Missouri Classical Music News and Notes

An expectant and excited group of passengers hurried aboard a train in Worcester, Mass. on the afternoon of July 4, 1856. The train was a holiday excursion bound for Fitchburg, Mass. The excitement was unusual even for a holiday because the trip was to feature a demonstration of the American Steam Piano Company's steam calliope. The huge instrument was mounted on wheels and attached to the rear of the train. Passengers settled in the seats and waited eagerly for the first notes.

At 3 o'clock a young girl pressed down a key, releasing a jet of steam that gushed forth through a whistle and resounded off the distant hills. It was the first note of "Old Dan Tucker," and on its signal, the train began its journey. Throughout the journey the steam calliope rendered traditional favorites, its booming voice echoing through the New England countryside. Farmers and shop workers dropped their tolls and came running to hear. It was a successful excursion, and marked the birth of an instrument that has thrilled and entertained Americans of all ages.

In 1999, along with J. Henry Fair, a photographer who was then her companion, Ms. Grimaud opened the Wolf Conservation Center, an educational facility in South Salem, N.Y. On 29 acres, the center currently is home to 17 wolves. Four socialized “ambassador wolves” are on view to the public; the other 13 are shielded from human contact, so that they can ultimately be returned to the wild, as a couple and their pups were in July.

“We started building the facility in ’97,” she said, “opened in ’99, and the place is doing really well. We started with 500 visitors in the first two years, and now we’re at 20,000 a year.”

Three of the ambassador wolves can be seen in a striking photograph on the dust jacket of “Wild Harmonies,” which shows them greeting Ms. Grimaud after a long trip, one nuzzling each of her ears; the other, her chin. It was a spontaneous moment, she said, not something that could be staged.

Her advocacy work has aroused a certain skepticism in the classical music world. Some have suggested that she’s in it as much for her own image as for the wolves’. But surely there are easier — and safer — ways to gain publicity. With her well-defined features and dreamily expressive blue eyes, for example, Ms. Grimaud could easily have followed the glamour route of the violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and others. Instead, she tends to play down her looks, at least onstage. At a recent Carnegie Hall concert with the NHK Symphony Orchestra of Tokyo, she appeared in an understated black pantsuit and a severe hairstyle.

• Grimaud's web site at Deutsche Grammophon, with video and sound samples.
  
  
• A WYNC radio interview with Grimaud
  
  
• Biographical info
  
  
• Wikipedia biography

One of the best-kept secrets in London was the lecture series Andras Schiff gave in parallel to his electrifying cycle of Beethoven sonatas at the Wigmore Hall. In May a friend managed to get a ticket for me - and I was simply dazzled by the performance he put on - a riveting mixture of erudition, analysis, passion, wit and memory. Schiff talked for more than two and a half hours about three lateish sonatas - and for anyone interested in these peaks of the piano repertoire they were quite compelling.

It seemed such a waste that all this scholarship and revelation should not have a wider audience. I learned from the Wigmore Hall's director, John Gilhooly, that the lectures had all been recorded - and neither he nor Schiff needed much persuading that the obvious place to podcast them was on the Guardian's new arts and entertainment blog. Over the next seven weeks you'll have the chance to download the series of seven lectures.