Art

I have found an online video of Art Tatum playing in 1954! Video, Vi-de-o! It is him!

Now you can see it yourself.

What do you think?

Reminiscence

Tasten: the Ballhaus, Berlin – it was May
What really happened? It’s not easy to say…
The programme read “Ian Pace: Verdi Transcriptions”
A charming idea full of tuneful inscriptions.

For thirty-two years they had grown more and more
Until they encompassed Books One through to Four.
But the composer Mike Finnissy, Verdi’s arranger
Unknowingly put Ian Pace in great danger.

The first and the second books went by quite calmly.
But out in the night was a whispering army…
By the light of the moon they rose up to embrace
Their campaign to silence the pianist Pace.

“You were OK at first, but the next book’s the worst!
We wish that you’d never sat down and rehearsed!
You should never have thought about starting to learn it!
But you did, and that’s why we say Ballhaus: Let’s burn it!”

Then a bottle was thrown
And it fell like a stone
And unFinnissy flames billowed out.
Men ran round in a panic
Increasingly manic
And Jeremy started to shout.

Folks looked up from their paella
At the blossoming fire
Their faces all lit up with red.
In the ensuing fracas
They all dropped their tapas
And ran out to see who was dead.

Would they find Ian Pace
Lying flat on his face,
The piano a pile of ashes?
Would the Tasten be stopped
Since the bottle had popped
And consumed it with murderous flashes?

“NO! I triumph over anti-imperialist subversives!”
Shouted Ian majestically over the sound of the flames.
Or something similar.

But the army receded
Defeated, conceded
The flames never gathered the power they needed.
The Ballhaus was saved
So the audience waved:
“We’d prefer if this concert proceeded!”

And it did.

Ian knew if he stopped and he failed to finish he
Might risk the rage of the powerful Finnissy.
After Books One and Two, he returned with the Third. He
Continued and finally finished his Verdi!

The rest of the festival? It was much calmer
With more of the music and less of the drama.
The black and white keys sounded notes by the million
And people came in (some police, most civilian).

Magda attacked the piano, her performance thus leading
To displays full of energy…also some bleeding.

For a good cup of tea, how far will a man go?
The answer, in music, came from our friend Django.

With a burning of rubber and soundtracks galore
This bass player goes with his foot to the floor
He finishes the course while the others are starting
A long-distance driver, we thank him – he’s Martin!

Tasten, Tasten…

Masked men came there to fight but floated into the night
They all ran away and are free.
The fire never stopped it, so Tilbury topped it
With Feldman’s Palais de Mari.

THE END

Thanks Magda, Michael and Jeremy!

Antworten

The answers are:

1. He is twitching because...he owns a coffee shop! He really was shaking quite a lot, rather like Tweek in South Park (whose parents give him a lot of coffee because they own a coffee shop).

2. The venue was firebombed! But the fire went out and Ian Pace could continue his performance of Finnissy's Verdi Transcriptions. That explains why several large policemen came out of the door as I went in for my rehearsal on Sunday morning!

3. Django Bates rhymed lemon with demon-strate. Only once, he did not base his entire performance on this feat!

Berlin was more relaxed than London. And hotter! Agh! Or Ach, in German.

Berlin Facts

I am back!

Here are some handy facts about Berlin:

1. Somewhere in the Prenzlauer Berg area of Berlin, a man is twitching. He is twitching quite a lot.

2. When a performance of Michael Finnissy's piano music gets out of control, burly berlin policemen get called in.

3. It is easy to rhyme only with lonely, maybe with baby, but only one person could rhyme lemon with demonstrate.

Answers tomorrow.

The Berliner Klaviertage 2006 were impossible: it was impossible that such interesting pianists could ever play in the same city, in the same festival, over three days - most of them on the same night! Amazing. It was very very good and I hope they get the opportunity to have a lot more piano festivals.