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HighNotes, this booklet of musical notes and activities for seniors, is brought to you by the Evanston Symphony Orchestra, Evans-ton’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.

HighNotes always has a couple of articles on a specific theme – this month it’s Johannes Brahms – plus a variety of puzzles and some really bad jokes and puns. We’re also highlighting two more of our favorite soloists, Irina Muresanu and Wendy Warner, whose performance of both Brahms” Hungarian Dance No. 6 and his Double Concerto for Violin and Cello with the ESO can be found on YouTube. (We’ll provide the link.) 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 go a bit “old school” and give you some history and lore on academic regalia, which has a wonderful tie-in to Brahms’ Academic Festival Overture, plus an article on the origins of some idioms we use on a daily basis, and more on cursive.

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 – penmanship, Dick and Jane, biff-ball, 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 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. (Do you recog-nize who’s in the “O” this month? Think back to the 40s and 50s…) We hope you enjoy our September 2020 edition of HighNotes!

Musical Notes and Activities for Seniors from the Evanston Symphony Orchestra Johannes Brahms: Genius and Prankster 2

Symphony No. 1 in C Minor Double Concerto Hungarian Dance No. 6 Academic Festival Overture

Irina Muresanu, Violinist 8 Wendy Warner. Cellist 9 Academic Regalia 10

Puzzles, Jokes, Bygones, and Other Amusements 12

September 2020

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Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1833, and spent most of his musical life shuttling between Germany and Vienna, Austria. He began studying piano at seven and, at ten, played in a concert including a Beethoven piano quintet and a Mozart piano quartet. An impresario proposed an American concert tour for the prodigy Brahms, but family friends and his music teachers argued

against such a tour for so young a boy. In his teens, Brahms arranged music for his father’s orchestra. He later became great friends with the famous composer Robert Schumann and his wife, Clara, one of the outstanding pianists of her day. However, Brahms was an outspoken critic of the music theories of Liszt, who was some 20 years his senior, and met Wagner, the famous opera composer, but they thought so differently about music that they never became friends! While Brahms was well-known as a pianist, he had difficulties at first becoming known as a composer because of his severe criticism of the popular music theories of the day.

Brahms was also a perfectionist. He began to compose when he was quite young, but later destroyed most copies of his first works. His compositions did not become popular until he went on a concert tour in 1853. After Robert Schumann’s death in 1859, Brahms helped support Clara and her eight children. Clara also became his closest advisor and critic; he showed her every work he composed before it was

performed in public. Brahms never married and it is suspected that he was very much in love with Clara Schumann, but did not think it would be “proper” to ask her to marry him, some say because he respected Robert’s music so much and thought his music could never measure up to it. Little did he know his work would eventually be considered superior to Schumann’s.

Symphony No. 1 in C Minor - In 1876, the musical world of Europe was eagerly waiting for the very first symphony of Johannes Brahms. Poor Brahms was under a lot of pressure because he was the most famous living composer in the Austro-German tradition, surpassing both Liszt and Wagner. Further-more, Beethoven, who had died 50 years earlier, was already a legend because of his nine glorious symphonies. So, people expected a great symphony from Brahms as well. “You don’t know what it’s like, always to hear that giant marching along behind me!” Brahms once wrote. His complaints aside, however, Brahms admired Beethoven deeply, especially his symphonies, and used some of the same keys and forms that Beethoven did as a tribute to that great master. In fact, this symphony of Brahms is sometimes called “Beethoven’s Tenth.” The ESO played this wonderful symphony in its concert on February 3, 2019. (We’ll provide a link on the information sheet.) The symphony begins in a minor key with a rather sad melody over pounding tympani. The main theme is driving and even a bit grim. The middle two movements are much lighter in mood than the first and last movements. Listen for the solo violin toward the end of the second movement. The third movement is slow and more relaxed. The fourth movement is the crowning touch of the entire work. It begins with a slow introduction and continues in the minor key.

Then something wonderful happens! Strings and a horn call announce the change to a major key; they’re

followed by a flute solo and together they introduce the the strings, which play a gorgeous theme, a tribute to Beethoven that the orchestra develops. Listen to how the basic theme is passed from one section to another and interpreted by the different instruments. Then, just when we think we’ll hear more of that beautiful melody to end the symphony, Brahms surprises us again by instead bringing back the brass, and the symphony ends in triumph.

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Brahms’ Double Concerto for Violin and Cello - Brahms composed the Double Concerto in 1897; it was his final work for orchestra. He wrote it for two of his friends who were famous musicians, one a German cellist and the other a Hungarian violinist. Brahms was worried about this composition because

he wasn’t writing for “his” instruments. While he was a brilliant pianist, he had only studied the cello and felt he was not proficient on either it or the violin. Regardless of his qualms, his friends repeated their performance several times in its first year, with Brahms conducting the orchestra.

Unfortunately, Clara Schumann did not like the concerto, writing that it was “not brilliant for the instruments.” Another critic said it was "one of Brahms' most … joyless compositions". Brahms had blocked out a second concerto for violin and cello but destroyed his notes in the wake of the less-than-enthusiastic reception of his first. The Double Concerto has three parts, a standard concerto form: The first movement is called Allegro, or “rapid in tempo.” The orchestra plays a brief introduction that is followed by an extended cadenza, a solo for the cello and then the violin. Although cadenzas usually come at the end of a movement, here it is at the beginning. The second movement is Andante, or moderately slow and even. This slow movement is built on a beautiful melody similar to a folk tune, and provides a double cadenza for the soloists. The third movement is Vivace non troppo, “lively – but not too much.” In other words, the musi-cians shouldn’t overdo their great finale! Despite the Double Concerto’s initial cool recep-tion, later musicians and critics came to love it. One said that “it has always been hampered by its requirement for two brilliant and equally matched soloists.” That requirement was not at all a problem with Irina Muresanu and Wendy Warner as the ESO’s soloists. (The link to the video is on information sheet.)

Hungarian Dance No. 6. – Brahms completed his set of 21 lively Hungarian Dances in 1879. They vary in

length from a minute to five minutes and are among his most popular works – and also among his most profitable. Nos. 11, 14 and 16 are the only entirely

original compositions; the rest are based on Hun-garian folksongs with the exception of No. 5, which

Brahms mistakenly thought was a folksong. Rather, it was an original work by Hungarian composer and conductor Miska Borzó and is now properly attributed. We’re giving you a link to a rousing performance of No. 6 by the ESO from our June 5, 2016, concert. And, just for fun, a link to an interpretation of Nos. 3, 5 and 6 … by Looney Toons – and using Merrie Melodies, of course! Academic Festival Overture - Brahms apparently had a good sense of humor, but he wasn’t really known as a prankster. Not, that is, until he wrote his Academic Festival Overture, which he himself directed at its premiere on January 4, 1881, at the Univer-sity of Breslau (now the University of Wroclaw in Poland). It seems that the University had awarded Brahms an honorary degree and Brahms had had the good manners to write them a very nice thank-you note in return. The University, however, expected much more, and the conductor who had persuaded the University to give Brahms the degree said a musical offering was what they wanted – perhaps he could write a symphony? Since Brahms hadn’t asked for the degree and hated all of the publicity he had to contend with as a celebrity of his time, perhaps he was a bit tired of people trying to take advantage of him. Or, maybe he just had a funny thought and set it to music. In any case, at a special ceremony at the University, with the faculty in their long black robes and funny hats, all decked out for the most solemn of occasions, Brahms gave them his musical thank-you. Many of the faculty members must have been horrified, and no doubt many others were trying hard not to laugh, because what they heard wasn’t a symphony at all. Rather, it was a medley of student beer-drinking songs! A wonderful arrangement, to be sure, but the tunes! It was

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the equivalent of going to a major concert today expecting to hear the premiere of a new piece by a famous composer - and suddenly the orchestra breaks into A Hundred Bottles of Beer in the Wall or Hail! Hail! The Gang’s All Here! Many people hearing those songs at a classical concert today would have the same reaction as those professors in 1881! Despite its unorthodox premiere, however, the overture remains a very popular one and is often used as a short piece in a concert of longer works because it is only about 10 minutes long. (The symphony that the University had been expecting would have taken almost an hour.) Listen to how the tunes seem to dance back and forth with one another, each one dominating, then retreating into the background. The student song that ends the piece, Gaudeamus Igitur, dates from 1730 or so. The first verse is formally translated from Latin as follows:

Let us therefore rejoice while we are young. After our youth, after a troublesome old age,

The ground will hold us. However, with apologies to the late Miss Alice Hackman, Latin teacher at Boiling Springs High School, Boiling Springs, PA., here is our very informal translation of the same first verse:

Let’s party, party, party while we’re still young! After middle age comes old age And then we’re dead and gone!

According to Kathy Henkel, who writes for the Los Angeles Philhar-monic Orchestra, the Academic Festival Overture is “a masterful balance of serious and light-hearted elements; the emphasis is on the "festival" rather than the "academic" in an overture that brims with an irrepressible sense of fun.” We

quite agree and think that Brahms must have had a lot of fun writing it. We hope you have just as much fun listening to it!

English has evolved into one of the richest languages in the world, with well over one million vocabulary words and growing, all because we cheerfully borrow and steal from other languages when we come across a word or phrase we like. (Cookies, barbecue, Santa Claus, tornado, cargo, chow, to name a few). Part of that richness comes from idioms, those expressions whose overall meaning isn’t apparent from the usual meaning of its parts (kick the bucket, chicken out, hit the hay). Many of our idioms come from music, so here are a few that might tickle your fancy ( so to speak), with notes on how they came about.

Like a broken record – This is one that will stump today’s younger generation! Who among us doesn’t remember getting a crack in a favorite record and hearing the same bit over and over and over…?

Pay the Piper - This admonition to pay your debts may have originated in 1680 with the story of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, who in about 1200, was hired to rid the town of rats. He played his pipe and the rats followed him out of town. However, when the town refused to pay, he piped all the children out of town…

Call the tune – Shortened from “Who pays the piper calls the tune.” In other words, the person who hires you can tell you what to do. Nowadays we’d borrow from a few sports and say “call the shots,” but the meaning is the same: who holds the power?

Stay tuned! – “Stay tuned! Don’t touch that dial! We’ll be right back!” Classic words as a radio station went to a commercial break. “Don’t touch that dial” isn’t used much anymore for obvious reasons, but “Stay tuned!” has gained a broader context (and some strange looks!)

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When she was a little girl in Romania, Irina Muresanu wanted to play the piano. Then her mother quite sensibly pointed out that you rarely see a piano in an orchestra, but there are lots of violins. So, Irina took up the violin at the ripe old age of six and a half, “old by nowadays standards” for becoming a serious violinist, she says. Irina had obvious talent and a year later auditioned for a place in a school for children gifted in music. She passed the exercises in

pitch, rhythm, singing in tune and all of the other things designed to test her musical ability, but failed the physical because she was “too small and skinny.” Fortunately, her teacher intervened and Irina was able to prove to the school that even a small, skinny girl was capable of making great music. At age 12, Irina and her classmates had to decide whether or not to continue in music. Half the students left the school, but Irina chose to stay and pursue her goal of becoming a professional musician. After college in Bucharest, Irina came to the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign for her master’s degree. From there she went to the New England Conservatory, where she earned her doctorate. She is also a founding member of the Boston Trio, about which The Boston Globe raved, "When--ever this trio plays, drop everything and go hear them!" Irina’s concert career continues to take her all over the USA and around the world. She has also performed in The Netherlands, Belgium, and France, where she had her most interesting concert fee arrangement in St. Emilion – she was paid in wine! As a child, Irina fell in love with music because of the way it tells a story by expressing emotions. As she grew, so did her under-standing of music and her ability to express those emotions with her violin. Now this young woman once thought “too small and skinny” to be a musician is among the best violinists of our time.

Wendy Warner grew up in Wilmette and started piano at four. When her older sister began lessons on a second instrument, Wendy declared that she wanted to play the violin. Her mother, however, convinced her that the cello would be a better choice. Wendy agreed although, at age six, she wasn’t even sure what a cello was! Wendy didn’t “fall in love with the cello” right away, so also continued with piano. She studied at the Music

Institute of Chicago and won competitions, but wasn’t sure she could keep up both instruments. She finally decided on the cello and started winning competitions at 14, played with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on WTTW, and began practicing even harder. This was to be her career. As a teen, Wendy traveled to Washington, DC, for master classes with the great cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and later studied with him at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. She became a protégée of Rostropovich and, at just 18, won the Rostropovich International Competition in Paris. Wendy says Rostropovich put her on the right path for her career, but told us that they first had some communication problems. She couldn’t understand his heavy Russian accent so he tried singing various passages to show what he wanted. When that didn’t work, he thought she had a problem with pitch! Luckily, they worked it out and he later invited her to play the Vivaldi Double Concerto with him in France. Wendy has two cellos. The first was made in Chicago in 1960. The second was made in Italy in 1772. While a fine instrument is a necessity, it can’t be shown at its best and highest purpose unless there is a remarkable talent coaxing it to life. That talent is Wendy Warner, considered one of the best cellists in the world.

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Graduation Day in the U.S. this year was unlike anything we’ve ever seen – except perhaps in 1918 and 1919. We missed watching graduating seniors put on academia regalia, those long robes and silly hats, march across an auditorium or field to music and, after some speeches, receive their

diplomas. But this year, there were no grinning groups of grads in academic regalia, there was no “Pomp and Circumstance,” and diplomas arrived in the mail. Sad, but a necessary departure from the norm in these days that are anything but normal. Like so many customs in the U.S., academic regalia can be traced back to our former parent, Great Britain. However, it appears that Britain might well have gotten the idea from the Italians or from other Europeans during the Renaissance, a time when universities were flourishing in all parts of Europe. All academics wore clothing that came to be known as “cap and gown” as a sign of their status. Someone - no doubt a student – started calling the caps “mortar boards” because they were shaped like the boards that stone masons and brick-layers used to carry mortar, and the name stuck. (This portrait is of the Duke of Urbino from the late 1400s. Check out his hat!) In Brahms’ era, academic regalia was the everyday norm at the uber-formal German universities, with more bells and whistles added for special occasions, such as the premiere of the much anticipated, but never appearing, Brahms symphony for the University of Breslau. Nowadays, academic regalia is still de rigueur at some British Universities. If you follow the PBS series Endeavour, Morse and Inspector Lewis, which are set in Oxford, you can see how academic dress has changed at that university since the 1950’s, starting with Endeavour. In the U.S., however, academic dress is reserved only for special occasions like graduations, convocations and the like, but you can tell who’s who and what their field is if you know the code.

When faculty march in the procession in a college graduation you can “read” their academic robes or “gowns.” First in line after the president and other higher-ups come the professors. Those with doctoral degrees are first in line. You can tell they have earned doctorates because they have three broad velvet stripes on their robes. Next are faculty with master’s degrees (two stripes) and finally faculty with just bachelor’s degrees (one stripe). After the

faculty come the graduates in the same order of degree rank as the faculty: doctorates, masters and, at the very back, bachelors. In addition to the gown and mortar board or other academic cap, each faculty member and grad-uate will also be wearing a hood that hangs down the back of the robe. The longest and widest of the hoods are for doctorates, the medium ones are for masters, and bachelors, of course, get the shortest and narrowest ones.

Each hood (1 in the drawing) comes in very specific colors that can tell you where and what the person studied – but again, you have to know the code. For example, in the photo, the school colors are in the lining of the hood and there is a band of velvet around the hood that indicates the field of study. The school colors here are blue (3) and gold (4) and the velvet band is also blue (2), which means this could be someone who got his doctorate in philosophy at UCLA. Here at home, someone graduating from Northwestern in engineering will have a purple (3) and white (4) lining in their hoods with an orange velvet band (2) for engineering. The next time you see a graduation, see if you can decode the regalia. Here are the colors of some other fields of study: Architecture = Brown; Law = Purple; Agriculture = Maize; Arts, Letters, Humanities = White; Journalism = Crimson; Science = Gold; Public Administration = Peacock Blue; Nursing = Apricot; Medicine = Hunter Green; Phys Ed = Sage Green; Music = Pink.

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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 70 years later! How many of these do you remember from your childhood?

In 1776, the Continental Congress hired Thomas Matlack, a Philadelphia brewer and Free Quaker, to be its scribe for the Declaration of Independence. So – how did we get from this:

to this: We hold these truths? Good question – and, as with so many things, blame technology! When Matlack wrote down the Declaration of Independence - or “engrossed” it, as was the terminology in 1776 - he was carrying on a long tradition of elegant handwriting for important documents. Seventy-five years later, however, times had changed and busi-ness demanded a script that was still elegant, but less time-consuming. Along came Platt Rogers Spencer, who, in 1848, developed a unique oval- based penmanship style that could be written very quickly and legibly for business correspondence as well as elegant personal letters. The Coca-Cola and Ford logos are based on Spencerian Style, which was taught in American schools until the mid-1920s.

The pace of business was speeding up, how-ever, and the Italians had invented a macchina that became known as the “typewriter” and was taking over business documentation. Spencer-ian script had become too cumbersome and impractical for business, but Austin N. Palmer

thought he had a solution: the Palmer Method script, also oval-based, but simpler and with no intricate swirls. Many HighNotes readers learned the Palmer Method in grade school. When handwritten essays were added to the SAT tests in 2006, however, just 15% of the 1.5 million test-takers wrote their essays in cursive. The rest printed. In block letters. What had happened in the interim? Answer: Computers. “Keyboarding” had become more important and very few kids were (or are) learning cursive. It’s coming back, though! Schools are recognizing the motor skills cursive brings and are adding classes and “cursive clubs.” Perhaps someday soon cursive will no longer be just our secret code…

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Ancient Egypt was inhabited by mummies and they all wrote in hydraulics. They lived in the Sarah Dessert and traveled by Camelot. The climate of the Sarah is such that the inhabitants have to live elsewhere.

Moses led the Hebrew slaves to the Red Sea, where they made unleavened bread which is bread made with no ingredients. Moses went up on Mount Cyanide to get the ten commandments. He died before he ever reached Canada.

The Greeks were a highly sculptured people, and without them we wouldn’t have history. The Greeks also had myths. A myth is a female moth.

Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long

walks in the forest even when everyone was calling him. I guess he could not hear so good. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died from this.

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.“Why Oz?” on page 17 is from American Trivia Quiz Book by Richard Lederer and

Caroline McCullagh, Kindle edition, 2015, p. 143. Other attributions: Wikipedia. HighNotes is partially supported by grants from the Illinois Arts Council

and by private individuals. Many thanks to them all!

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NUMBER STACK!

How many numbers

can you find ?

(Answers on p. 19) How many squares?

Vol. 1, No. 3 HighNotes September 2020

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

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

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1. Johannes __ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ wrote a series of 21

___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___Dances.

The Academic Festival ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ was composed as a prank on the University of Breslau.

2. You can figure out who’s who at a college graduation if you

decode the Academic ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

3. Clue No. 2 usually includes a long ___ ___ ___ ___,

a flat hat called a ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___

___ ___ ___ ___ ___ and a ___ ___ ___ ___

with a wide velvet band indicating the field of

study. ___ ___ ___ ___ is the color for music.

4. The ESO’s middle name! ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ 5. A first reader: “Fun With ___ ___ ___ ___

___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___”

6. ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ is becoming a lost art. The Spencer Method from the mid-1800s isn’t used now, but we can still see it in

the ___ ___ ___ __ - ___ ___ ___ ___ and Ford logos.

7. Most HighNotes readers learned the ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ Method of cursive writing, but it’s not taught anymore.

Can you also find these instruments in the puzzle? Bassoon Flute Violin Cello Harp

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 17 times?

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

Why “OZ”? - We use “OZ” for filler in our Word Search puzzle – but where did the name come from? It’s a fun story! In 1900, L. Frank Baum sat down to write a children’s book about aa girl named Dorothy, who was swept away too a fantastic land. The tale began as a bedtimex story for his children and soon spilled over into several evenings. One evening he was asked the name of this strange place. Glancing about the room, his eyes fell upon a filing cabinet labeled “A–N” and “O–Z.” Noting that the letters on the second label spelled out the “ahs” uttered by his rapt listeners, he named his fantastic land Oz!

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(With apologies to Irina & Wendy!)

The Missing Step…is X 3!

1 + 5 = 6; 6 X 3 = 18

2 + 10 = 12; 12 X 3 = 36

3 + 15 = 18; 18 X 3 = 54

4 + 20 = 24; 24 X 3 = 72

Brahms Hungarian Overture Regalia Mortar Board Robe Hood Pink Symphony Dick and Jane Penmanship Coca-Cola Palmer

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What’s the difference between a violin and a

Harley-Davidson motorcycle?

Why don’t cello players like to play hide-and-seek?

What do a lawsuit and a cello have in common?

What’s the difference between a flat snake and a flat violin in the

middle of the road?