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This booklet of musical notes and activities for seniors is brought to you by the Evanston Symphony Orchestra, Evanston’s own community orchestra. We’ve based this activity booklet on the ESO’s KidNotes, which we write for middle and high school kids for each of our concerts – but many adults also like them because they approach the concert materials from a different, less formal viewpoint than that of our excellent traditional classical music program notes. In other words, KidNotes (and HighNotes) are for those of us (your editor included) who love classical music, but have no background in it – and maybe have a sneaky suspicion that an arpeggio just might be an Italian cheese…

We’ve included a couple of articles on a specific theme – this month it’s George Gershwin – plus a variety of puzzles and some really bad jokes and puns. We also write a “tangential” article or two, something related to the theme or to a piece of music, but not necessarily musical in and of itself. This month we’re giving you a bit of the history and lore of the Eiffel Tower as well as an article about two things invented right here in Evanston.

Our “Bygones” feature is for those of us who are “of a certain age” and can relate to objects that were big in our childhoods, but have now all but disappeared – roller skate keys, drive-in movies, pocket protectors, rotary phones, cursive writing, and more! Many of these bring back fond memories and are good discussion starters with grandchildren and other young people – or even with friends of our own generation.

One more thing: we’ve also continued the longtime KidNotes traditions of doing something fun with the letter “O” in the banner and using chains of “OZ” as filler in the Word Search Puzzle. We hope you enjoy our August 2020 edition of HighNotes!

Musical Notes and Activities for Seniors from the Evanston Symphony Orchestra George Gershwin, All American 2

Rhapsody in Blue An American in Paris

Piano Concerto in F Jeffrey Biegel, Pianist 6 Lawrence Eckerling, Maestro 8 The Eiffel Tower 9

Puzzles, Jokes, Bygones, and Other Amusements 11

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George Gershwin’s works have a truly “American” flavor! In this edition of HighNotes, we’re going to highlight three of them: An American in Paris, a full orchestral work that tells a story that lives up to its name, plus two piano concertos, Rhapsody in Blue and Concerto in F with a performance by the ESO. (YouTube links are on the information sheet.) George Gershwin composed most of his songs with his older brother, Ira, who wrote the lyrics. George and Ira’s parents had immigrated to the USA from Russia, and both boys were born in Brooklyn, NY. In 1910, when George was 12 and Ira 14, the Gershwins got a piano so that Ira could take lessons. However, it was George who loved

the instrument. He taught himself how to play by ear, then eventually found a teacher he liked. George was a great musician, but didn’t like school. He quit at 15 and went to work for Tin Pan Alley, the center of the New York music trade, as a piano player for new compositions, including his own. By the time he was 18, his “Rialto Ripples” was a commercial success and two years later his song “Swanee” was a national hit. On December 26, 1931, George and Ira’s first musical comedy, Of Thee I Sing, opened on Broadway. It lampooned politics and politicians, ran for 441 performances, and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1932, the first musical comedy ever to do so. Another of their collaborative works, Porgy and Bess, the beautiful folk opera about life in a poor African-American community in South Carolina, is still performed today, over 95 years later. In addition to composing songs with Ira, George Gershwin wrote several orchestral works that are still very familiar on concert programs. One is Rhapsody in Blue, which the ESO last played in 2011 with a wonderful performance by Maestro Eckerling at the

keyboard. It’s a symphonic jazz composition for piano, jazz band and orchestra. The work was commissioned by the bandleader Paul Whiteman and orchestrated several times by Ferde Grofé, composer of the Grand Canyon Suite, because Gershwin, still in his 20s, didn’t trust himself to get all of the parts right. However, the piece almost wasn’t. When Whiteman asked Gershwin in November 1923 to compose a piece for an all-jazz concert he would give in February of 1924, George declined, fearing he wouldn’t have enough time. He thought that was the end of it. Fast forward to January 3, 1924. George and a friend, composer Buddy De Sylva, were playing billiards at a pool hall in Manhattan. Ira was there as well; while the other two played billiards, he was reading a newspaper and happened upon an article about Paul Whiteman’s jazz concert. The first paragraph read, “George Gershwin is at work on a jazz concerto, Irving Berlin is writing a syncopated tone poem, and Victor Herbert is working on an American suite.” This was news to George! In a phone call to Whiteman next morning, George was told that Whiteman's rival Vincent Lopez was planning to steal the idea of his experimental concert and there was no time to lose. George was finally persuaded to compose the piece – with only five weeks to go.

The ideas for Rhapsody in Blue came during a trip to Boston a few days later. As he told his biographer, “It was on the train, with its steely rhythms, its rattle-ty bang, that is so often so stimulating to a composer - I frequently hear music in the very heart of the noise. ... And there I suddenly heard, and even saw on paper - the complete construction of the rhapsody, from beginning to end. … I heard it as a sort of musical kaleidoscope of America, of our vast melting pot, of our unduplicated national pep, of our metropolitan madness. By the time I reached Boston I had a definite

plot of the piece, as distinguished from its actual substance.”

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Gershwin finished the piece and passed it on to Grofé for orchestration. Grofé finished his task a mere eight days before the premiere at an afternoon concert on February 12, 1924, with the

composer himself at the keyboard. The iconic opening cry from the clarinet came into being during rehearsal

when, "... as a joke on Gershwin, Ross Gorman, Whiteman's virtuoso clarinetist, played the opening

measure with a noticeable glissando, adding what he considered a humorous touch to xthe

xpassage. Reacting favorably to Gorman's whimsy, Gershwin asked him to perform the

opening measure that way at the concert and to add as much of a 'wail' as possible." Critics gave Rhapsody mixed reviews, but the audience loved it, as have audiences ever since.

Another ever-popular Gershwin piece is An American in Paris, a musical tour of Paris with a definite American accent. After the premiere of Rhapsody in Blue in 1924, the Gershwins decided to vacation in France. Despite his great success with Rhapsody, George felt that he needed further music instruction and

announced that he wanted to study with the finest teachers in Paris. However, he struck out. Maurice Ravel told George that he wouldn’t teach him because he would end up composing “second-rate Ravel rather than first-rate Gershwin.” Nadia Boulanger, who had taught Aaron Copland, told George that he was doing just fine and didn’t need lessons from her. Composer Igor Stravinsky asked George how much money he made in a year and, when he heard how much (and it was a lot of money) Stravinsky suggested that maybe he should take lessons from George! (Note: there are several versions of this story, but we like this one best!) So George came home without having taken any piano lessons from the best teachers in Paris, but he did bring back a great piece of music that would tell the story of an American who was captivated by the sights and sounds of Paris – especially the sounds! One of those sounds was unique to the

Paris of the time: the taxi horn. As the story goes, George spent the better part of a day going from one mechanic’s garage to another to find taxi horns with just the right tones for his new piece, then dragged four of them home with him. The horns make Paris

come alive and take us right there. In the middle of the piece is a somewhat sad melody on the violins telling us that our American might be getting homesick. But then Paris works its magic again and our countryman is once more caught up in it! When you listen to the piece, see if you can hear the horns: a higher horn going “beep-beep-beep” followed by a quick rest, then a lower horn responding with its own “beep-beep-beep.” Those distinctive horns aren’t used on Paris taxis anymore, but there are two companies in the U.S. that make them for orchestras, theatres, and other groups that want to re-create the Paris of the 1920s and 30s. The day after Rhapsody in Blue premiered in 1924, George was contacted by a prominent conductor and asked to write a more traditional piano concerto for the New York Symphony and also to do the orchestration himself. Because he was very busy it took him about a year and a half to start work on his Concerto in F, which premiered in December of 1925. Many consider it the greatest concerto by an American composer. If parts of it sound familiar, it’s because some of the themes are echoed in An American in Paris, which Gershwin finished in 1928. Unfortunately for truly American music, George Gershwin did not live to see the praise that his more classical works achieved. In the middle of a performance in February of 1937, he had a memory lapse and, strangely enough, smelled burnt rubber. It happened again a few months later and he also began having excruciating headaches and losing muscle coordination. What neither George nor his doctors realized was that he had a brain tumor. He died on July 11, 1937, at the young age of 38. Ferde Grofé was one of the pallbearers at his funeral, and thousands of people lined the streets to pay tribute to this great, truly American composer.

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Most children can say simple words at age one, more complex words and sentences by age two, and are veritable chatterboxes at age three. Not so Jeffrey Biegel, who, by three, had not spoken a single word. Very concerned, Jeffrey’s parents took him to a doctor, who tried communicating with him, but with

no luck. Finally, the doctor said his name very loudly several times. No reaction. Then the doctor turned to his parents and said, “Your son is deaf.”

Jeffrey was indeed 85% deaf. He could not communicate and his only sense of music was vibrations that he could feel through the floor. Fortunately for Jeffrey – and for the music world – his deafness could be reversed. After corrective surgery, Jeffrey had a lot of catching up to do and wasted no time doing so. He was soon talking normally, but doesn’t recall the first time he actually heard music. However, when asked what it was about music that grabbed him, he said, “Music grabs you! It attracts you to it. It’s a language that you understand!”

When Jeffrey began piano lessons at seven, it was clear he had both the necessary talent and the determination to do well. By ten he played well enough to give his first performance in public. At 16, Jeffrey began studying with Adele Marcus, a famous piano instructor at Juilliard, and continued studying with her there after he graduated from high school.

Jeffrey describes his musical career as “reverse-Beethoven.” (Beethoven was deaf at the end of his life, while Jeffrey was deaf at the beginning of his.) Surprisingly, his early deafness has given him the freedom to follow a rather unusual path in music. He was once told that “When you play the piano, it doesn’t sound like a piano!” That may be because he treats the piano as a language. “The piano is an extension of your voice. The fingers follow the voice and the keys are just an extension of the strings.” Jeffrey thus teaches the students in his classes to sing out the music and to play an “air piano” to get a better sense of the piece. He finds this technique changes the way his students use their arms and fingers to create sound and helps them better hear what sounds are created in their heads when they play.

Jeffrey’s unusual path has also led him to work with some unusual classical musicians, including Neil Sedaka and the late Peter Tork. Both Sedaka and Tork were very popular as rock-and-roll musicians in the 1960’s. (Many HighNotes readers will remember “Stupid Cupid,” “Breaking Up Is Hard To Do” and The Monkees!) However, both are accomplished musicians – Sedaka had studied at Juilliard with Adele Marcus as well – and Jeffrey thought it would be interesting to collaborate with them to produce some “new” classical works. His reasoning makes sense: the famous classical musicians were the “rock stars” of their day, so why not ask rock stars of our day to compose music in the classical style? You can hear the results of these collaborations on YouTube; Jeffrey plays both Neil Sedaka’s “Manhattan Intermezzo” and Peter Tork’s ”Moderato Ma Non Troppo.” He has also worked with Josh Groban and other pop musicians.

Jeffrey considers himself a bridge between the past and the future, his way of keeping the classics going and making sure that music in the classical style never disappears. Bravo, Jeffrey!

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In 2011, the Evanston Symphony Orchestra was delighted to present our very own Music Director, Maestro Lawrence Eckerling, as soloist for a wonderful performance of George Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. He received a well-deserved standing ovation from both the audience and the orchestra! Maestro Eckerling has spent nearly all of his life in music. He was raised in Skokie and began piano lessons at six in the Primary Piano Department of the Northwestern University School of Music, easily learning children’s songs by ear to entertain his family. He also studied traditional classical piano, voice, clarinet and viola, later writing and conducting arrangements for the Niles West High School Swing Choir and also serving as Music Director of several musical theater productions there. Maestro Eckerling attended Indiana University in Bloomington, where he received two Bachelor’s degrees, one in Music Education and the other in Music with an emphasis in Instrumental and Choral Conducting, as well as a Master’s

degree in Symphonic Conducting. He was also one of the principal arrangers for the Indiana

Singing Hoosiers and traveled with the group on concert tours. In 2009 he received a

Distinguished Alumni Award from the Singing Hoosiers; in return he wrote a new arrangement for

them for their 65th Anniversary. Maestro Eckerling is a man of many talents! In addition to his expertise in classical music, he’s the leader of an orchestra that performs jazz, pop, rock-and-roll and other popular music throughout the Chicago area. Before joining the ESO as Music Director in 2003, Maestro Eckerling spent 16 years as Music Director of the St. Cloud Symphony Orchestra in Minnesota. He lives in Glenview with his wife, Sharon, who works in elementary education. Their son, Jeremy, just graduated from American University and plans on teaching English in France.

In 1887, Parisians watched as a strange structure began its ascent near the center of the city - a tower that, at its completion two years later, was visible from almost any point in Paris. The original purpose of the Eiffel Tower was to mark the entrance to the great 1889 Exposition Universelle, a World’s Fair put on by France to celebrate the 100th anniver-sary of the French Revolution and to showcase to the entire world the progress France had made in science, industry and the arts. From more than100 proposals for the monumental entrance, the contract was given to the firm of Gustave Eiffel, a

renowned bridge builder, architect and metal expert whose firm had worked on the Statue of Liberty’s internal structural support system a few years earlier. The final design called for more than 18,000 pieces of construction-grade wrought iron and 2.5 million rivets. Three hundred workers spent two years assembling the lattice

framework. At its inauguration in March 1889 the tower stood nearly 1,000 feet high and was the tallest structure in the world — a distinction it held until the completion of New York City’s Chrysler Building in 1930. Millions of visitors during and after the Exposition Universelle marveled at Paris’ newly erected architectural wonder, but not all of the city’s inhabitants were as enthusiastic. Many Parisians either feared it was structurally unsound or considered it an eyesore and were glad that the tower was supposed to be just temporary. The novelist Guy de Maupassant, for example, is said to have hated the tower so much that he often ate lunch in the restaurant at its base, the only vantage point from which he could completely avoid glimpsing its looming silhouette!

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In fact, the tower was almost torn down in 1909, but city officials opted to save it - not because it was a big tourist attraction, but rather because it had value as a radiotelegraph station. (Marconi’s transmitters and receivers for radiotelegraphy were barely 15 years old in

1909, but their supremacy as communications devices was undisputed.) This decision paid big dividends to France in World War I, when the Tower’s station inter-cepted enemy radio communications, relayed zeppelin alerts and was used for dispatching emergency troops. The tower escaped destruction a second time during World War II: Hitler ordered the demolition of the city’s most cherished symbol, but the command was never carried out. Also during the German occupation of Paris, French resistance fighters cut the Eiffel Tower’s elevator cables so that the Nazis had to climb the stairs. The occupying Germans surrendered on August 25, 1944. Now one of the most recognizable structures on the planet, the Eiffel Tower underwent a major facelift in 1986 and is repainted every seven years. It welcomes more visitors than any other paid monument in the world—an estimated seven million people per year. Some 500 employees are responsible for its daily operations, working in its restaurants, manning its elevators, ensuring its security and directing the eager crowds flocking the tower’s platforms to enjoy panoramic views of the City of Light.

Source: Wikipedia and https://www.history.com/topics/landmarks/eiffel-tower

ESOA makes no claim to copyrights held by others and uses such materials for educational purposes only under the “fair use” exception to copyright law. HighNotes is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council

and by private individuals. Many thanks to them all!

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Vol. 1, No. 2 HighNotes August2020

Editor ..............................................................................................Kelly Brest van Kempen Puzzle & Maze Checkers ………………….Addison Lockerby, Ryan Lockerby & Gus B.v.K

HighNotes© - Copyright -2020 - ESOA (except for original authors’ copyrights)

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The ice cream soda, that scrumptious concoction of ice cream, flavoring and soda water, was invented in the

1870’s, probably in Philadelphia, and by the late 1880’s most towns had soda fountains, many of them in drugstores. Adults didn’t like ice cream sodas a lot, but teenagers loved them, so of course they would go to soda fountains just to drink these sweet treats and hang out with their friends. Many early Evanstonians were rather strict church-goers. (In fact, Frances Willard, founder of the WCTU, called our town “Heavenston”!) The city fathers were

afraid of what they imagined were the bad influences on teens who went to these soda fountains, so in 1890 they banned the selling of ice cream sodas on Sundays. The soda fountain operators were very upset because ice cream sodas were a big part of their business. So, they came up with an ingenious plan that obeyed the letter of the law, but not necessarily its spirit: they still served their customers ice cream with a flavoring syrup, but without the soda water. This soda-less treat was the “Sunday soda.” The name was shortened to “Sunday,” but the church people again objected, so the spelling was changed to “sundae.” Soon this new Evanston-made treat, the sundae, could be bought every day of the week.

Ithaca, NY, home of Cornell University, also claims to have invented the sundae, but their claim dates from 1892, two years after ours. The Evanston Review once said of Ithaca’s claim that “either some Northwestern student brought it home with him [to

Ithaca] or a Cornell student from Evanston took it there." We agree and like the idea of this delicious treat being invented in our very own “Heavenston.”

In 1914, an Evanstonian named Charles Pajeau came upon a group of kids playing with sticks and empty thread spools. He was fascinated by all of the things they were building with such simple materials, and that gave him the idea for his “Thousand Wonder Builder,” a toy made up of 2-inch wooden spools, each with holes that could be connected by short wooden rods. Convinced that his toy would be a hit, Pajeau took his invention to the 1914 American Toy Fair – but no one was very interested in it. Then he tried a different marketing approach. At Christmas he hired some little people to dress up as elves and build things with the renamed “Tinkertoys” in the windows of Chicago-area department stores. It was an ingenious marketing ploy. A year later, Pajeau and his business partner, Robert Pettit, had sold a million sets of this delightful building toy. In the early years, Tinkertoys had at least 30 competitors, but none was successful. The most likely reason for their failures is that they didn’t understand the basis of Pajeau’s success: the geometric theorem stating that the hypotenuse of a right triangle with two equal legs formed the base of the next larger triangle, and so on. By designing a spool with eight holes drilled at 45-degree intervals around its perimeter and manufacturing sticks of geometrically specified, progressively longer lengths, Pajeau invented a product that had unlimited possibilities. The original Tinkertoy set cost 60¢ and came in a round cardboard mailing tube to reduce shipping costs. In 1919, an electric motor was added to some sets for people interested in building things like moving Ferris wheels. Red spools were introduced in 1932 and colored sticks in the 1950’s. Tinkertoys were especially popular in the 1940’s, we suspect because metal was rationed during and after World War II but a wooden toy would not be seen as hindering the war effort. In 1998 Tinkertoys were one of the very first playthings elected to the National Toy Hall of Fame and are still a favorite of kids today.

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More “Bygones” - childhood memories of things we enjoyed as kids. Some of them are completely gone or hard to find, but some are still quite popular over 100 years later! How many of these were part of your childhood? Were you a Scout? Did you go camping? Earn badges? What are your favorite stories?

Can you move just ONE matchstick to correct the

mistake in this math problem? This is a “threepeat” because there are at least THREE answers!

Did you ever go to the drive-in movies in your pajamas?

Did you ever step on a jack?

Tinkertoys! See page 13! 14 15

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1. George ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ was a truly

American composer. He worked with his brother

___ ___ ___ , an excellent lyricist. George wrote some wonderful works for orchestra and ___ ___ ___ ___ ___,

including ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ in Blue,

An American in ___ ___ ___ ___ ___, and his

___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ in F.

2. Jeffrey ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ was deaf as a child, and has had what he calls a “reverse Beethoven life.”

3. Maestro Lawrence ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ is the ESO’s fabulous Music Director.

4. The ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ was not a hit with Parisians when it opened in 1889.

5. The ice cream “___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___” was invented here in Evanston because ice cream sodas were thought too much of a temptation for teens!

6. Children playing with sticks and empty spools gave Charles Pajeau the idea for

___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

7. ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ writing is our older generation ‘s secret code! Can also you find these instruments in the puzzle? Clarinet Flute Bow Oboe Trumpet

Some important musical items (and people!) are hidden in this puzzle! Can you find them? Remember: Words can go across, up, down OR diagonally, AND backwards or forwards - 8 directions in all! And, can you find “OZ” at least 28 times?

Z O O P Z O L O G E T E T Z T Z I E Z E P V E C R I O R G A R O A I N K U Z N E E S N B R S I E M O I K H C Z O I R R R P B Z W E O N Z S U A L E O I O Z R Z O Z C L I T N Z F L U T E C O C N E I F F E L T O W E R G Y D O S P A H R Y B O W S U N D A E Z O Z S Z O

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(With apologies – sort of - to Jeffrey Biegel and Maestro Eckerling…!)

Why did the pianist keep banging his head on the keys?

Why are a pianist’s fingers like lightning?

What do you get when you drop a piano on an army base?

Did you hear about the vampire who used to torture his victims with his piano playing?

Where do pianos go on vacation?

How did the piano get out of jail?

Matchstick Puzzle:

0 + 4 = 4 8 – 4 = 4

Gershwin Ira Piano

Rhapsody Paris

Concerto Biegel

Eckerling Eiffel Tower

Sundae Tinkertoys

Cursive

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