A cat has nine lives, composers do too. But not more.

I start enjoying myself preparing programs for my radio show, Eric & Ananda Classical Eve. Since next Monday (March 7th) will be the birthday of my favorite composer Maurice Ravel, I tweeted and asked which favorite piece of Ravel should I broadcast. It turned out to be unnecessary, since we all know what it is. Hundreds of replies through twitter vote for: BOLERO! ....

... which led to another composer who I knew & worked with, the late Russian Jew Alfred Schnittke. The reason was because he parodied "Bolero" in part of his music for the film "Meister und Margarita". And that led to another topic, a conversation I had with him in one of the dinners we had back in 1993. He talked about "the curse of the 9th symphony" ; he was at that time writing his 6th. "I have 3 more to go", he said, and when I asked why, "well, noone except 'that guy' survived to write a 10th". I must keep "that guy" a secret for now, since I will reveal his name in my radio show next Sunday and tell you that in fact the curse wasn't broken at all by "that guy". Someone did die from his 9th symphony. It was from Schnittke that I learned for the first time about that particular curse, that nobody could survive further than writing 9 symphonies. Since then I lost contact with Mr. Schnittke, partly because he was already weak (he had 2 strokes in the previous years) and of course partly since communication was not that easy then as it is now, with emails. So it was my last contact with him. I performed under his supervision, by the way, his amazing Piano Quintet dedicated in memory of his mother.

Now the greatest composer of all time (at least according to me) Gustav Mahler was so afraid of this curse, that he took every way he could to NOT write a 9th after he finished his 8th. He wrote "A symphony for tenor, alto and orchestra" which is called "Das Lied von der Erde" (The song of the earth) in 6 big (when Gus said big, he meant REALLY big. The 6th and last movement "Der Abschied" alone lasts for half an hour, almost as long as the total of the 5 preceding movements) movements. He thought he could get away with it. Therefore he wrote his real 9th afterwards, and ...yes you guessed it right. He died when he started writing his 10th. He finished one movement of the 10th, by the way, but it was just one farewell too many. He succumbed to the curse : a composer should leave the earth with his 9th symphony. Just like Beethoven, Schubert, Bruckner, Dvorak, and more after him: Ralph Vaughan Williams (he died when he just started to write his 9th, therefore his "official" number was just 8), Alexander Glazounov, Roger Sessions and of course .... Alfred Schnittke (1934-1998). I think there are more names. I remember I had goosebumps when I learned Schnittke's death, especially because I talked with his publisher a few days after, asking what he was composing when he got the fatal stroke and died a few days later. He had the same fate as Vaughan Williams.

RIP, maestro Schnittke. I'll never forget our meeting, our working together and of course your great music.

This entry I dedicate to my good friends, Spain's most prominent composers of symphonies today David del Puerto and Jesus Rueda. Both of them, in their late 40s (Jesus Rueda will celebrate his 50th this year) had written 3 great symphonies. May they be granted long and productive musical lives !

Is it really the food of love?

It is quite superfluous to talk about my very tiny (1-minute) piece for trumpet solo, written down in perhaps even less than 1 minute. But "E-A Theme Song" is now used for the opening of our (with my friend, the terrific trumpetist Eric Awuy) radio show and many of you have showed much interest in it. I am, of course, honoured & appreciate your kind words.

First of all, I'd like to express my gratitude to my friends Ella & Tika from Delta FM Radio who have trusted me to have my own radio show. Since I was feeling pretty insecure about doing it alone, plus having the problem of distance (Spain to Indonesia is not what you call next door, eh?) I have asked Eric Awuy, who has had some experience on being a radio anchor to be my partner. Our show then is called Eric & Ananda Classical Eve, and after our first show last Sunday suddenly an acute curiosity entered in me on how the first Oprah or Larry King show had been. I mean, both Eric & me (well, I did more, I think) made so many silly mistakes! Eric & Ananda Classical Eve will be aired LIVE every Sunday evening at 8-10 p.m, West Indonesia Time. Me from Spain, and Eric from the Delta FM studio in Jakarta. It's all about classical music : symphonies, vocal & instrumental works, opera etc. Real opera, not Opera Winfrey!

Back to the E-A theme, it was written during one of our meetings at the radio. You have asked me why it sounds so sad. Well, the circumstances weren't so much so. We had some nice laughs in that meeting, the atmosphere was quite relaxed at that time. And we thought that the theme song should be built on the motif E and A, and should involve the trumpet -- Eric Awuy, naturally. Suddenly this theme took shape in my head, and you know how music could do that to you: it's like a dream, where you can hear everything in one split second (they say that Mozart could hear an entire SYMPHONY in one split second!). So I asked for a paper and wrote it down quickly.... which made me quite surprised myself, since it has nothing to do with how we were at that time : happy, relaxed and cheerful. I remember three people wearing purple shirts at that time: Ella from the radio, Chendra and myself. That colour did have an effect on my music, I think. But it is also from music that we know ourselves better, and know what is really inside us or our heart. Music doesn't deceive oneself. It's too honest. And it's too scary. Too scary, since sometimes it brings out things which one would like to hide deep down inside unfrequented spots in us .....

If you want to hear the theme, and know more about our radio show, you can hear it at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Eric-Ananda-Classical-Eve/186138124730174