Making Lemonade

a masterclass for a time of isolation

Pianists and isolation

Pianists are used to being alone. We practice (for hours) alone. We perform alone. A lot of the pieces we want to play are for piano alone. So you might say we are practiced at being alone.

Still, this isolation business is a bit hard to bear. We are in the season when pianists and other musicians come together to play chamber music—perhaps the most wonderful thing a musician can do. We should have been gathering to sample the delights of the companionship of music. Instead those gatherings, by and large, have been canceled.

So, when life hands you lemons.....

Back in May, I was feeling sorry for one of my advanced students. Her contest, for which she'd been preparing for months (in isolation!) was canceled. Then her summer program was canceled. It was sad to think that this year, she wouldn't have a chance to get to know other advancing pianists her age and to hear them play. It was disheartening to think she would miss the chance to learn from highly-advanced pianists/teachers and to imagine a path for herself as she advances her skills at the piano.

Then one day I woke up with the solution to our problem in my mind. I could ask Ratko Delorko to teach over zoom while my student and I participated from the newly-opened Davis Hill Studio studio. I met Ratko on Charles Street in Baltimore when we were both in that fair city to attend a piano teacher's conference. Since then, we have kept up a correspondence and exchanged ideas about teaching and composition. Ratko Delorko is a sought-after clinician and piano coach at a collegiate and professional level. He has traveled the world teaching piano to dedicated students. He established an on-line teaching studio several years ago and so he has a lot of experience guiding students without being able to access any of our profession's tried-and-true hands-on methods. Ratko agreed to set up a masterclass. He will be hosting our first zoom session on Friday, June 19th. (Eastern Standard Time)

I think we should all get ready for the best lemonade ever. It will be as refreshing to hear some new ideas about how to have fun playing the piano as it is to drink a tall glass of freshly squeezed lemonade after a long bike ride--motor powered or otherwise. There is a little foreshadowing in that last sentence; some of you may recognize it. We will enlighten you all on the day of our class. I hope to "see" you there. 

In order to manage the zoom session well, I want to send out invitations to people who are planning to attend. If you would like to attend, please send me an e-mail by Thursday, June 18th at 6 PM. I will be checking my e-mail and will send you a zoom link as soon as I receive a communication from you. Now I'm off to practice. I hope you are, also. 

in pianistic solidarity,

Ellen

Music as Meditation: When is a Jig Not a Jig?

          Hasn't it been reported that the Philosopher Wittgenstien believed that a philosophical treatise might be written completely as a series of questions? If a serious work on the nature of reality could be written that way, why not a press release about the upcoming Music as Meditation planned for Sunday, March 1, at 5:00 PM at Christ Episcopal Church in North Conway?

          When is a Jig not a Jig? How could a jig be written in 2/4 time? Why did J. S. Bach choose such a meter for the last movement of his keyboard partita #6? Why did he choose such a complex work for the 1725 notebook he gave to his second wife Anna Magdalena Bach?

          Why does a composer so capable of complexity work with a simple theme like “Ah vous dirai-je maman” otherwise known as “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star?” What makes a pianist want to play such a work? Might it be that the simple tune weaves through variations spanning light and dark, motile and lyrical?

          Had Beethoven really heard the popular tune for the second movement of his trio (opus 11) for piano, cello, and clarinet, in the lanes of Vienna? Is it helpful to balance the mathematical precision of a Bach Fugue with a romantic work like Rachmaninov's Prelude in G flat, Op 23 No 10? Why is it that so many composers write a short piece in each of the 24 usual keys? How grateful will Ms. Schwindt be to hear Mark Rossnagel play her little Etude in E flat, part of a (mostly-unfinished) set of such pieces? (Hint: the answer is very, very, grateful!)

Mark Rossnagel, visiting classical pianist, will perform at March's Music as Meditation

          And finally, what could be more important than preserving the living memory of these pieces by playing and listening to them? Will we be imbued with the emotions of the pieces, or with the opposites of those emotions?

          What is NOT in question is that we will delight in the playing of visiting pianist Mark Rossnagel, who holds a Bachelor's degree in organ performance from SUNY Binghamton, where he studied with the late Jonathan Biggers, and a Master's degree in piano performance from the University of Southern Maine, where he studied with Laura Kargul. Jenny Huang-Dale, cello, and Judith English, clarinet, are sure to join Ellen Schwindt, piano, to perform the aforementioned Beethoven Trio. We will share a poem Bach liked enough to pen into his wife's notebook and other musings on the nature of aspects and music.

           Music as Meditation is a monthly gathering of listeners and artists interested in the spiritual—though not necessarily religious—source of art and music. Music as Meditation in April has a folk music focus. The gatherings take place on the first Sunday of each month at 5 PM at Christ Episcopal Church in North Conway. Admission is free. Donations toward the upkeep of the Steinway piano are gratefully accepted. Call or e-mail Ellen Schwindt for more information: ellen.m.schwindt@gmail.com 603-447-2898.

Music as Meditation

or

Where Improvising on Hymn Tunes Might Lead Us

     From time immemorial, musicians everywhere have cultivated the skill of improvising on well-known tunes. Religious services often provide the venue for this kind of inspired music-making. The theme running through February's Music as Meditation is how music, whether complex or simple, transcends systems of belief and opens the door to the soul in ways that the spoken word cannot. 

     This month two friends join me to help us experience the answer to question implied in the subtitle above. Nancy Farris, Christ Church's organist, shares a famous embellishment of a hymn tune by Ralph Vaughan Williams: Rhosymedre. Nancy's sensitive rendering and Christ Church's mellow Cassavant Brothers tracker pipe organ bring out the loveliness of the tune. 

     As if a chance to hear the voice of the pipe organ were not enough, Greg Huang-Dale, a local musician with Minnesota roots, brings us the quiet resonance of a hammered dulcimer. He will play some tunes by Peter Ostroushko, Minnesota composer and mandolinist. 

     I will add two resonant pieces for piano which could be classed as hymns-without-words. The first is by nineteenth-century eccentric composer Eric Satie and the second by Peter Ostroushko. Though crafted in different centuries and on different continents, both pieces provide time for peaceful reflection; each is sparse in its notes but rich in its sonorities. 

     The program is not without complexity. Mrs. Farris will give us the intricate majesty of a Toccata by Leo Sowerby, one of 20th century America's most significant organ composers. The interactions of all that embellishment on tunes you might know will provide its own surprises. Who knows where improvising on hymn tunes might lead?

Patterns in Nature, Beethoven, and the Art of Fuguing

     The harmonic overtone series is wholly natural, is it not? Air columns and strings (and planets, according to Pythagoras and Kepler) vibrate. The fundamental tones we hear most obviously include other tones—if your hearing is acute enough—comprising the entire diatonic scale we've been using to compose music since the 1500s and before. It could be argued that all the scales used in the world's systems of music come in some way from the natural system of harmonics arising from vibrating objects.

The patterns that fill pages and pages of western art music rest on this harmonic foundation. More music in that language continue to fall out of the sky and into my pencil whenever I show up to compose. A recent project is creating a fugue from a very simple progression of fifths. I did not begin this fugue consciously. I thought I was simply writing down some improvised counterpoint using the progression. But it turned out that the patterns of a fugue began to emerge on the page. I say “on the page” consciously because it isn't until I write music down that it begins its traverse from the accidental to the intentional.

     At this point in the project, what I have is a slightly tangled braid of three voices and three “themes” all of which fell out of that set of five descending fifths followed by an ascending major second during many improvising sessions. The six notes of the opening create a pleasing chord to my ear on my resonant piano in my reverberating living room. Arranged in a different way, the notes create something like a scale figure that comprises the second theme, and could be said to have created the third theme. I am consciously working at creating the fugue now. I work very slowly checking the sounds by playing them, using colored pencils to delineate the separate voices, writing in three staves so that I don't get too confused in my articulation of the ways these three themes can interweave and become one whole. My own will takes a kind of back seat in this work. I want to imagine it is akin to what Hegel meant by Scientific Cognition in his preface to The Phenomenology of Spirit. He says in paragraph 13 “Without such articulation {the former range of specificity of content} Science lacks universal intelligibility and gives the appearance of being the esoteric possession of a few individuals.” (Miller p. 7)

image by skeeze on pixabay

     All this cogitation made me remember my recent fascination with a mathematical reality (or is it imaginary) that has some correlates in nature. Some of you might think, given my history of obsession with it that I'm about to talk about Fibonacci. However, this time I'm talking about The Mandlebrot Set. Benoit Mandelbrot coined the word fractal. Jimi Sol made an explanatory video  about Mandelbrot sets—so named in tribute to Benoit Mandelbrot—that explains what is exciting about the ideas behind the beauty of fractals much better than I could. My trip down the rabbit hole also reveals Julia Julia sets and Fatou sets--also named for mathemeticians--and also responsible for creating beautiful fractal art and beautiful natural surroundings like coastlines and cumulous clouds. And believe it or not this trip down the rabbit hole acted a bit like a fractal in that it lead me back to my favorite mathematical toy: Fibonacci. 

     One idea that comes from all this work in imaginary and real numbers is that of self-organizing principles. That concept is everywhere these days from economics to ecosystems. This link will take you to a rich Wikipedia article about the ways we are coming to know that “design” does not mean a central intelligence is necessarily at work, no matter what Thomas Aquinas claimed. 

     Let me get back to the piano, though. I think these kinds of thoughts often when I'm deeply immersed in a note-learning project. I have had the luxury of that immersion these last few weeks in the company of Beethoven. Part of the upcoming Music as Meditation is a performance of Beethoven's violin sonata opus 30 number 1. It is a beautiful link in the transition between classical and romantic music. It's phrases are full of patterns with which one must grapple in learning the notes. As the little patterns become clearer, so does the pattern that governs the cohesiveness of the whole. My intuition tells me that there is something like an aesthetic sense of the order of reality that causes Beethoven (and maybe even to a small degree causes me) to choose just the right notes to fill each iteration of a phrase as it repeats within the structure of a larger piece. Sometimes my rational understanding can corroborate what my intuition tells me, but not always. Still, I always experience Beethoven's notes as just the right notes at just the right time. 

    There's more to mention, but I really need to practice! I could go on about how Bohuslav Martinů uses the form of madrigals to create a well-ordered whole from many voices. I could talk about the cross sections of walnuts and the form of whipens. I will leave this ramble here, though, and hope that many of you can come to Music as Meditation. It's at Christ Church in North Conway, New Hampshire on Sunday, January 5 at 5 PM. Admission is free. Together some of us are pitching in to take care of the Steinway piano at that church so we can keep gathering to share music. Please get in touch with me if you want to contribute to that care. 

Music as Meditation and Advent

Yesterday ten people shared a time of music and thoughtfulness at Christ Church in North Conway. The windows pictured here are from that church. The dark in between them symbolizes the time of waiting prescribed by this season in many religions. While I do not find any exact liturgy a good fit for me, I do appreciate a lot of the the ancient wisdom. In Music as Meditation I try to share some of my impressions of it. Certainly, I find wisdom in cultivating a spirit of waiting at this time of year as we watch the light go from our Northern-hemisphere world and wait for the light to return. 

The program included music by Hildegard von Bingen, a figure well worth study. She broke barriers in her world and left us with treasures for our souls today.

It also includes a rendering of the Lord's prayer from the original Aramaic that is the work of Mark Hathawaty and Neil Douglas-Klatz. You can find out more here.

I print the program here to share its words:

Music as Meditation

December 1, 2019

Impromptu in G Flat Major Franz Schubert

Playing this piece, with the right kind of attention, always calms me. Though there is drama in my interpretation, I hope it is a subtle drama, always related to the surety of key from which Schubert weaves this lullaby.

O virtus Sapientiae Hildegard von Bingen

O virtue of Wisdom translated by Nathaniel M. Campbell

who, circling, circled,

uniting all

in one living path,

three wings you have:

one soars to the heights,

one pours its essence upon the Earth

and the third flies everywhere.

Praise to you, as is fitting,

O Wisdom

Rendering of what we know as the “pater noster” Mark Hathaway

Mark Hathaway penned this rendering of the familiar “Lord's Prayer.” He used the scholarly work of Saadi Neil Douglas-Klatz. This rendering is not a translation, per se, but used the original Aramaic roots. For a thoughtful article about this prayer visit http://visioncraft.org/aramaic/intro.htm

O Silent Sound,

whose shimmering music pulsates

at the heart of each and all,

Clear a space in us where thy melody

may be perceived in its purity.

Let the rhythm of thy counsel reverberate through our lives,

so that we move to the beat of justice, love, and peace.

Then, our whole being at one with thy song,

grant that the Earth may be filled

with the beauty of thy voice.

Endow us with the wisdom to produce and share

what each being needs to grow and flourish,

And give us courage to embrace our shadow with emptiness,

as we embrace others in their darkness.

But let us not be captive to uncertainty,

nor cling to fruitless pursuits.

For from thee springs forth

the rhythm, the melody, and the harmony,

which restores all to balance, again and again. Ameyn.

Etude in E minor (Opus 28 # 4) Frederick Chopin

I am so grateful for the friendship of my piano students. Ann's graciousness in playing this piece delights me.

Christmas Card Tunes Ellen Schwindt

Pastorale for 2015

Light, Again

Lilting Melody (2018)

Pastorale for 2019 (mostly improvised)

Without really meaning to, I seem to have started a tradition of composing a little tune to put on a Christmas card at this time of year. It has been rejuvenating to revisit some of them.

Sonata Ellen Schwindt

I've finally brought this Sonata to publication. It took me more than two years to create so far. I keep playing it, perhaps I always will. Here is the dedication: for William Marvel, who calls this sonata “Five Months in Western Massachusetts.” I recently played this at a concert I shared with my sister, Cynthia Aramowicz. We both chose pieces to play quite independently. All the selections were of a kind though; they were romantic, evocative, and pretty. Somehow this conveys connection to me. I hope it does something like that for you, too.

Collaborating at Christ Church

Music as Meditation brings a Multi-Media Show 

to Christ Church

This season, the Music as Meditation series is every more collaborative than it has been. For our November 3^rd event, I've switched roles. I'm producing a theatrical/musical/visual art performance by a very interesting artist who goes by the name Barbara Toothpick. Ms. Toothpick attended a recent Music as Meditation and pitched the idea of using the event to stage her show. As soon as I began to read the script she sent me, I was a gung-ho supporter. Not only was the piece rife with humor of the most reflective sort, but she talks about raising worms. Any fellow-vermiculturist gets my full attention and I read on. This show is a reflection on so many aspects of life. I am looking forward to my role on the day of the show—as audience member. I hope many of you will join me. 

Some things about this performance remain the same as previous Music as Meditation events: It's on the first Sunday of the month at Christ Church in North Conway. There is no admission fee. We will accept donations toward the upkeep of the beautiful Steinway at Christ Church. The generous congregation of Christ Church is lending us the space and we are all hoping that attenders and artists alike will come away refreshed and ready for the next adventure life hands each of us.

Visual, Musical, and Theatrical artist Barbara toothpick will present One-Woman Show With Alan on Sunday, November 3 at 5 pm at Christ Episcopal Church as part of the Music as Meditation series. Featuring 17 costume changes, three life-sized effigies, and original music and paintings, toothpick’s show depicts her quest for what she can trust in an ever-changing world. Toothpick describes the show as “a romp” and notes, “It’s not preachy and telly, it’s showy and do-Eeeeeee!” It is directed and produced by Sarah Dalton-Phillips and Helen Swallow. Toothpick’s quest encompasses her reflections on the body, the solar system, poetry, visual arts, “the stern patterning of music,” her learning to become a team with mate Alan HorseRadish and raising children, and her view of all individuals. The multidimensional show will evoke “the delightful roller coaster road” she and Alan have traveled in pursuit of their artistic creations.

Working in the interface between painting (acrylic and watercolor) on triangular canvases, composing soundscapes with visual scores, and poetic writing of all kinds, Barbara toothpick’s work was recently seen in 2018 in a show at the University of Maine at Machias (with Alan HorseRadish). This year her work has been on view at Eastport Gallery, the Tides Institute, and Eastport Art Center. She currently has a book in the Philadelphia Center for the Book’s show at City Hall in Philadelphia. For the past three years, she has produced Play Theater in Philadelphia. Under the name Barbara Bodle Kirschenstein she earned BS and MA degrees from Ball State University.

While attending the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Alan HorseRadish painted large acrylic paintings but soon changed to watercolors, creating heavily saturated seascapes and faces. He has shown his paintings at the University of Maine at Machias, the Tides Institute, and many places in Philadelphia. Under the name Alan Kirschenstein he earned a BA degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

The show is part of the Music as Meditation series coordinated by Ellen Schwindt and hosted by Christ Episcopal Church. Admission is free, but donations are welcome and will go toward the upkeep of Christ Church's beautiful Steinway piano. For more information about the show or the Music as Meditation series contact Ellen Schwindt at ellenmschwindt@gmail.com.

A Month of Steinways

     Steinway is synonymous with heaven to many pianists. A Steinway piano offers a player luscious bass notes and clarity in the treble and the ability to sing out melodies all across seven octaves without effort. In short, Steinways are a joy to play. 

     In the coming weeks, we have two opportunities to hear the voices of two beloved Steinways, played by a variety of classical pianists. The Little White Church in Eaton is home to the Steinway pictured above. That church is currently organizing a fund drive to replace its steeple and take care of its beautiful piano. Two pianists from the Portland, Maine area are visiting to help with the effort and to share their musical talents.

     Mark Rossnagel and Tina Davis are the pianists. They will perform a program of dazzling and deep piano music there on September 26^th at 7 PM at The Little White Church in Eaton, NH. The program features beautiful works of deep feeling that span the centuries and ask for virtuosity from the performer. Mr. Rossnagel will perform solo on the church's piano. He holds degrees in organ performance and piano performance. He brings precise playing and a singer's understanding of melodic line to his solo playing. He'll play selections from Bach's "Goldberg Variations" and Liszt's "Leibestraum" Number 3. He is joined by Tina Davis, a pianist of lyricism and clarity, in duo selections from Ravel's "Ma Mere L'Oye" and Rachmaninov's “Slava.”

     Before the concert, at 6:00 PM, Mark and Tina will share their perspective on preparing for big performances with interested pianists and piano students. Ellen Schwindt of The Davis Hill Music Studio will host this event. Admission is by donation and supports the musicians and The Little White Church's steeple renovation and piano fund. 

     Then on October 6th at 5 PM at Christ Church in North Conway, NH listeners can attend the first Music as Meditation of the season.  This first Meditation revolves around the magic of chamber music. My friends Judith English, and Jenny Huang-Dale join me to share a Beethoven trio for cello, clarinet and piano. I'll be playing on Christ Church's Steinway of the small, clear, voice. This instrument will be great fun to play in the context of a dramatic Beethoven trio. It's reserved nature might make the task of balancing a little easier, but it will reveal the power in its depths during some of the forte sections. I'm also planning to share a Schubert Impromptu (Number 3) and a new piece in E major that isn't quite finished as of this writing. The Steinway at Christ Church could use a little tender loving care to prolong its ability to sing out the way we want it to. If you are interested in getting involved in some small-scale restoration of this piano, please get in touch with me.

     Through some inspiring instances of synchronicity other artists are now centrally involved in providing more Music as Meditation events for the fall season ahead. On November 3, an artist who goes by the name Barbara Toothpick presents a piece of interwoven theatre and music called "One Woman Show with Allan." Then on December 1st our beloved Nancy Farris performs an organ recital on the beautiful Cassavant tracker pipe organ at Christ Church in North Conway.  Follow this page as a way to stay informed about these performances. You can also receive my e-mail notices by contacting me at ellen.m.schwindt@gmail.com. I look forward to sharing some spirit-filled art with you in the coming months.