Jeffrey Siegel’s ‘Keyboard Conversations’ at the Perelman

Music education in schools has been radically scaled back. Less than 15% of America’s elementary schools offer regular music instruction. Audiences at Classical concerts are going grey. Classical music plays a decreasing role in the general culture.

If that sounds like cause for alarm, the piano is faring even worse. Before TV and stereo hi-fi sound systems, the piano was the centerpiece in every civilized living room. It was the gathering spot for family togetherness.

It was even an instrument of romance. Remember Tom Ewell, in The Seven Year Itch, trying to seduce Marilyn Monroe by playing the “Full Moon and Empty Arms” theme from Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 2?

To the rescue comes Jeffrey Siegel, a Classically trained pianist with a knack for explaining music in the style of Leonard Bernstein. He’s presented his “Keyboard Conversations” around the world for three decades. I finally caught up with one of them last month at the Kimmel Center. Using the cozy Perelman Theater rather than the larger Verizon Hall, Siegel displayed an ability to communicate intimately.

Beethoven’s unrequited lover

Eschewing jargon, he speaks in a natural and communicative style. “Like Bernstein, Siegel “has developed a language that avoids talking down yet gets to the heart of the musical matter,” says Bernstein’s biographer Humphrey Burton.

For his November subject— Beethoven— Siegel began the evening with the four-note opening of Beethoven’s Fifth, then proceeded to play the less-familiar, lyric side of Beethoven’s oeuvre. This contrast led him into a discussion of romance in Beethoven’s life, and a tidbit about how erroneous is the title of his sweet love song, Für Elise.

That piece never was published in Beethoven’s lifetime, and when its manuscript was discovered, a publisher mistakenly thought that the composer had inscribed it to a woman named “Elise.” Actually, Siegel said, Beethoven inscribed it "Für Therese," referring to Therese von Rohrenbach, a student of Beethoven’s to whom he proposed marriage in 1810.

Contemplating suicide

Siegel quoted from Beethoven’s Heiligenstadt Testament, addressed to his brothers in 1802, in which he confessed that he often was stubborn and misanthropic but offered his deafness as an excuse. “I must live like an exile,” Beethoven wrote. Clearly depressed, Beethoven hinted in the Testament that he might commit suicide but then rejected that plan.

Siegel went on to demonstrate music that Beethoven composed but was unable to hear. In the process, Siegel’s listeners at the Perelman gained a unique insight into the composer’s feelings.

After his explanations, Siegel played each of the solo-piano compositions that he analyzed. These renditions were sufficiently expert to please any music lover, even without his lively verbal insights. If you missed him, fear not: Siegel returns in January to work his magic on Chopin.