The genealogy research website MyHeritage has been rolling out new photo enhancement tools over the last few months that allow you to enhance (sharpen and clean up) and colorize old photographs. Their latest addition has now gone viral.
You can now animate old photographs with their Deep Nostalgia feature. An ancestor you never knew can blink, move their head, and smile at you. It can be eerily accurate, depending on the photo.
Some folks, however, are animating more than just family photos. Classicfm.com has presented on its website a video of composers brought to life with this new technology. And they didn’t just use photographs: Bach has been reanimated from one of his portraits, as has Mozart. You can see the video here. Be aware that the music is a little loud when you hit play.
I tried my hand with family photos and drawings, with mixed results–it all depends on the resolution of the original, head angle, and shadowing, in particular (you’ll see that with the Clara Schumann animation in the video mentioned above). There’s a fellow I’ve written about before here, the mystery pianist Granville Reynolds, Here is his animation. Somehow, the animation makes him even more mysterious. What could he be thinking about?
Times are tough. We all need to find a way to get through, and the right music definitely helps. Here are some recent finds. Humor, flexibility, and great ingenuity are hallmarks here.
And now, a great concert for you! Pianist Alexander Krichel gave a live drive-in classical piano concert that you can now see online. Car horns and flashing headlights replace applause (it works better than you’d think). The upside? No coughing, cell phones ringing, or candy wrappers crackling (other than perhaps from your family members, whom you can probably shush). Krichel introduces the pieces in German, there are no subtitles available, but there is captioning of the title at the beginning of each piece. You can see it at: https://www1.wdr.de/mediathek/video/radio/wdr3/video-autokino-meets-klassik–alexander-krichel-spielt-beethoven-und-liszt-100.html
When life gives you lemons, don’t just make lemonade, make lemon sorbet.
Here’s another tip, not necessarily a musical one, but one you might consider. A friend who lives far away and I have started exchanging photos. Typically, it’s flower pictures (they have a tremendous rose garden), but not always. It doesn’t have to be flowers, it could be a meme, or an animal picture, a photo you take on a walk (if permitted) (added benefit: your picture-taking gets better), a happy memory photo, or a link to some great music, whatever works for you. It doesn’t need to be every day–no pressure (we have enough)! And you know what happens? You end up looking for beauty, or levity, and actually start seeing it amidst gloom and chaos. If you know someone who might be interested in this, why not suggest an informal exchange? Wouldn’t it be nice to see something happy in your inbox or on your phone?
And as Daniel Emmet says in his aria, vinceremo [we will win]!
Thanks to reader Paul B for alerting me to the fugue!
The gentleman you see at the top of the page is a musician named Granville C. Reynolds.
I have been trying to find out more about him for over 20 years.
It all started with that photograph, or rather, the original sepia version of the photograph. It was probably taken some time between 1872 and 1888. Granville was born in 1846.
Granville didn’t start out as a musician though. The son of a shoe manufacturer in Massachusetts, in 1865 he is a shoe fitter; in 1866, a mechanic. That year, he married, and by the end of the year was a father of a little boy in Connecticut.
But then something happened. In one record of his marriage, the entry is crossed out. In 1869, his wife remarries. In 1876, Granville’s father in his will excludes Granville’s “son by his wife now said to be divorced from him and to be married and living with another man.” The child is not named. Did the family not even know his name? What on earth happened?
Granville maddeningly disappears from the records after 1866, and emerges in 1875 in Rhode Island as a teacher of music. He is there for only one year, then he disappears again.
He reappears in 1880, living with his parents. Occupation: musician. But what instrument?
I came across an intriguing notice in an 1884 periodical. In the “New Music” column we find
“Golden Days are Coming Dearest: ” Words by George Birdseye; music by Granville C. Reynolds, is unquestionably the sweetest song of the season. Brimming over with melody, cheery and hopeful it will touch an answering chord in every heart. [1]
I cannot find this music. Birdseye’s poem was set a number of times, but I can’t find Granville’s. I can’t even prove that the Granville C. Reynolds mentioned is our Granville.
But knowing that he was a musician, I can only hope that the “sweetest song of the season” is his.
Granville died of a stroke in 1888. He was only 42 years old.
Up until a few weeks ago, that was all that I could ever find. I had resigned myself to the fact that I might never know what instrument he played.
And then—I found the most unusual genealogical clue I have ever encountered.
Searching in a genealogy database, I plugged in Granville’s name, the way I always do, hoping new data might have been uploaded. And I found this:
October 16th. Mother called for a piano record on the Victrola. One of the Nocturnes was played, and Roy gave the name of Granville Reynolds. He was known to mother’s people, when she was a young girl, Reynolds then being a man of about forty years of age.
“He played that, if you remember, at your home that evening when he called….He says he passed through the change not long after. He says it was better for him, for he was worn out.” [2]
What was this?! It turns out, it was a passage from the book The Second Letters from Roy, by Leon Stevens, published in 1918. The premise of Letters from Roy and The Second Letters from Roy is that Leon’s brother Roy, deceased, was communicating with his living family from the Great Beyond, in a chatty correspondence about people and events past and present.
While I can’t vouch for the validity of the premise, I do know that the author’s family and the Reynolds family lived in the same place at the same time, so it is likely that they had crossed paths with Granville during his natural life. And the details about Granville fit.
He played a nocturne. The only piano nocturnes recorded on Victrola records were Chopin’s.
A side note: I created the colorized picture of Granville at the MyHeritage genealogy website. Until the end of April you can colorize your own black and white (or sepia) photos for free, as many as you would like, and download them. Visit myheritage.com/incolor for details.
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The Southern World, Atlanta, GA, March 15, 1884, p 192, via newspaperarchive.com.
The Second Letters from Roy by Leon Herbert Stevens, Boston: Christopher Publishing House, 1918 p 125 via hathitrust.org. Originally found on myheritage.com.
No April Fools foolishness today. But a little fun.
I hope everyone is staying home and staying safe out there. After a while though, you might be wondering what to do with your time. Here’s one idea. This is pianist Igor Levit. The caption is “And what’s Corona doing to you?” If you go to his Twitter feed, you can check out his wonderful mini-concerts.
In other news, now that all the pesky humans are staying inside in Llandudno, the goats have taken over the streets. Boars are strolling through Bergamo. What could be next? Could there be trouble brewing?
The Llandudno goats are so much better with a West Side Story soundtrack.
To celebrate World Piano Day, Deutsche Grammophon is hosting a global virtual concert! See DG label pianists performing live RIGHT NOW at https://youtu.be/GDQZiLx6CzE [Sorry, this link is no longer available].
Hi readers! I feel the need to revise this post now that I have more information on the piece presented here. My original post is in plain text. My amendments are in italics.
I recently saw a Twitter post that included a performance of one of Chopin’s works. Titled Largo, it was a piece I was unfamiliar with. Short, a little sentimental. Beautiful. Undeniably Chopin.*
And now the asterisk, the bane of a baseball player’s record, comes into play here. While the style may be undeniably Chopin, the Largo that is so beautiful is a piano arrangement of Handel’s Largo. See the video below.
And had Chopin’s wishes been carried out, we would never have heard it.
Chopin’s final request was that all his unpublished manuscripts be destroyed. However, his mother and sisters intervened; instead, they had Julian Fontana review the manuscripts and put together a posthumous collection. [1]
This may be why Chopin requested that his manuscripts be destroyed. He didn’t want his noodling around, riffing on Handel, to be mixed in with his own work, some of which he may have considered unfinished, or unpolished. Oddly, when I then listened to Handel’s Largo, I remembered it, but didn’t make the connection when I first heard Chopin’s version. Reminds me of my Chopin+performer post, except here we have Handel+Chopin.
Among the rescued pieces are a collection of Polish songs, and a variety of piano pieces, including wonderful nocturnes and waltzes.
Here is Largo, performed by pianist James Rhodes. The tweet reads, “Today I discovered a Chopin piece that I had never heard before. I can’t believe it. It’s only two minutes long, but I LOVE it. His ‘Largo, B109.’ I hope you enjoy it.”
So, apologies to Chopin for not carrying out his wishes, but a thank you for adding a little more beauty to the world. Because Handel in the hands of Chopin is also a wonderful thing.
“I shall not alter a single note,” I answered, “I shall publish the work exactly as it is!”
So said Tchaikovsky after receiving blistering criticism from pianist Nikolai Rubinstein after hearing Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto a few days after the composition was completed. [1] Rubinstein, who is known for debuting Balakirev’s insanely difficult Islamey, [2] deemed the concerto “unplayable” and “vulgar.”
It would appear Tchaikovsky was vindicated. The first piano concerto met with great audience acclaim at its debut in Boston, and has become one of Tchaikovsky’s most popular works. Rubinstein later came around, both playing and conducting the work he once vilified.
When I came across this video of Stephen Hough playing his arrangement of the Korean folk song Arirang as an encore at a concert in Seoul, I knew I had to share it with you. It is beautiful. The audience laughs in surprise and delight when they realize what he is playing.
To call Ariranga Korean folk song is an understatement. It is the Korean folk song, an unofficial national anthem, known by folks of all ages. And yet it is many songs; each generation has its own version, each region has its own verses. But the song remains. And it is not only a national treasure: the song’s importance has been recognized by UNESCO, and it is on the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Here is a traditional version.
Here is a modern interpretation, still beautiful, but far from traditional, by popular singer Sohyang. You will see people singing along in the audience.
Catapulting into Classical 