My friend Aaron over at WQXR sent me some questions regarding Sunday’s Beethoven orgy. And here is what I answered:

1. How did you meet Beethoven?

When I was eight, I came home from having oral surgery to find volume I of Beethoven’s sonatas waiting on the piano—a convalescence gift from my parents. I sat down and started to sight-read them, starting with Op. 2, and I haven’t stopped.

2. Why did you pick this sonata(s)?

The two sonatas I picked are a study in opposites: the Waldstein is grand, virtuosic, popular, boldy experimental, and in the bright, familiar key of C major. It’s Beethoven at his most joyous—the joy of playing the piano, and of being alive.

Op. 78 is tiny (just ten minutes), little-known (undeservedly), and in the exotic key of F sharp. The first movement is an oddly textbook sonata form (two repeats!), the mature composer demonstrating his facility through humble, almost ascetic means. Apparently it was one of his own favorites of the 32, and I can understand why; it has the contained brilliance of a precocious child.

There’s some overlap, though. Both sonatas have a certain sense of melodic ease that didn’t always come naturally to Beethoven. They mostly forgo the characteristic moodiness of the Tempest or Appassionata, and lack the contrapuntal rigor that marks the later sonatas. And they have that endearing Teutonic sense of humor; the fake-out at the recapitulation of the Waldstein, the goofy chromatic flights in Op. 78′s scherzo.

3. What does Beethoven mean to you today?

I think pretty much the same thing Beethoven has always meant to everyone: a composer who wrote fascinating, strange, amazing music.

Took a bike jaunt up to Inwood yesterday to visit the Bros. Kaplan. We drank some champagne, ate some pork with pork on it, played some Beethoven. It was my first time visiting Inwood, which is about 20 miles from my place, so I spent the night. The weather was tremendous for the ride back to Brooklyn this morning. I took a few photos with my phone:

The fog on the Hudson reminded me of this Simon & Garfunkel song:

Simon & Garfunkel: Bleecker Street

I stopped for lunch at one of my favorite Chinatown holes in the wall, Prosperity Dumpling. Sesame pancake sandwiches with five-spice pork and vegetables.

As you may have gathered from yesterday’s announcement, I am now a published composer. Semi-published, at any rate: six of my pieces are available from the new edition Project Schott New York. I’m excited for this not because I put great stock in “being published”(after all, Andres & Sons Bakery is a very reputable imprint) but because of just how PSNY is going about it.

I’m writing this, as usual, on my iPad, which has also become my preferred score-reading device. The problem is, it can be difficult to buy scores in digital form. Most public domain (“old”) music is easy to download, thanks to imslp.org, but perversely, the music of living composers is often only available through old-fashioned, ugly, messy, slow, expensive rentals. PSNY is the first well-done attempt I’ve seen to move music publishing into the present, and it’s incredibly simple: a list of composers, each with a selection of DRM-free PDFs to purchase and download—that’s it. Each piece has a score preview, and most have recordings (flash is, sadly, required). Right now I’m listening to Greg Spears’s ingenious string quartet Buttonwood. You can also order printed materials, though only in the US. Most of the repertoire is for solo and small chamber combinations, which is what makes the most sense to order digitally. Orchestral scores are tall and unwieldy and they’re going to need to make a much bigger iPad for that.

The website itself is quite nice as well. No clutter, no ads, simple navigation and structure. I do wish these search fields lined up perfectly (or even better, if there were just one search field that you could specifically narrow down). As it turns out, the PSNY identity is the work of David Rudnick, who I’ve known since he started the quite aesthetically pleasing Volume magazine in college.

I’ll be watching with great interest to see how PSNY fares. It’s a great step forward in making contemporary music more accessible.