Naxos Schmaxos

Remember the Naxos label? I'm sure it still exists, but record stores barely do, so it's hard to say.

It was (or is) a discount classical music label. When I used to buy CDs, I was nuts about Naxos because 1) it was cheap and 2) even though very few of the musicians on the recordings were famous or renowned in North America, they were excellent. But one day I was working my job at the Anglican Book Centre (mystery) and I was talking to Brenda (who got me the job - deeper mystery). Brenda was a classical singer and she mentioned she was about to do a recording for Naxos with her choir. I was excited for her. Naxos! That's huge! And Brenda rolled her eyes and said, "I'm basically doing it for free." She went to explain that Naxos paid performers peanuts, which is how they could afford to sell their CDs so cheaply. 

I'm not a journalist. I never checked if that was true. I just got indignant (indignation - which at the time I loved more than love or life). I decided to stop buying Naxos CDs. 

(Dear Naxos, if this isn't true, forgive me. I'm just a poor boy, from a poor family. Easy come, easy go.)

Today's selection is a Naxos recording. Beethoven's Eroica Variations, played by Jenoe Jando (there's supposed to be an accent on that last "o", but I don't know how to do that with this keyboard. Sorry Jenoe. So much apologizing in this entry. Sorry.) Here's Mr. Jando.

Eroica is the Italian word for "heroic". Because this is a Naxos recording, I'm guessing Jenoe Jando felt pretty heroic as he recorded not just the Variations, but several other pieces, in the Unitarian Church in Budapest from April 6th to 8th, 1992. I was in Grade 10, rehearsing the role of Cliff Bradshaw in 'Cabaret' at my arts highschool and poor Jenoe Jando was probably in the basement of that church, chained to the piano, playing day and night as his Hungarian Naxos overloads seasoned him with paprika. 

Poor Jenoe Jando. 

One thing about Jenoe Jando. As I listened, I kept hearing what sounded like someone humming along. At first I thought maybe it was our upstairs neighbour talking or singing. I took my headphones on and off until I was sure: yes, Jenoe Jando was humming along to his own playing. 

Now, not that I don't think his humming came from a genuine place. I'm sure it did. His playing is astounding. And given that it's Naxos, he was probably humming to keep warm in an unlit bunker. Humming was probably the only proof he could give himself he was still alive. But even so, if you play piano and you're not Keith Jarrett or Glenn Gould - don't hum along. Just don't. Even if your left hand becomes a lobster claw when you're not humming, don't hum. Even if humming is the only thing that keeps you from eating your score, don't hum. I just think hum-piano should stop at Jarrett and Gould; or rather, I should say: I wish it had stopped at Gould and Jarrett, because I don't like it when they do it either. Geniuses or not.

But humming aside, it Jando plays beautifully.

(Like Jando or Gould or Jarrett could give a flying fuck what I think of their humming or their playing. Ha. Typity-type I go.)

One other thing - the cover art. A painting called The Sisters by William Beechey.  It's old-fashioned. Two sisters sitting at a keyboard with a score on it. The one sister is clearly trying to get her sister to look at something on the score and her sister is having none of it. She's staring away like "No fucking way am I looking at that again." It's pretty great. If I could write dialogue for the painting it would go, "Look" "No" "Look" "No" "Look" "No" "Look" "No". 

OK. Today's piece was: The Eroica Variations, Op. 35.

Sangyoung Kim plays them here. Note the dramatic false-start-with-bench-adjustment!