Dear Dr. Kallberg:

I am so ashamed that I let so much time go by before thanking you for your very informative reply to my question about John Field. With your very busy schedule, the fact that you always answer any queries sent your way proves that you are more than a scholar. You are very kind and generous, indeed.

I, like others, wish I could attend your lecture on April 1st, and I would love to be a student in your classroom when you teach the Chopin course. Why does everything interesting always take place where I am not?

I am starting the next chapter in your book and really look forward to reading it. I think (strike that), I know it will prove extremely insightful, and perhaps I can use the dictionary just a little less.

The very best to you and yours in the New Year,
Kathleen

Dear Mark and John,

I'm looking forward very much to my visit to Cornell. I haven't been up there in some time, so (apart from the fun of doing the talk) it will give me a chance to renew my acquaintance with the place.

Thanks, too, for your remarks about Professor Grout's playing. I never had the opportunity to meet the man, but what you described reminds me of one of my teachers in graduates school, of a similar generation, who brought a similar late 19th-century ethos to his piano playing (even when he was sight-reading Josquin motets at the piano!).

If by chance you can make it, by all means introduce yourself.

Jeff Kallberg

Dear Kathleen,

The thanks go to you for the kindness of your response.

I'm in the usual panic that proceeds the teaching of a class like this. What to include? What to omit? But the list of possible topics is certainly energizing to ponder. For example, I think we do have to spend some time thinking about when and how rubato manifested itself as a key element that defined "Chopin" (both to himself, and to others). The manipulation of musical time seems to me potentially an interesting topic from the biographical perspective.

Happy New Year to you too, Kathleen.

Jeff Kallberg

Dear Elene and Mark,

In a quick Internet poke-around on the subject of the Ebay portrait (which doesn't look a whole lot like other portraits of Sand I've seen: face seems too thin to me), I discover that we may now splash our bodies with Sand:

Smell Like George

More seriously, if you haven't seen it, there is a splendid website devoted to Sand and her family, with terrific animated content and music. I especially like the treatment of the Nohant Marionette Theatre (one of the gems of that glorious spot). Even if you don't speak French, there is much to be enjoyed from perusing the site:

George Sand 1804 - 1876

Jeff Kallberg

Hi Elene.

Thanks Mary. You know, they don’t have his works in the Alfred Adult One or I would have known him already. LOL. That explains how much I know about music, and classical in particular.

Thank you Kathleen. After I was done with watching the video, I thought it’d be nice to share with you folks just in case some of you haven’t seen it. I’m here as a fan only. I read and post PW as much as or even more than I practice. LOL… I don’t think I’ll ever get to the point where I can do some of his works.

My handle seems feminine, right? Or is it the way I talk? LOL. Nguyen pronounced, in one word, almost as “win”. My first name is Huy but growing in the US through High School and College, not many, if any, teachers or professors can say it right. They seem to always have a hard time when they get to my name on the attendance list. I remember there was only one teacher from HS who can get it right after the first few tries. So after college, I decided to use my Christian name, Joseph or Joe, as my first name in the corporate world. When I sign, I only sign as Nguyen, not Huy Nguyen or Joseph Nguyen.

John C - thank you for giving us a link to your Nocturnes. I have listened to three of them so far, and think they are not only sensitive but also fresh and original renditions, which is difficult when performing such well-known works. I look forward to hearing the others when I get the chance.

Elene: re the portrait supposedly of George Sand, I tend to agree with you. Of course it could be an original painted by an unknown in recent years - like those many 'modern' versions of Chopin - in which case the seller wouldn't be lying. After all they don't give us a date. Note that the seller can't even spell her name correctly, so is unlikely to be a knowledgeable collector. If it dated from Sand's day they would be charging far, far more than $4,000.

If I thought I had an authentic portrait of George Sand, or any famous historical person, I'd be contacting museums associated with them and that sort of thing, or a major auction house. I wouldn't be posting it on eBay, and certainly not at such a low price. Indeed, one thing I thought of is that it could be honestly intended as a portrait of Sand, but simply not done during her lifetime. I attempted to search for an artist named Galliard (spelling given by seller), or perhaps Gaillard, but there does not appear to be any well-known artist from exactly the right time to have done this.

I haven't heard back from the seller so far.

Jeff, thanks for those links. More later.

Two people have asked me how to post photos on PW in the past few days. I've only ever done it once, and I don't remember what I did, only that I got the info from the FAQs. Maybe Mary-Rose could explain it.

Elene

I would have my suspicions about the provenance of this portrait too, Elene.

Posting images on the internet forums is pretty easy. You need a photo hosting service such as ImageShack, Photobucket, or Picasso. I think even Frank had, or has that capability as well.

When you upload the file, the hosing site should give you code that you can use to paste into the message where you are discussing the pictures.

Simply paste the text line, and magically your picture will appear.

All in all it's a lot easier than it sounds here.

John

John, I've heard two of your nocturnes so far. Thanks. A big accomplishment to record all these! Does the "1969" really mean the recordings go back that far?? (I'm thinking no?)

Jeff, those websites are fun. The Sand one with all the animations doesn't really contain a huge amount of information, but does have stuff you probably wouldn't find elsewhere, and is virtuosic in terms of web design. I guess it had been a while since I last did a search on Sand; I'd never seen this. It was so nice that the spoken parts were slow enough that I could understand the French for the most part, unlike my recent film-viewing experience.

The Sand perfume sounds fascinating. Unfortunately my nose doesn't work as well as my ears, and perfume is a no-no in my profession, so I won't be trying it. Do look at the site, though, all. The review of the scent contains a photo of a woman who is absolutely positively not Sand, as well as the controversial portrait with the narrow face and top hat (also used on the other site). But the real fun is the amusing, intricately constructed correspondence between Sand and Musset, with their hidden erotic meanings, included here. Juvenile in a way, but extremely well done. I won't spoil it for French speakers by translating just yet.

Elene

So -- looks like her skepticism was justified! I wonder how she knew......
Anyway this would be unusual for eBay. Not rare, but unusual. If this really isn't George Sand, or even if there's just significant doubt about it, the seller would be in trouble for not having indicated any doubt.


That is hilarious! But I'm still tempted to pick up a couple of bottles.
If nothing else, it's a pretty bottle!
(Oh wait a minute......my wife just noticed the PRICE!
She also found sound very neat stuff further down on the page, about hidden 'erotic' messages in poems and letters.)

Thanks, Jeff, for the kind reply about your lecture. I know that I have lots of company here in hoping I will have the chance to hear you and meet you before long.

I did too, with the same result.

Yeah for Me! I finally figured out how to post a picture, many thanks to MaryRose and John.

I think many of us might agree that the image above is one that we have been lead to believe was Franz Liszt. Indeed, it does appear on his "page" when I Google Liszt. What is so strange is that this picture graces the front of a book by Oscar Wilde, called The Picture of Dorian Gray. I saw the book at Barnes and Noble recently. It is a part of a collection of other famous novels. Why did the person in charge of the cover photo decide to use this portrait to personify a fictional character who was the exact opposite of dear Liszt?

It made me a tad angry. Pure laziness or carelessness, I would assume.

Kathleen

Maybe because he was beautiful, and ravishing covers sell books?

I feel annoyed too (like Kathleen)....

Maybe Dorian Gray would have LIKED to look like Liszt did in the Lehmann portrait!

Dear Elene,

Those erotic letters are quite amusing. They've been circulating in various forms for awhile, though, and I don't think they're actually written by Sand and Musset: they don't seem to appear in the authoritative edition of the Sand Correspondance edited by Lubin.

Still and all, someone was quite clever to imagine such a thing.

Jeff Kallberg

It COULD, very well, be authentic (though, personlly, I doubt it). More and more sellers are, indeed, using sites like ebay to sell items of historical value, since many museum budgets are under constraint, and major auction houses charge quite a fee. A good example is this: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=350281182053&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT
It's an authentic, signed letter in Beethoven's hand and has been verified by the Ira Brilliant Center for Beethoven Studies at San Jose State University (which houses the largest collection of Beethoven manuscripts, letters, first editions, etc, (including a lock of his hair), in the Western Hemisphere. It's simply out of reach for the Center, financially, at this time, but has been posted on ebay for quite some time. Many pass it off, I'm sure, thinking no one in their right mind would post such a thing on ebay (as I did until I contacted the Beethoven Center's curator, whom, I met earlier this year).

We wondered, and scrutinized the page (to the extent of our abilities) to see if that material was at least being represented as for real, and it seemed it was. But we still wondered.

Elene,

The recordings don't go back that far. I don't know how that number got there? I was only 8 then and just starting piano lessons.

I'm glad you're enjoying my recordings. Hopefully some day I can play these in a real concert.

John

It IS Liszt. From 1840 by Henri Lehmann and resides in the Carnavalet Museum in Paris. The only link I can think of is a photograph of Oscar Wilde from just before the turn of the century that somewhat resembles Liszt in the painting.

Sigh. I don't own a copy of Sand's correspondence (she sheepishly admits)-- only a copy of her correspondence with Delacroix-- but still I shouldn't have been easily fooled by those letters, especially since the author of the article couldn't recognize a photo as not looking anything like Mme Sand. As you-know-who would say, dang! At least it was some good reading practice. It was so long ago that I don't know if there is any point in asking the author where she got the letters.

A quick Googling got me not much more than the same article by the perfume expert and Dr. Jeff's post saying that the letters are probably not authentic. The Web so often has this odd recursiveness. I couldn't find out anything useful.

I also found that someone is selling paintings made from Musset's drawings-- an odd idea. I do love his George-with-a-fan, though, and if that is how he saw her, in his mind she was devastatingly attractive indeed. (I don't mean to say that it was necessarily only in his mind.)

It's hard to imagine the rather doughy Wilde ever looking at all like Liszt. The Lehmann portrait (which I had identified above, stores) is quite dashing, I think.

Elene

Elene, Google Wilde, and a link for, "Image Results for Oscar Wilde", will show up. You should see the photo I mentioned. Bear in mind I said "somewhat". It was the only connection that came to mind.

I may be wrong, but I was under the impression that the portrait was meant to depict Dorian Gray and not Oscar Wilde. I know all of you are familiar with the story. The handsome young Gray turned into a monster. This is a photo of Hurt Hatfield who played the lead role in the 1945 film. This is really dating me, but I remember seeing the original movie in the theater. (I was really, really young at the time, really!)

It was THE horror film of the decade. It would pale in comparison to the stuff out now.

Gosh, I getting too involved in trivia.


Kathleen

I'm sure you're right, Kathleen, that, whomever decided to use the Liszt portrait for the book cover intended it to be "Dorian Gray". I just thought of the Wilde photo, since the pose, and even his hair, are "somewhat" similar to the image of Liszt. Wilde, claimed the main characters in the book were reflections of himself, and that "Dorian, is what I would like to be". So, maybe, in a way, the Liszt, portrait, IS fitting, since, certainly (at least in my opinion), Liszt was a far nobler character.

Yes he was.

Kathleen

But you know, Wilde wasn't such a terrible person either, far as I know. Funny how Wilde's bad choices in love and sex got him into a lot of trouble, while Liszt's bad choices and at least equal (or much greater?) promiscuity sort of just make us chuckle knowingly, and didn't keep him from being seen as a huge star, or even being accepted into the priesthood.

I'm not trashing Liszt, just saying that Wilde was treated with a deadly double standard, and that an undeservedly bad reputation has stuck to him.

(Drat that Bosey!)

And Chopin's choices... well, we've discussed that... at least none of them either made him a laughingstock or sent him to prison.

During the night I was thinking how sad it is that a center dedicated to Beethoven can't get its hands on a piece of Beethoven memorabilia. If similar Chopin-related issues came up and we knew about them, we could perhaps instigate a funding campaign, and I wonder if some Beethoven fans could do that too.

(But we personally won't be getting our hands on anything of Fryderyk's, I'm sure. Except the music! Which is what matters of course.)

Elene

That's a great point about the double standard, Elene. Liszt, surely, had a LOT of fun, and yet, we, more or less, look the other way. I wonder if Liszt's (in my opinion) much larger contribution to the arts, or even, perhaps, the way he was treated and neglected by his own family at the end of his life has anything to do with it.
It really IS too bad that the Beethoven Center can't get their hands on that letter, if for no other reason than it could end up in a private collector's hands never to be seen again. Believe it, or not, many artifacts don't sell for NEARLY that much (the asking price for the letter is $75,000.00). In 1994, when the lock of hair the Center owns sold at auction, it went for $7300.00! The back of the locket that contains the hair has an inscription written by Ferdinand Hiller, who, at 15, clipped the lock from Beethoven's corpse. At the time of auction, many weren't completely convinced of the lock's provenance, which kept the bidding so low. Of course, since, it's been determined that the hair was, indeed, Beethoven's. Every time I think about it, I always think....DAMN, I could have outbid them!
Should you ever have the chance to visit the Center...do so. It's MORE than worth the time. They have an excellent website as well. For anyone interested, I have quite a few personal photos of not only the lock of hair, but first editions, facsimiles, and several manuscripts I was allowed to look through.
By the way, it WAS a group of three that pooled their resources together to buy the lock, so your idea about fans banding together is a good one. Of course, they would all have to be in agreement entering into things about who, or where, a certain artifact would be held. That, in itself, could lead to problems, I'm sure.

The early to mid 19th century is a time period that I always have wanted to go back and visit. Chopin, Liszt, Berlioiz another one with a reputation of sorts, Louis Gottshalk, and a host of other greats from the period had really interesting lives. It's funny they all ended up in Paris and pretty much knew each other and hung out with each other. It must've been quite a sight and an experience to attend one of the music galas put on by the Parisian upperclass. Imagine hearing Liszt, Chopin, and Alkan in one evening! The concerts weren't the usual 1 hour fare either like we have today. They ran on for hours with each performer playing original compositions, music duels, duets, and other published works.

Liszt got away with what he did because he was a prodigy and a good showman. He knew how to manipulate the audience into whatever he wanted. Women would throw flower and other things at him. They would be so taken back by his appearance and his performance that they would faint.

Gottschalk also had this with the ladies too, although his trip to Paris wasn't as successful being an American was the strike against him. When he applied to the Paris Conservatory he was denied entrance because he was an American. According to the school directors, he came from a land of savages and steam locomotives, and not the refinement of Europe. This is a paraphrase on my point, but it pretty much sums the the feelings that the Europeans had of Americans of the day.

Gottschalk stormed Europe anyway with the sponsorship of his friend Hector Berlioiz, and even played in a music duel with Liszt for the King of Spain. He too was a virtuoso composer-pianist and had that reputation among the ladies. Eventually he settled in the islands and died from malaria in 1869.

Berlioiz was another "winner". From what I've learned, he dabbled in different halucinatory substances, and drank heavily. These substances lead to some of this odd behaviors and some of the explanations for his statements about the sections in one of his symphonic poems.

So does anyone want to build a time machine with me so we can visit Paris in 1835-1840 timne period?

John

HI Elene,

Haven't visited here for awhile so hello everyone. The rumors of Liszt's "promiscuity" have likely been greatly exaggerated, as per Alan Walker, the author of the definitive three-volume biography of Liszt. Yes, he had affairs like most men of his day but for most of his life was in two long term relationships (with Marie d'Agoult and Caroline von Sayn Wittgenstein). Some other rumored relationships turned out to not have been well substantiated e.g. It's not at all clear he was in a sexual relationship with Lola Montez and pretty clear he was not with the fake Cossack, Olga Janina. She wrote a trumped up novel to indulge her own fantasies about him, capitalize on his name and publicize herself. Liszt was followed throughout his life by people trying to use his name and reputation for their own purposes and self-aggrandizement, and in many cases he was too soft-hearted to denounce them or tell them to move on. And his religious feelings and taking the minor orders of the priesthood were quite genuine and based in his lifelong spirituality.

Sophia

To John Citron: I am listening to your nocturnes as I write this- have only gotten to the second one so far, but I'm so enjoying them. That second one on your list (no. 11, Gm) is one that I wasn't so familiar with, but heard it performed by Roberto Poli last month and now here- it is becoming (another) one of my favorites! You play so nicely. How long ago did you do these?