Missouri Classical Music News

I recently read an essay by John Halle, a composer at Yale, warning that the art of writing and reading musical notation is fast losing its cultural value. He argues convincingly that the Pulitzer should remain a bulwark for American composers — not because they are a superior species, but because they are in dire need of broader cultural recognition and economic support. In other words, they could use the cash.

Forget Coldplay and James Blunt. Forget even Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, which, in the version performed at Live8 by Sir Paul McCartney and U2, has become the fastest online-selling song ever. Beethoven has routed the lot of them.

Final figures from the BBC show that the complete Beethoven symphonies on its website were downloaded 1.4m times, with individual works downloaded between 89,000 and 220,000 times. The works were each available for a week, in two tranches, in June.

Sgt Pepper could well end up as the best-selling online track of all time. But its sales figure of just 20,000 online in the two weeks since it has been available contrasts poorly with the admittedly free Beethoven symphonies. (Sgt Pepper cost 79p on the iTunes website.)

From the first notes, the sound is mellifluous, lyrical, pastoral. From the Beethoven “Sonata, Opus 101” through Chopin’s “Ballade No. 4 in F minor, Opus 52,” into Ravel’s “Sonatine,” Shumann’s “Widmung” and Gian Carlo Menotti’s “Ricercare and Toccata, on a theme from ‘The Old Maid and the Thief’” — selections difficult enough for the most masterful pianist.

Charlie’s hands stride along the keys. Abrupt notes here, a light touch there — thousands of notes, tones, tucked in his muscle memory — ebb into long, trilling, trailing notes that float and echo out into the audience. The notes dissolve, then erupt. Charlie’s hands rumble over the keyboard, then suddenly ease. His body sways, head and shoulders arch back, he dips low toward the keyboard, eyes closed, as if the ivory is whispering. He looks like a boy enraptured.

But inside, Charlie feels off. He doesn’t think he’s doing well. He feels awkward, something indefinable, not at all like he felt Saturday during the semifinals when every note sounded and felt right.