An Online Magazine of the Arts by Women Over Sixty
Music
Early piano (perhaps played in the time of Schumann or Grieg), photo by Sally Buffington
Welcoming Joan Behrens-Bergman
Persimmon Tree welcomes as Guest Music Editor Joan Behrens-Bergman, a multitalented musician, administrator, teacher, and aficionado of the visual arts. A celebrated pianist from age 14, Behrens-Bergman has long been steeped in the world of musical performance. She has brought her rich and varied experience, expertise, and deep appreciation for the musical arts to this issue of Persimmon Tree, presenting to our readers a selection of superb performances, enhanced by her telling commentary.
Early piano (perhaps played in the time of Schumann or Grieg), photo by Sally Buffington
Our Guest Editor’s Music Picks
By Joan Behrens-Bergman, Guest Music Editor
Helene Grimaud
Former model, brilliant musician, and passionate animal lover describe and define only one woman—the lovely Helene Grimaud. A gifted pianist with a successful performing career, she founded the Wolf Conservation Center in South Salem, New York, and currently divides her time between the two commitments.
Born in Aix-en-Provence, France, Grimaud received her music education at the Conservatoire de Paris. I have selected her recording of the “Piano Concerto in A minor” by Robert Schumann because the performance offers definitive Grimaud. The work, completed in 1845 and the composer’s only piano concerto, is an ideal musical canvas for Grimaud’s intensity, poetic sensitivity to dynamic color, and subtle nuance.
Robert Schumann “Piano Concerto in A minor” with soloist Helene Grimaud and conductor Thomas Hengelbrock, NDR Klassik
Marilyn Horne
Equally at home on the concert stage singing the early American folk song “Beautiful Dreamer” by nineteeth-century composer Stephen Foster and in the world of opera as Adalgisa in Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma (1831), the great American mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne hails from Bradford, Pennsylvania. Her distinctive, rich, and creamy voice glows in the Foster, and the technical demands of the operatic literature are easily met by her remarkable vocal facility in the Bellini. She is well known for her interpretation of Adalgisa in performance with soprano Joan Sutherland in the opera’s title role.
Marilyn Horne sings Beautiful Dreamer (vaimusic.com)
Joan Sutherland and Marilyn Horne “Mira, o Norma” from Vincenzo Bellini’s Norma
Julia Fischer
The extraordinary Julia Fischer was born in Munich, Germany, in 1983. A rare musician who is equally gifted as a violinist and pianist, she is a remarkably versatile virtuoso on both instruments. She began her music education at the Leopold Mozart Conservatory in Augsburg and subsequently was admitted to the Munich University of Music and Performing Arts at the age of nine.
Internationally prominent and active as both soloist and chamber ensemble performer, Fischer is one of the finest musicians of her generation, with deep musical sensibilities and brilliant technical facility. Her playing exudes energy and joy—qualities fully evident in her performances of the Brahms D major violin concerto and the Grieg piano concerto that I have selected.
Grieg Piano Concerto, Mov 3 by Julia Fischer, Pintscher, JDP 2008
Johannes Brahms Violin Concerto in D Major with Michael Tilson Thomas/NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester
Old Stranger: Poems
by Joan Larkin
Poem after poem, Old Stranger unearths moments that shape a woman's life. The poet's eye is unflinching as she sees the past folded into the present. Her body is the ground of deep soul hunger. Her language is music.
“To discover the ‘old stranger’ is a knife, not quite, it’s an old piano. No, it’s a book about mortality and the debt of flesh, about love, rot, relationship, smiles that cut like knives through every seeing moment. It’s about painting. It’s a beaut. There’s so much masterpiece here. I mean, wow, this is why one is a poet all their life. To make this.” — Eileen Myles, author of a "Working Life"
“Joan Larkin’s much-awaited Old Stranger: Poems is a miracle of compression, mystery, and innuendo. Here is a poet for whom craft is an extension of wisdom. Whether revealing the archetype secreted within an object, or the elemental, persistent grief within a memory, Larkin expertly hones the edges of poems like a luthier shapes a violin.” — Diane Seuss, author of Modern Poetry
"Engaging with curiosity and often startled affection, this poet tells of how it feels to be both enamored and shaken with what connections reveal. Quiet and absorbed, one reads this most graceful of books until pow and one is alerted!" — Jody Stewart, author of This Momentary World: Selected Poems and Guest Editor, Poets of the Eastern States (Persimmon Tree, Winter 2024)
Joan Behrens-Bergman has enjoyed a distinguished career as teacher, administrator, and performer. Executive Director of the Hoff-Barthelson Music School in Scarsdale, New York (1991-2017), she is a former piano and piano pedagogy faculty member of the Mannes College of Music College Division in New York City, where she was the director of the Conservatory’s Preparatory Division for eight years. She has appeared as piano soloist in recitals, guest artist with orchestras, pianist/lecturer on live radio broadcasts—and is known worldwide for her inspiring master classes, as well as her pedagogy seminars for teachers. She is listed in Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers.
A Gold Medal Winner of the International Recording Festival, Behrens-Bergman made her debut as a pianist at the age of 14 in New York City’s Town Hall and was immediately hailed by the critics for her “performances of unusual beauty and insight.” Her early musical training was guided by Cecile Jahiel of the Paris Conservatoire and Rudolf Ganz at Chicago Musical College. She was a student of the legendary Rosina Lhavinne at the Juilliard School and holds B.M. and M. M. Degrees in piano performance. From 1980 through 1983 she served as chamber music coordinator and orchestra pianist of the Domaine School and Orchestra of the Pierre Monteux Memorial Festival in Maine. Behrens-Bergman also has an extensive background in art history and has presented a lecture series, “Parallels of Twentieth Century Music and Art,” at Marymount Manhattan College.
Sally Buffington is a writer and photographer and author of a memoir A Place Like This: Finding Myself In a Cape Cod House. She writes lyrically and imaginatively about food, place, books, nature, memory, and photography. To see more of her work, go to www.sallybuffington.com and purchase it through ArtsMart.