An Interview with Sarah Palin

JD:  Governor, may I call you Sarah?

SP:  You betcha.

JD:  I just simply can’t believe in the midst of this intense campaign season, you could find the time to talk with me about the “Hammerklavier” Sonata.

SP:  Well, ya know, Beethoven was the dude who said thanks but no thanks to Napoleon.  Plus from all the mavericky songs he wrote, maybe this one could be known as the most maverickyest.

JD:  I have to confess I’m a bit surprised you are so familiar with this particular work.

SP:  Well, Mr. Snooty Juilliard Graduate, I’ll have you know I did my thesis on the Hammerklavier at Hawaiian Pacific University.  Of course I had to continue revising it at Northern Idaho Massage Institute.  And at Montana College for Bear-Loving Beauty Pageant Alumni.  But also too the Hammerklavier’s on my ‘Pod whenever I go wolf hunting … those dactyls get me SUPER pumped.

JD:  What was your thesis called?

SP:  Originally I wanted to call it “Frickin Kick-Ass Beethoven,” but my advisor was in a bad mood that day because Felicity chose Noel over Ben.  So I had to change it to “Trickle-Down Fugonomics:  A Reaganian Model of Beethoven’s Counterpoint.”   That’s how I got funding from the American Enterprise Institute.

JD:  What was the main thrust of your thesis?

SP:  Jeremy, I guess my point is, a fugue is more than one voice, just like America.  And it has certain values.

JD:  Please elaborate …

SP:  Well, you know Jeremy, we’re overtaxed.  And Beethoven says, well, goshdarnit, just try and govern that fugue subject.  Cause he knows that government is really the problem, and the scariest two words in the English language are “Schenkerian Analysis.”

JD:  So you don’t think a Schenkerian 3-line governs the unfolding of the Hammerklavier?

SP:  Let’s put it this way, Jeremy.  And I know your type has a hard time getting past the filter, so let me unfilter you right here and now.  Nobody, but no one, can do better than the free enterprise of the notes left to themselves.  And Beethoven himself, look right here, says “fugue in 3 voices, with some license.”  And also too license is just another word for maverick and and maverick is another word for freedom and freedom is just another word for America and no Austrian analyst tells America what to do.

JD:  Word!  Explain to me this trickle-down theory.

SP:  The “Hammerklavier” is the perfect instance of my example, Jeremy.  Ever notice how the piece is full of chains of thirds?

JD:  Sure, Sarah.  It is well noted in Charles Rosen’s The Classical Style, and many other sources.

SP:  Well, ask yourself another question:  do they ever go up?

JD:  Hmm.  Well, I guess not.

SP:  Booyah!   As my grandma used to say, you can’t bag a moose with a spoon.

JD:  Ok, l think I see where you’re going with that.  Tell me a bit about the harmonic language of the work.

SP:  It’s great to see Beethoven being so pro-B-flat major.

JD:  I guess I would have said it’s “in” B-flat major, not “pro-” B-flat major?  …

SP:  Oh, Jeremy, I wouldn’t expect a naive Upper West Side nacho-eating liberal like yourself to understand that every key is, in fact, a war against every other key.  And you know unless we defend B-flat major one day we’ll wake up and there won’t be a B-flat major.  Two flats come at a price, eternal vigilance, or I guess what I’m sayin’ is, these flats don’t run.

JD:  But Sarah—to play devil’s advocate here—you could make that one of the defining, most beautiful elements of the piece is the presence of sort of “radical” notes, notes that don’t really belong in B-flat major, strange other notes, neither major nor minor …

SP:  All that sounds really good on paper, Jeremy, at your Ivy League coffeeshops and so forth, but out here in the real world where I’m sitting there’s plenty of common sense telling me that wrong notes are wrong notes.  There was a great piece on Lou Dobbs the other day about this, called “Why Is G-Flat Getting My Tax Dollars?”

JD:  I didn’t know he was a Beethoven scholar.

SP:  There’s Walmarts and Walmarts of stuff out there you don’t know.  I agree with Lou, we can put up with these immigrant notes, but only if they enter the key legally, through the proper channels, and for heck’s sake let’s not get in the business of givin’ ‘em driving licenses.  They should pull themselves up by their own bootstraps.

JD:  I’m not sure how that applies to Beethoven … ?

SP:  Just cause Beethoven can wigglewaggle his way into all sorts of keys doesn’t mean we have to give them amnesty.  Next question.

JD:  Tell me your thoughts about the slow movement.

SP:  [pause]   In what respect, Jeremy?

JD:  The third movement:  how would you describe it?

SP:  [pause]  I gotta confess, I usually fast forward through that one … It’s kind of a bummer.  And since unlike some Americans out there I don’t hate America, I don’t want to dwell on all those negativity.

JD:  But some people might make the case that the third movement is kind of the emotional core of the work … ?

SP:  Ya know, I feel pretty strongly that a composer is a lot like a musicologist, except that he has actual notes to put down on paper.  [Applause]

JD:  Sarah, you didn’t really answer my question …

SP:  I got some questions for you.  For example, why does Beethoven decide to kick fugal butt at the end of this song?  What’s the point?  I think another interesting question is why in fact is this piece in B-flat major?  I mean didn’t he already write the “Archduke” Trio, which is ALSO in B-flat major?  Why couldn’t he just write the “Archduke” trio again?  I know a lotta folks out there, in Main Street all across this land of ours, they’ll tell you, they’re just more “Archduke” kinda folks then they are “Hammerklavier” folks.  And that’s fine.  That’s why America is so great.  I would never take away their right to bear “Archduke.”  And its true the “Archduke” is a lot more Budweiser to those folks the “Hammerklavier” seems like some sort of weird imported wheat beer or somethin’, but my point is, it’s like Beethoven sat down to write the “Archduke” but then as his pen or quill or chalk or whatever hit the paper it took a kind of wrong turn, God bless him …

JD:  A wrong turn?

SP:  Well, I don’t mean wrong in a bad way, but in a weird way.  I think the best way to explain it is it’s like that movie with the guy, you know, who turns into a fly.  It’s like there’s the “Archduke” trio and all that good noble normal Beethoven stuff, but then it gets fused with some alien DNA and so, like instead of a normal scherzo you get this little strange runt of a crazy scherzo and then in place of a really long slow movement you get an even longer slow movement and everything just spirals out of control, like some sort of crazy Bach futuristic Beethoven hybrid thingamabob.

JD:  That’s actually not totally uninsightful, Sarah.  I’m sorry I liberally condescended to you.  It’s true everything in the slow movement of the “Hammerklavier” speaks in exaggerated or caricatured ways.  When you compare it to the symmetrical arches of the “Archduke” slow movement the “Hammerklavier” has a tendency to get stuck, to wander or obsess, as if Beethoven were commenting on the very nature of musical narrative itself, as if he were questioning the foundations of phraseology …  Whereas the “Archduke” seems the very summit of phraseology, a kind of Mount Olympus.

SP:  Yeah, whatever.

JD:  Sarah, what’s your favorite part of the “Hammerklavier”?

SP:  Well that’s really hard to say, but I think I gotta go with the opening of the last movement.

JD:  The Largo introduction?  Mine too!  Maybe we have more in common than we thought!

SP:  Yah, I really love how those chords just kind of sit there waiting for something to do …  and then something will happen … and then we’ll be waiting again … lotsa suspense and mystery you know … it’s sort of a transition with no clear or obvious goal … how do I put this …

JD:  Kind of a bridge to nowhere?

SP:  Smart ass.
JD:  Sarah, the last movement is one of the most famously difficult things in all the piano repertoire.  Do you have any advice for this American pianist about this movement before he performs this work on tour?

SP:  You don’t want to hear my advice.

JD:  Oh come on let me have it.

SP:  I think it’s pretty obvious.

JD:  I’m dying to know.

SP:   You’re not gonna like it.

JD:  Please …

SP:  Trill, baby, trill!

JD:   [sinks head in hands]  The interview is over.

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16 Comments

  1. John Langfeld
    Posted November 12, 2008 at 5:35 am | Permalink

    Pithy. Wise. Hysterical in a Douglas Hofstadter sort of way. Loved it!

  2. "m"
    Posted November 12, 2008 at 8:08 pm | Permalink

    CONGRATS on the Carnegie debut last night – terrific performances of both the “Concord” and “Hammerklavier”! Please record soonest.

  3. John
    Posted November 13, 2008 at 11:49 am | Permalink

    I just discovered your site through a link in the New York Times review of your recent Ives-Beethoven recital. The review was captivating — and, apparently, so was your playing. Sorry I missed it. But I’m delighted with your site and plan to be a regular visitor. Your “interview” with Sarah Palin is a hoot, and there are lots of other hoots scattered through your blogs. I would add just one small (Schuberttian?) cavil: Playing the Hamnmerklavier fugue at the tempo you reportedly took is really gaudy. Anyone with the chops to do it should be ashamed of himself.

  4. Posted November 15, 2008 at 10:53 am | Permalink

    Jeremy, beautiful, beautiful concert on Tuesday, and great review from Anthony Tommasini in the Times. (Frequent Commenter Janet, with great regret, gave me her ticket.) I am so happy and relieved to know that you, with your intense involvement in his work, find Beethoven funny, as I do. (And I thought about this post as I listened.)

  5. Posted November 16, 2008 at 2:45 pm | Permalink

    Oh, thank you so much for that, it absolutely captures Sarah(although I’m sure she’d have some trouble even reading the name of our favorite Austrian analyst)… The whole premise of this interview is hilarious; I nearly fell off my chair while reading. Fantastic job last night with RI Philharmonic as well, and I hope to see another performance of yours in the future!

  6. Karen
    Posted November 17, 2008 at 12:32 pm | Permalink

    I heard this NPR story about the “Church of Beethoven” in Albuquerque. Perhaps Governor Palin could become a convert.

    http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97010881

  7. Janet
    Posted November 22, 2008 at 8:18 pm | Permalink

    Perhaps you’ve already seen this, but just in case: Someone at your concert had what I would imagine, judging from some of your previous writings on Ives, is exactly the reaction you would have hoped for. (Unfortunately she doesn’t remark on the influence of Palin on the Hammerklavier.)
    http://blog.paloaltoonline.com/adlibs/2008/11/wild-drive-with-charles-ives.html

  8. Emil Chudnovsky
    Posted November 23, 2008 at 3:36 pm | Permalink

    In the immortal style of Sam Goldwyn – “I have only two words for you: Bra-vo.”

  9. Diggity D
    Posted December 10, 2008 at 2:50 pm | Permalink

    this is dumb.

  10. Fidge
    Posted April 12, 2009 at 11:51 pm | Permalink

    This is amazing. I’ll have to go with SP on the Hammerklavier being the “maverickyest” of all the sonatas. haha

  11. Posted June 19, 2009 at 2:33 am | Permalink

    Dear Jeremy,
    This is sheer genius!!! Bravo! Only slightly disappointed that you didn’t somehow work Bristoal into it…
    Best,
    Jory

  12. Posted January 30, 2010 at 8:27 pm | Permalink

    Jeremy,

    As perhaps the only reader of your blog – occasionally – who has actually attended several musical events with Sarah Palin (between 1996 and 2005), I have to protest. She prefers the earlier sonatas, most notably the unfinished version of Les Adieux.

    But she’s even more enthusiastic about the Disney version of Le Sacre, as she imagines people and dinosaurs all in the mix together.

  13. David Hamilton
    Posted December 5, 2010 at 7:15 pm | Permalink

    a-MAZ-ing! I never thought the music theory and poli-sci circles of my personal Venn diagram would every overlap in such a hilarious way. thank you!

  14. Cameron Hood
    Posted April 2, 2011 at 1:51 pm | Permalink

    Brilliant…

  15. SLT-A77
    Posted November 17, 2011 at 2:48 pm | Permalink

    Remélem, hogy kapnak némi segítséget, ha én bármilyen kérdése van.

  16. harmon
    Posted March 10, 2012 at 12:42 pm | Permalink

    I have a feeling that this is funnier than it seems (and it is indeed funny) but I just lack the musical knowledge to get a lot of it.

    I’m sure that most of your readers are the usual mix of lefties, who read what you wrote as mockery of Sarah Palin. And perhaps you intended it to be that.

    But speaking as a right-winger, who regards Sarah Palin as a rational politician with a muddled delivery (on the order of Chicago’s first Mayor Daley) I think you pretty much nailed her voice.

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