphony Hall on Handel’s Messiah for tomorrow (Friday 12/15) night. Eight classes on the history of the concerto for the Fromm Institute starting in early January. The bulk of this season’s lectures for the San Francisco Symphony lie yet before me, due to my fall teaching schedule that keeps me busy on Thursday afternoons and therefore unavailable for any SFS week with a Thursday matinee performance. But after mid December I’m once again available for Thursday matinees. I’m lecturing for the Philharmonia Baroque again in the spring. Not to mention for Cal Performances in February together with other SF Symphony-related talks hither and yon. I’m willing to bet that a few more requests are yet to come in.
Later in the year, another class for Fromm, this time on the Romantic symphony beyond the Austro-German tradition. So we’ll be covering dandy stuff by Dvorak, Tchaikovsky, Berlioz, Rachmaninoff, Elgar, Alfven, Stenhammar, Sibelius, Franck, Chausson, d’Indy, Vaughan Williams, and lots more. That one doesn’t require much attention for some months yet, but nonetheless it stands on the near horizon.
And of course there’s that joint over on Oak Street, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, where I have been on faculty these past 35 years and which requires, with all good reason, the lion’s share of my attention. This coming semester I teach a heavy load of five courses—core curriculum Musicianship, ditto Music Theory, Advanced Analysis, Keyboard Harmony, and a graduate course in Analysis that is always an enjoyable and intriguing adventure.
In short, plenty to do. More than plenty to do. More stuff than most folks would ever want to deal with. But all good stuff, happy stuff, intriguing and challenging and rewarding stuff. I don’t do routine, not even with classes like undergrad Theory and Musicianship that could all too easily devolve into an enervating slough of same ol’, same ol’. I try to make it all new, even courses I have taught for decades.
I didn’t commit to a career in music because I wanted safe and predictable. A life in music is only for those who are willing to put their fannies on the line for the opportunity to live their dream 24/7. The vast majority of such folks make do with a relatively modest standard of living in return. Somehow I’ve managed to have my cake and eat it, too: I’m head over heels in love with everything I do, and if I’m not precisely rich, I’m distinctly on the affluent side of things. I have no complaints.
I have become accustomed to a steady stream of writing deadlines so it’s a bit odd to contemplate a few months without them. Life is a great big bunch o’ changes, however, and before long I’ll be looking through the list of forthcoming assignments and making plans. What music will I be covering next season? Thanks to this year’s programs I learned the astonishingly fine Violin Concerto by Esa-Pekka Salonen. I delved into the work of Corelli and Alessandro Scarlatti. I learned more about the English Civil Wars and the state of music during the Interregnum than I ever knew before, as well as Jacobean and Caroline composers such as the Lawes clan. I revisited my always-beloved Mozart and Haydn. I explored Handel’s Alexander’s Feast. I learned all manner of interesting things about the San Francisco Symphony’s outreach and education programs. I was given the precious opportunity to write a second article on Bach’s B Minor Mass within the space of a single year. I wrote and lectured on Italian composers, French composers, English composers, American composers, Russian composers, ancient composers, modern composers. Music from all over the globe, from all eras, in a breathtaking range of genres.
In the winter and spring I’ll be lecturing on Stravinsky, Ravel, De Falla, Bruckner, Janacek, Britten, Debussy, Mendelssohn, Schumann, Brahms, Prokofiev, Sibelius, Shostakovich, and Kalevi Aho, in addition to my classes on the concerto and the non-German Symphony. I’ll be speaking again on the San Francisco Symphony’s recorded legacy, a topic that has engaged me for several years now.
For this past year’s teaching assignments I explored anew the symphonies of Beethoven, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Schubert, and Brahms. I got a start on the history of the concerto with a series of lectures on Italian Baroque concertos for the Philharmonia Baroque; over the next month I’ll be going hammer & tongs on all things concerto in order to prepare my Fromm class. Last spring I explored the Beethoven piano sonatas with my graduate analysis class. I delved into Haydn’s compositional methods, contemplated the ursatz in Bach and Mozart and Beethoven and Schumann, revisited the music of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and once again enjoyed the privilege of introducing a roomful of UC Berkeley undergraduates to the glories of their musical heritage. I even went on for a good two hours about the way music is transmitted down the years from one generation to another, and another two hours about the history of the San Francisco Symphony’s recordings. I talked about Tchaikovsky to a group in a restaurant. I pontificated about Bach to a huddle of folks nearly lost in the vastness of Cupertino’s Flint Center. I talked in concert halls. I talked in lecture halls. I talked on the radio. I talked on television.
As the winter break slowly settles in—I’m not quite there yet, given a gigantic stack of finals from UC Berkeley that await my attention—I consider what a life in music can mean. I may have started out as a pianist, but piano was never more than a means to an end for me. I had to make it a good two decades into my career before I fully understood that. But I would have been miserable spending all of my time preparing pieces for performances, playing them, and then moving on. My bliss was always different, always less clearly defined, always broader. A particularly sage piano teacher once told me that I would have been better off going to one of the big universities with a separate music school—Indiana, Michigan, Yale, that sort of place. She was right. Nonetheless I soldiered on within the relatively autistic confines of a conservatory and made my own private university. Ever self-directed, self-guided, and self-taught, all I needed was the freedom to explore, some free time, and sufficient shekels in my pocket to avoid debilitating distractions just to make a buck.
Not long ago I attended a panel discussion in which my pal Robin Sutherland, longtime staff pianist of the San Francisco Symphony, quipped that he always kept his back to the wall at parties due to the presence of any number of Bay Area pianists who would love nothing more than to whack him and take his place. Robin has earned, and richly deserves, his rock-solid place not only at the SFS but in Bay Area music. My position is equally solid. But I don’t have to worry as much about rivals: my growth has been different, more vinelike with tentacles reaching into all manner of nooks and crannies. Eradicating me would be like killing a particularly sturdy weed with an extensive root system. Since I have evolved into my wide-ranging set of activities, any one person hoping to replace me altogether would have to acquire my particular set of skills. And that would take some doing. Heaven knows it took me long enough.