Program 14 of 15

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Riverside radio presents the 14th in a series of 15 programs. Ernest Bloch the man and his
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music the commentator for these programs is Suzanne block. The composer's daughter
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and the member of the faculty at The Juilliard School of Music. The program this week will
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be devoted to a performance of often teen can children's pieces for piano and the
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suite for Viola and piano with soloist William Primrose.
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Here to introduce our program is Suzanne block the
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Afghan teen where written during Block's tenure as director of the Cleveland Institute of
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Music between 1920 in 1925 where he was exposed to all
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sorts of piano students. They varied from the usual run of prodigies to the
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gifted and also the included the long suffering children of some of the backers of the
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school who expected Mr. Block to bring genius to these children he would say.
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They would say to him it's up to the institute to make our children
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musical. To this block with Nash's teeth for it a theory
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which was that children should not be forced to study music. Amusingly
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you never try to find out whether his own children were gifted. It's had to be a school teacher to
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suggest to my parents that one little girl called Suzanne shared musical gifts
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and should take music lessons. He had never tried to find out. It was then in
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cravin that after listening to most of the piano literature for children that it decided there
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was a dearth of Easy Pieces for children having musical substance. And by that he
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meant music that would have some depth of feeling and not be superficial
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and because he remembered vividly as a child that is he was sentimental impressionable.
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He felt that most children feel the same even in America or there are times I've been surprised
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by American children who seem so much more sophisticated than European children. He hoped
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that children would respond to some more sentimental and
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emotional music. At the same time he found that American children were rather
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embarrassed sometimes by the show of emotions. But twenty nine thousand twenty
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two he began to compose a children's pieces he was sure that he would reach
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the children somehow and have them like music that had human
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emotion. He didn't realize how difficult it would be because of course they had
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to be technically easy to transmit to the limited means that would have
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meaning and not be babied pieces and not technical gains as really quite a
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problem and he struggled along and chugging along and or these pieces which he sent
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his good friend the pianist Howe Bauer for help with the fingering. He
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always apologize about his piano playing because he said he was not a pianist but his wife
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used to say that though he had been a valid virtue also she preferred his piano playing
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because it had so much warmth and coloring it was so orchestral and
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was very interesting is that the second wife of Debussy Lelo who knew my parents and spent many
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evenings with me used to say that when Bloch played the piano he sounded very much of
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Claude Debussy. Roadblock row 10 piano pieces
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and then they would be published by shimmies in 1923 and then he decided to call them off.
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And these pieces are still part of the children's repertory everywhere and it's very interesting to know
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that the children do love the pieces and the most sentimental of them are the ones that appeal to them greatly.
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Sometimes I meet adults who tell me of the joy they had playing these Alfonse in
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the description of these pieces perhaps to explain you their reaction which justify Block's theory of
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feeling in need of this sort of children's music. Even our synthetic and sophisticated
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times.
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The first is called Lullaby.
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It's a wistful dreamy piece in the Iranian mode reminiscent of a little piece that I compose
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as a little girl. It's in the modes and it's a little bit melancholy
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and it's maybe why dedicated to me. The second is called Joyce
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Paddy it's a joy very joyous and jolly but some surprisingly it starts in a manic at the
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beginning. The third is called Where the mother. It was
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dedicated to my sister Lucien. It expresses all the ROM comforts of a little child years
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a mother. This is interesting because Block's mother had to spend most of her days in the family
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store in Geneva and block as a child misters so deeply and would
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tell us how when she arrived home for supper he always washed and hoped she would put on a dressing
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gown for that meant she would stay with the children that evening. So one
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realizes that this piece was his own expression about how I felt about his mother. But what's even more interesting is I would
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firstly call this peace meditation and then it changed to with Mother you feel that could be closer
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to a child. The fourth piece is called elves in
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the same manner he called his peace first prelude and then change it to elves which is
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surely a better title for children. This is perhaps the most difficult piece technical to
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perform. But children seem to love it with its heart like arpeggios.
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Then comes a melody and when you do this you must have thought of a sentimental little girl pouring
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out a heart. And I've recollections of such a little girl who played and swayed and used too
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much pedal when she performed at the institute. The Pastoral that
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follows is very blockin in mood because Pastor hours appear in many of his larger
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works with a feeling of Swiss Meadows the sorts where we're little children made gallons of
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flowers and pick strawberries. Rainy day was our mother's favorite our
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fountain. Again block reversed his own childhood the melancholy of a lonely little
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boy watching and listening to the rain in an empty apartment. Teasing
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there isn't a new thing stirred by this piece. Block had a cousin called Emma who had
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Sperry long legs according to block. She would prance into a room in a very
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special manner and blog as a little boy used to say. Cousin Emma comes in like
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this and saying this that that are that are that that are that are
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this is cousin Emma. He used that motif in the piece which has indications
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describing a model car in tears and again with Cousin Emma's printing
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ways. The last is a dream and that's after real and there is peace.
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A good happy dream for the children for whom your roads are faulty. You were
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not here 10 are fought in by block performed by Morrow are genuine.
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Oh.
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Oh.
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Oh.
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Off on teen 10 children's pieces for piano performed by Morrow a gay man
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once again Suzanne block.
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The three of you were in piano was composed in the apartment of a brownstone house
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on Lexington Avenue New York June 1919. This is done to the sound of
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street cars and other city noises. This new you see me not very inspiring was perhaps
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the cause forcing him to find an escape from it in his music to escape into some
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exotic primitive world. For a little girl lying in bed with a hard
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influenza that had been raging everywhere shivering with fever and listening to father
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playing over strains of this strange music. Not only was it exotic It was a contribution of
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delirium. To this day when hearing this work I can feel the shivers and burning
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heat. There were parts of the music that through the door. Happily
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months later when the work when the $1000 prize off about Mrs. Elizabeth
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spake religion of competition. As she did for the bitch a festival to music
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Pittsfield my recollections were often better sought as my parents rejoiced
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together at the good news. This is the first such an event in their lives after so many
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years of struggles. The premiere was given in Pittsfield Louis by
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your list and how about our pianist performing it. Their reaction was mixed since their work is
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far from sweet and pretty. One critic wrote so vitriolic an article with a
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few racial digs that an editor of music an American rap the critic in no uncertain
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terms. Others found their work epoch making and blogging then became
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associated with a violent dissonant music. Some years later when
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he brought out modern music he called his appointment that just wouldn't follow the
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pattern the label wanted expected from him. Block all consider the word
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Very soon after these events. In fact as he wrote the piano part he would he had much of an
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orchestra is unique in imaginative coloring and what did that Chicago
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festival honoring black 70th anniversary RAF and company perform the work.
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Doc was delighted founding the orchestration is still tracking and colorful. He had not heard it
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for so long that he wanted what they had not overrated it's about the judgment
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of the work.
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But had this to say first of all my sweet does not belong to my so-called Jewish
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works though perhaps in spite of myself one may perceive here and there in a very few places a
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certain Jewish inspiration. It is rather a vision of the Far East that inspired me
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java Sumatra Borneo. Those wonderful countries I so often dreamed of
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but I never was fortunate enough to visit them in any other way than through my imagination.
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I first intended to give more explicit or picturesque titles to the four movements of the work
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as one in the jungle to grotesques
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three nocturne for the land of the sun. But those
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titles seem rather incomplete and satisfactory to me. Therefore I prefer to leave
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the imagination of the hearer completely unfettered rather than tie him to a definite programme.
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However I did give more indications of what he saw in the music of which we give a condensed version.
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One lentil egg roll one here's a motif aiming to evoke a
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wild and raucous cries out of a savage bird of prey followed by a quiet brooding
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meditation by the viola. This one sets the atmosphere of the work which is so close to
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primitive nature. The slow introduction is followed by the Allegro which brings a motif of
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joyful and perhaps exotic character. The second part of the Allegro begins with a new idea
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perhaps a little Jewish in my sense. There is a climax worked out from the most important
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themes followed by a decrease in dough that leads to the conclusion of the electro
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again in silence and in slumbering mood.
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To Allegro your own eco rather difficult to
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define is the second movement. It is a curious mixture of grotesque and fantastic
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characters of sardonic and mysterious moods. What kind of sorrowful and bitter
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parody of humanity is dancing before us sometimes giggling sometimes serious.
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I myself do not know and cannot explain but I find traces of this kind of humor in
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parts of my former works. The sketch of my first symphony and you know two
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in the which is of my opera Macbeth 1949 0 7 in the sketch so of
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my first string quartet one thousand sixteen. But here of course
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it has a different color and significance. Three
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lento. It is a sort of Rondo form this very
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simple page expresses the mystery of tropical nights. I remembered the wonderful
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account of a dear friend who lived once in Java. The beauty and vividness of his impressions I could
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never forget. They haunted me and almost unconsciously I had to express them in music.
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The last movement is probably the most cheerful thing I ever wrote. The form is extremely simple and
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obvious AB A.
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The middle part being a more lyrical episode built on motifs from the other movements treated in a
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broad and passionate mood. The first motifs are constructed on a pentatonic
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scale. A later motif more lyrical seems to be a transformation of the first.
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The middle part uses subjects from the third and first movements. A presto leads to a log
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and take what is subject from the first movement is triumphantly recalled. The
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soul of the owner remembers the motifs. The meditation from the first movement
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a short and cheerful Allegro Vivace concludes the work their work
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is dedicated to Mrs. credits.
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You are not here just blocks.
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On piano before my wooden Primrose and David steam piano.