Those military, musical Schwarzkopfs

Word came the other day of the death of Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf Jr., the architect of the allied victory in the Persian Gulf War of 1991. The "compassionate general" was the closest thing to a war hero for Americans since Eisenhower.

I noticed in reading his obituary the absence of what I had long thought was a little-known fact: that he was the nephew of Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, one of the leading operatic sopranos of the post-World War II years.

The general's father, H. Norman Schwarzkopf Sr., was a career Army man who was appointed to organize the New Jersey State Police in 1921 and was its commander until 1936. That put him smack dab in the middle of investigating the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh's baby in 1932, and he testified in the trial of Richard Hauptmann, who was later executed for the crime, although questions about his guilt remain.

So, quite an accomplished family -- law enforcement professional, war hero, accomplished opera star.

Well, almost. I did some googling and found that the connection to Elisabeth Schwarzkopf was indeed an urban myth, even though it was presented as fact in some obituaries when she died in 2006.

Elisabeth was an only child, so of course she didn't have any nieces or nephews. And her family was as firmly ensconced in middle-class Germany as the Norman Schwarzkopfs were in New Jersey. Norman Sr. was born in Newark in 1895, 20 years before Elisabeth's birth in Poland, and Norman Jr. was born in Trenton in 1934, in the middle of his daddy's biggest case.

It's a bass clef Christmas

Do you ever get to where all the partridges in pear trees, little drummer boys and downright sappy "Christmas" songs just start to make you wish it was Dec. 26?

Just for the record, I like Christmas music -- when it's done creatively, with some thought put into it, and keeps in the spirit of the season. It's supposed to be a celebration!

There's a couple of albums that have been out for a few years but I think are really good. One is by the a capella group Straight No Chaser called Christmas Cheers. With songs like the "Christmas Can-Can" and "Who Spiked the Eggnog?" it's the perfect antidote to those whose Christmas songs sound more like funeral music than tunes for the happiest of holidays.

A slightly older album that's also good is Squirrel Nut Zippers' Christmas Caravan, with its jazzy take on the holidays.

And of course there's plenty of live music to be found this time of year. The DSO's Christmas concert is good, I hear, or if you can stand it there's a Polyphonic Spree holiday concert, but I think you've already missed it.

But the one to go hear is undoubtedly the Dallas Merry TubaChristmas concert at noon on Christmas Eve at Thanks-Giving Square in downtown Dallas. It's 150 or more tuba and euphonium players, all volunteers, who bring their too-often-overlooked instrument to perform holiday music for whoever shows up. Actually TubaChristmas events are held all over the world, so if you're not in Dallas, go to www.tubachristmas.com to find one nearby.

Everybody thinks of the tuba as just going oom-pah, oom-pah, but in the right hands, it can produce some really cool music. It just might get you back in the holiday spirit!

A plug for my competition

There's a pretty cool new website devoted to classical music called SinfiniMusic.com.

It's full of features, videos, interviews, podcasts, columnists, reviews and, of course, music (although you do have to download the Spotify streaming service to listen to more than short excerpts). The site covers just about any subject you can think of: artists, composers, trends, history, you-name-it.

And it's done in a very easy-going and, yes, fun way.

What's cool is that it's designed for all levels of interest in classical music. If you're just curious or mildly interested, there's bound to be something to attract your attention and guide you along. And if you're more of a seasoned expert, there's plenty of meatier commentary to dig into.

Right now there's an interesting featured section on "The Conductor," complete with a video of Roger Norrington explaining what a conductor actually does; a list of the "Top 20 Greatest Conductors" (always subject to disagreement, as the comments show); a podcast interview with the American conductor Marin Alsop, who's now stationed in Brazil; an in-depth look at the 82-CD box set of all of Herbert von Karajan's orchestral recordings from the 1960s (yes, that's 82 CDs!); an interview with Sir Georg Solti's widow; and a look at what has been deemed the greatest classical recording ever: the Solti Ring.

Go check it out!

Elementary, my dear Isolde

My wife and I are hooked on the new CBS show Elementary, the latest in the genre of "this guy is half nuts but he can solve crimes like Sherlock Holmes!" And in this case, it's true, because the show puts a modern-day Sherlock Holmes, a recovering drug addict, in New York City, where he helps the NYPD get the bad guys, assisted by Dr. Joan Watson. Holmes is played by Jonny Lee Miller and Watson by Lucy Liu.

In the pilot, there's a scene in which Dr. Watson has gone to the opera, but Holmes needs to talk to her about the current case, so he shows up mid-performance, finds her and climbs over several patrons to discuss it, occasionally being shushed by others in the audience. I wouldn't have been so polite.

But what grabbed my attention was the music -- the opera he interrupts is Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. It's part of the enchanting second-act duet, and the two singers are shown briefly although the music continues throughout the scene with Holmes and Watson.

The producers chose two up-and-coming young opera singers for this short scene -- soprano Melissa Zapin and baritone Randal Turner. That's right, a baritone, even though Tristan is a tenor, or more specifically a heldentenor. Turns out the real opera singers playing the scene were lip-synching the Tristan duet.

Turner told his home-town newspaper: "People wondered why they couldn't just get an actor to do it. ... It's because it would be difficult for an actor to memorize and sing in German and to breathe where an opera singer would without actually being trained on how to do it."

So, like everybody on TV, these singers were apparently chosen for their looks -- Ms. Zapin is a former Miss Hawaii, and the buff Mr. Turner has been featured on a website called Barihunks. Who knew?

Anyway, in the second episode of the show, Holmes and Watson are walking in Manhattan and pass a sidewalk cafe, where he makes a point to his assistant using a patron's drink. As they're walking away, we see a sign in the background that says "Cafe Isolde."

I was hooked. Not only is it a good show, but it looked like the Tristan references, or maybe similar ones, were going to be a regular occurrence.

Alas, it has turned out not to be. I have yet to see one since. Oh, well. I still like the show.

A star rises over the Nile

Last March 3, I settled in to listen to the Saturday matinee radio broadcast of Verdi's Aida from the Metropolitan Opera. An announcement was made that the soprano scheduled to sing the lead role, Violeta Urmana, was ill, and she would be replaced in this performance by her understudy, Latonia Moore.

Ms. Moore had found out the day before that she'd be making her debut at the vaunted Met in an international broadcast in one of the most well-known roles in opera. She went on without a stage rehearsal. Her performance was brilliant -- not perfect, but you knew that this was one of those magical moments in the theater when you can say "I was there" (albeit via radio and with 11 million fellow listeners) for a young star's breakthrough performance. The ovation was what you'd expect if they made a movie of the whole thing.

Ms. Moore was born in Houston and went to the University of North Texas to study jazz. Somebody suggested she try singing some classical stuff, and off she went. She won several young artists competitions, and with a lot of hard work began building a career as an operatic soprano.

It turns out that I'd heard Ms. Moore in the Dallas Opera's 2004 Carmen as Micaela. I didn't remember the name, but I did remember that performance.

Her triumph with the Met in Aida is not lessened, but is perhaps better understood, when you realize that she had already sung the role, to glowing reviews, in Europe and at Covent Garden in London. Since then, she's played Aida at the Sydney Opera House (yes, the one with the "sails"), also as a fill-in, but on a month's notice, rather than a day's.

Now Ms. Moore is bringing her exceptional portrayal of Aida "home." She'll sing in the Dallas Opera's production of the Verdi masterpiece starting Friday, Oct. 26, at the Winspear Opera House, along with Antonello Palombi as Radames and Nadia Krasteva as Amneris. The conductor is Graeme Jenkins, beginning his final season as music director of the Dallas Opera. Other evening performances are on Oct. 31, Nov. 3 and Nov. 9, with matinees on Oct. 28 and Nov. 11.

The Symphony

I've become known to my friends, family and co-workers as an opera guy. Particularly a Wagner guy.

But my roots are in orchestral music, going back to my days in the first violin section of a pretty decent high school orchestra.

That love of orchestral music is no doubt the reason I'm a "Wagner guy," since musically, Wagner was not so much an operatic composer as a symphonist.

Much is made of Wagner's leitmotifs, especially in his Ring of the Nibelung. But what sets those motives apart are not that he invented them (they've been used to varying degrees by countless opera composers before and since), but how he developed them musically, much as a symphony composer develops themes.

Like millions of musicians and music lovers over the past 200 years (and I'm firmly in the latter category, as much as I'd like to be in the first), I really learned to appreciate the concert orchestra by listening to the symphonies of Beethoven. That was true of Herr Wagner, too, who idolized Beethoven.

My parents bought me a set of Beethoven's complete symphonies on LP for Christmas one year, after some not-so-subtle hinting from myself. When my brother was in college, he somehow came into possession of a friend's "miniature scores" edition of the Beethoven symphonies, which mysteriously ended up among my possessions. I still have it and refer to it occasionally.

And when the Dallas Symphony performed all nine symphonies in order over five concerts a few years ago, I was there for every one. The concert that included the Fifth and Sixth Symphonies was my first exposure to a fellow named Jaap van Zweden, who was "guest conducting" but had just accepted the job of music director of the DSO. What a great introduction to a great conductor!

And like millions before me, I went out from Beethoven to discover the other great symphonic music -- symphonies, concertos, tone poems, overtures and all the rest. Some, like Haydn and Mozart, came from before LVB, and many came after. But the symphony remains my favorite form of music.

Now, if you'll indulge me, here's a list of my favorite symphonies, more or less in chronological order. I dare not attempt to "rank" them. If you do a Google search on "greatest symphonies," you'll get one entire boatload of "rankings," all purporting to be "correct," and all of them different!

• Mozart: No. 39 in E-flat Major; No. 40 in G minor; and No. 41 in C Major "Jupiter"
• Haydn: No. 102 in B-flat Major; No. 104 in D Major "London"
• Beethoven: I want to say all nine, but if I had to cut that down, it would be No. 3 in E-flat Major "Eroica"; No. 5 in C minor; No. 6 in F Major "Pastoral"; and No. 9 in D minor
• Schubert: No. 8 in B minor "Unfinished"; and No. 9 in C Major
• Berlioz: Symphonie Fantastique
• Mendelssohn: No. 4 in A Major "Italian"
• Schumann: No. 1 in B-flat Major "Spring"; No. 4 in D minor
• Brahms: I couldn't possibly choose a favorite: No. 1 in C minor; No. 2 in D Major; No. 3 in F Major; and No. 4 in E minor
• Bruckner: No. 7 in E Major
• Saint-Saens: No. 3 in C minor "Organ"
• Franck: Symphony in D minor
• Tchaikovsky: No. 5 in E minor; and No. 6 in B minor
• Dvorak: No. 8 in G Major; and No. 9 in E minor "From the New World"
• Sibelius: No. 2 in D Major; and No. 5 in E-flat Major
• Nielsen: No. 4 "The Inextinguishable"
• Shostakovich: No. 5 in D minor

Yes, I'm aware that this list reveals my "mainstream" nature, but I'm not apologetic about that. It also leaves off several that I'm just not familiar enough with to include, like the Mahler 5th or the Shostakovich 10th.

I'm sure my many thousands of followers on this blog (Not thousands? OK, scores? All right, maybe a dozen) will disagree with at least some of this or insist on additions. If so, please comment or let me know.

But if you like this kind of stuff, you can't go wrong enjoying any of these.

Tragedy in Arlington

There's only one word to accurately describe the Wagnerian end of the Texas Rangers' 2012 season:

Götterdämmerung