Favorite Musical Novels, Films, and CDs for the Holidays by Thomas Wolf
Every year, about this time, people ask me, “Is there a great recording, novel, or film that you would recommend for a classical music lover?”
This is not an easy question. I would need to know more about this so-called “classical music lover.” Recommending recordings can be tricky unless you know the person’s tastes and preferences in genre (symphonic, chamber, solo, etc.), composers, performers, or even recording technology itself. I have been spending a lot of time recently exploring historical recordings of fairly obscure 19th century music, for example, and I have located particular favorites. But for many people, sound quality would rule these recordings out as enjoyable listening experiences and/or my classical music lover may not be as interested in obscure Russian and Eastern European composers as I am. He or she might much rather I recommend a recent recording of a familiar masterpiece.
But here is an unusual recommendation that I imagine only a handful of people would ever know about and many music lovers would probably enjoy if they could locate it. Many years ago, I was involved in producing a small house concert featuring the late, great Joseph Silverstein playing favorite encore pieces for violin. Silverstein had been the long-time concertmaster of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and was a wonderful chamber music player among many other things. I made sure the event was filmed and we made a delightful short video which you can find by scrolling down the video section of this website. The film is called “Joey.” That is the first half of the story and a good example of a favorite classical music film.
Now we come to the CD part. After the concert, I asked Silverstein whether he had recorded these wonderful pieces and he told me he had with the pianist Richard Zgodava. A CD was released in 1986 on the Pro-Arte Digital label CDD 268 called simply “Encores!” with Silverstein’s photo on the cover. It is not an easy CD to find. Yet here is the amazing thing. The rights to the recording (which Silverstein did not own) were sold to a small company that re-issued it on a CD called “Classics for Kids: Family Time Classics.”
The only way anyone would know that the performances on this CD were by Silverstein would be if you read through the three pages of liner notes and at the very end in tiny type he is mentioned as the violinist (his name is not on the cover). Naturally, Silverstein fans had no idea about this version of the wonderful recording. The company that issued the CD no longer exists so far as I know and the CD is not easy to find though I did see three inexpensive copies of it on ebay the very day I wrote this blog. I have purchased numerous copies over the years and given them to friends. People have always loved them. Perhaps you might want to look for either of these CDs. One way or another you might get to hear this wonderful violinist playing these encore pieces. It is worth the search.
When it comes to recommending novels about classical music, this too can be tricky. Some people are fans of novelized versions of the lives of the great composers, for example. I am not. If I want to learn about real people, I prefer nonfiction. Why read a made-up story about an important musical figure when there is research based on established fact?
But when it comes to novels about music and musicians, I do have a favorite and this will be easier to find than the CDs I just mentioned. The novel is An Equal Music by Vikram Seth (Broadway Books, 1999).
If you go to the internet and read about the book, most of the descriptions focus on the love story that is, for most readers, the central feature of the plot. But I have to admit that after all the years since I read the novel, I had completely forgotten the love story. For me, two other things lodge in my memory. The first is the amazingly accurate portrayal of what it is like to be a professional chamber musician. The other is the description of a remarkable and curious piece of music—Beethoven’s String Quintet, Opus 104 for two violins, two violas and cello. The work is unusual as it is a reimagining and reworking of a much earlier work by Beethoven: his Piano Trio, Opus 1, Number 3. The novel traces the musicians’ discovery of the quintet and then follows them through arduous rehearsals to the perfection of performance.
So bowled over was I by this novel and the fascination of a major Beethoven work in two versions that when I was a concert presenter, I programmed both pieces on the same evening’s concert and the audience loved it. The two works are completely different in instrumentation and character—even though they are essentially the same music. Separated by an intermission, the experience for the listener is not boringly repetitive but rather both pieces can be fully and independently enjoyed. Anyone reading the Seth book will want to listen to recordings of these pieces (there are many available performances on the internet or you can purchase CDs). For a musician who likes to follow along with the printed music, there are even free downloads of the two pieces that allow you to follow along with the printed scores. For the trio, there is this option and for the quintet there is this. But there are many other listening choices on various free web platforms.
What about my favorite musical film? I mentioned “Joey” already. Though it is very short, I love it because it contains much actual music and it is not like some musical films that sensationalize musician’s lives in ways that border on the sentimental and silly. One of my favorite memories was an annual event that took place at the Marlboro Music Festival for those of us who spent the summer at that beautiful Vermont retreat. It was an evening in which the great pianist, Claude Frank, did his rendition and recreation of the completely over-sentimentalized film about Robert and Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms called “Song of Love.” The 1947 movie features Katherine Hepburn and it is pretty dreadful.
If you have the stomach for it, you can download excerpts and perhaps the whole film (the latter option is too much for me). Here is a sample excerpt. At Marlboro, sitting at the piano, Frank’s recreation of the scenes from the film, which he called “Ketchup on the Keys,” was hilarious. I wish that his performance had been recorded for posterity. That would have made a great film.
On the other hand, there are some films about music that, like Seth’s book, give a truer sense of what it is like to be a musician (including being a chamber musician, which is of special interest to me). A sadly neglected film that came out a few years ago is called “A Late Quartet.” As of this writing, it is available on Amazon Prime Video for free if you are a member. Watching it recently, I had again forgotten most of the details of the love story featured in the plot but I did remember how true was the portrayal of the intensity and dynamics of being a string quartet player. I also remembered the extraordinary recording of Beethoven’s String Quartet, Opus 131 by the Brentano Quartet, which is a prominent part of the sound track.
Finally, I have another favorite film about musicians called “Music from the Inside Out” and it is available from Amazon and perhaps other providers. The film tells personal stories of musicians of the Philadelphia Orchestra and in these wonderful musical portraits, we see that for many orchestra musicians, the struggle for self-expression often leads to playing informally in more intimate ensembles and in all kinds of places that are very different from concert halls.
In the meanwhile, if you are so inclined, let me know some of your favorite CDs, books, and films about music. Perhaps we can share them in another blog.
And Happy Musical Holidays.